We Will Meet In A Hurricane

A band starts as a small drop of water, a single note, falling from the sky. The drop lands in the high mountains. It trickles down a rock and joins another drop to become a stream. Drop by drop, note by note, that stream becomes a river. That river flows to the sea. One day that sea meets the wind, the great conductor. The wind rips the sea into the sky, and those million drops of water get scattered into the heavens like a powerful symphony swirling in the clouds of a hurricane. This is where we rejoin Juno award-winning band Bedouin Soundclash – in a storm 10,000 feet above the ocean, on their sixth studio effort We Will Meet in a Hurricane.

“One day we will face a storm,” says Bedouin Soundclash frontman Jay Malinowski as he describes their forthcoming album, due October 21 on Dine Alone Records. “Facing ourselves is the greatest encounter we will ever have. This album is about a moment of our life when we will be put under heavy pressure, and we will meet our true selves – strengths and flaws.”

It has been over 20 years since Bedouin Soundclash formed in 2000, no small feat for the pair of Malinowski (vocals/guitar) and Eon Sinclair (bass), who have constantly pushed the limits of their own sound, defying easy categorization. “We have landed on ‘global-world-art-punk’,” says Malinowski with a laugh when describing the band. Their career has been one of contrasts, touring with bands ranging from Flogging Molly and Gogol Bordello to Ben Harper, Damian Marley and No Doubt.

Perhaps it has been the unpredictable course of the river they have travelled that has made Bedouin Soundclash an authentic example of diversity in the last two decades. Working with everyone from Darryl Jennifer of Bad Brains, to Philadelphia House-Guru King Britt, to the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, the band has never tried to fit a mould – but like a strong river, has pushed beyond its banks, always moving to somewhere just beyond where you found them last. “I grew up on records like The Clash’s ‘Sandanista’ which to me was all about being just beyond the known border, existing in places that aren’t ‘safe’,” says Malinowski.

We Will Meet in a Hurricane is a triumphant record of return, “a return to the unfamiliar familiar” Malinowski smiles, referring to the band’s choice to revisit the simple and powerful instrumental sparseness of guitar, bass, and drums. Songs like “Something Lost + Something Found” channel the raw three-part harmony energy of their ubiquitous 2006 summer hit “When The Night Feels My Song”. The driving rocksteady anthem “Walk Through Fire” features a powerful performance by Aimee Interrupter of LA’s two-tone punk saviours The Interrupters, in what already sounds like an instant classic. Marcia Richards of London UK’s reggae-punk darlings The Skints has us floating away into the ether on the dreamy summer anthem “Shine On”, while Ashleigh Ball adds a sweet serenade on “Birds of a Feather.” The album was produced on Vancouver Island by Malinowski and Colin Stewart (New Pornographers, Black Mountain), and marks a definitive return to form.

Four years ago the band released MASS, recorded in New Orleans with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. “On the last record, we were down working with Pres Hall and sometimes there were twenty musicians in the room,” Malinowski recalls, “ We had come a long way. It was such an honour to be down there amongst those legends, and it was also a long ways away from our little three-piece band making songs at the end of a bed in school.” But midway through promoting that record, right before a UK tour, the global pandemic hit and the band was forced to shelter in place. “Everything stopped,” recalls Malinowski. “I think in many ways the pandemic made all of us face some things in our life. I had just bought a home in Victoria with my partner Steph and we were expecting our first son, Finn. There was a lot of joy and also a natural kind of break to look back on my life up until that point – ’cause I could feel so much was about to change. There was also the anxiety in the world of what would happen next.” 

Across the country in Toronto, bassist Eon Sinclair was also going through some self-examination in his own life. “I was going through a hard time, the pandemic forced me to slow down and take stock of my past and what I would do in the future. I had to face some things in my life that I had been avoiding for a while,” says Sinclair. “I was at a cross-roads.”

So Malinowski invited Sinclair out west in the middle of the pandemic, and the two returned to their beginnings, playing songs in a room with just a bass and guitar. “There’s an energy to when Jay plays just guitar and sings and I play bass, that’s different. It’s powerful, it’s the essence of our band,” says Sinclair.

Without the pressures and distractions of the outside world during the pandemic, the pair took some songs and headed into The Hive studio to work with producer/mixer Colin Stewart. “It was a really laid-back vibe, a week on, do three songs, take the other three weeks off and write some more, go to the beach, play some tennis,” says Malinowski. “We started it with the thought of doing just an EP but then we kept going, eventually the joke was that we had been in Colin’s studio for all four seasons.”

“Working with Colin was incredible,” says Sinclair. Malinowski adds, “He really pays incredible attention to arrangements and how the parts of each instrument compliment the main thing, which is always melody for him. I really loved watching him work through a mix. He’s a true artist.”

After surveying the finished album, the band called upon their long-time mentor and producer Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains to create a small dub companion to three of the tracks. “It had been a while since we had spoken to D,” says Malinowski. “When we got on the phone it was like picking up where we left off. Darryl is a true mentor to us in this industry. He sat with us when we were 18 years old, gave us some tough love and made us sit in the corner until we could play our instruments properly,” Malinowski laughs. “But we are so lucky, beyond the music, to have him in our lives. You don’t get many bonds like that in life.”

We Will Meet in a Hurricane also marks the bands return to their home on Dine Alone records, run by their long-time former manager Joel Carriere. “It feels good to be putting out this record with our old friends there who we experienced so much with in this industry, especially given that this is a reflective album on the past,” says Malinowski.

And so now we ask the pair where they are in the journey. “You never know,”say Malinowski, “whether we are in the eye or through the storm.” Adds Sinclair, “But I view this album with a sense of hope, because ultimately however hard things may be, facing it gives you a new path forward.” Well then, here’s to the new drops of rain that are falling softly again up in the mountains on some island far away. One day we will meet it all again in a hurricane.

We Will Meet In A Hurricane

A band starts as a small drop of water, a single note, falling from the sky. The drop lands in the high mountains. It trickles down a rock and joins another drop to become a stream. Drop by drop, note by note, that stream becomes a river. That river flows to the sea. One day that sea meets the wind, the great conductor. The wind rips the sea into the sky, and those million drops of water get scattered into the heavens like a powerful symphony swirling in the clouds of a hurricane. This is where we rejoin Juno award-winning band Bedouin Soundclash – in a storm 10,000 feet above the ocean, on their sixth studio effort We Will Meet in a Hurricane.

“One day we will face a storm,” says Bedouin Soundclash frontman Jay Malinowski as he describes their forthcoming album, due October 21 on Dine Alone Records. “Facing ourselves is the greatest encounter we will ever have. This album is about a moment of our life when we will be put under heavy pressure, and we will meet our true selves – strengths and flaws.”

It has been over 20 years since Bedouin Soundclash formed in 2000, no small feat for the pair of Malinowski (vocals/guitar) and Eon Sinclair (bass), who have constantly pushed the limits of their own sound, defying easy categorization. “We have landed on ‘global-world-art-punk’,” says Malinowski with a laugh when describing the band. Their career has been one of contrasts, touring with bands ranging from Flogging Molly and Gogol Bordello to Ben Harper, Damian Marley and No Doubt.

Perhaps it has been the unpredictable course of the river they have travelled that has made Bedouin Soundclash an authentic example of diversity in the last two decades. Working with everyone from Darryl Jennifer of Bad Brains, to Philadelphia House-Guru King Britt, to the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, the band has never tried to fit a mould – but like a strong river, has pushed beyond its banks, always moving to somewhere just beyond where you found them last. “I grew up on records like The Clash’s ‘Sandanista’ which to me was all about being just beyond the known border, existing in places that aren’t ‘safe’,” says Malinowski.

We Will Meet in a Hurricane is a triumphant record of return, “a return to the unfamiliar familiar” Malinowski smiles, referring to the band’s choice to revisit the simple and powerful instrumental sparseness of guitar, bass, and drums. Songs like “Something Lost + Something Found” channel the raw three-part harmony energy of their ubiquitous 2006 summer hit “When The Night Feels My Song”. The driving rocksteady anthem “Walk Through Fire” features a powerful performance by Aimee Interrupter of LA’s two-tone punk saviours The Interrupters, in what already sounds like an instant classic. Marcia Richards of London UK’s reggae-punk darlings The Skints has us floating away into the ether on the dreamy summer anthem “Shine On”, while Ashleigh Ball adds a sweet serenade on “Birds of a Feather.” The album was produced on Vancouver Island by Malinowski and Colin Stewart (New Pornographers, Black Mountain), and marks a definitive return to form.

Four years ago the band released MASS, recorded in New Orleans with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. “On the last record, we were down working with Pres Hall and sometimes there were twenty musicians in the room,” Malinowski recalls, “ We had come a long way. It was such an honour to be down there amongst those legends, and it was also a long ways away from our little three-piece band making songs at the end of a bed in school.” But midway through promoting that record, right before a UK tour, the global pandemic hit and the band was forced to shelter in place. “Everything stopped,” recalls Malinowski. “I think in many ways the pandemic made all of us face some things in our life. I had just bought a home in Victoria with my partner Steph and we were expecting our first son, Finn. There was a lot of joy and also a natural kind of break to look back on my life up until that point – ’cause I could feel so much was about to change. There was also the anxiety in the world of what would happen next.” 

Across the country in Toronto, bassist Eon Sinclair was also going through some self-examination in his own life. “I was going through a hard time, the pandemic forced me to slow down and take stock of my past and what I would do in the future. I had to face some things in my life that I had been avoiding for a while,” says Sinclair. “I was at a cross-roads.”

So Malinowski invited Sinclair out west in the middle of the pandemic, and the two returned to their beginnings, playing songs in a room with just a bass and guitar. “There’s an energy to when Jay plays just guitar and sings and I play bass, that’s different. It’s powerful, it’s the essence of our band,” says Sinclair.

Without the pressures and distractions of the outside world during the pandemic, the pair took some songs and headed into The Hive studio to work with producer/mixer Colin Stewart. “It was a really laid-back vibe, a week on, do three songs, take the other three weeks off and write some more, go to the beach, play some tennis,” says Malinowski. “We started it with the thought of doing just an EP but then we kept going, eventually the joke was that we had been in Colin’s studio for all four seasons.”

“Working with Colin was incredible,” says Sinclair. Malinowski adds, “He really pays incredible attention to arrangements and how the parts of each instrument compliment the main thing, which is always melody for him. I really loved watching him work through a mix. He’s a true artist.”

After surveying the finished album, the band called upon their long-time mentor and producer Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains to create a small dub companion to three of the tracks. “It had been a while since we had spoken to D,” says Malinowski. “When we got on the phone it was like picking up where we left off. Darryl is a true mentor to us in this industry. He sat with us when we were 18 years old, gave us some tough love and made us sit in the corner until we could play our instruments properly,” Malinowski laughs. “But we are so lucky, beyond the music, to have him in our lives. You don’t get many bonds like that in life.”

We Will Meet in a Hurricane also marks the bands return to their home on Dine Alone records, run by their long-time former manager Joel Carriere. “It feels good to be putting out this record with our old friends there who we experienced so much with in this industry, especially given that this is a reflective album on the past,” says Malinowski.

And so now we ask the pair where they are in the journey. “You never know,”say Malinowski, “whether we are in the eye or through the storm.” Adds Sinclair, “But I view this album with a sense of hope, because ultimately however hard things may be, facing it gives you a new path forward.” Well then, here’s to the new drops of rain that are falling softly again up in the mountains on some island far away. One day we will meet it all again in a hurricane.

Members

• Jay Malinowski - Guitar, Vocals
• Eon Sinclair - Bass
• Sekou Lumumba - Drums