PREMIERE: Nick Schofield Treads Ambient Jazz Bliss with "Magic Touch"

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Nick Schofield by Christopher Honeywell

Gatineau-via-Montreal alt-ambient vanguard Nick Schofield reveals “Magic Touch”. The single is Schofield’s second glimpse into his forthcoming album Blue Hour, the virtuoso’s foray into the world of jazz—with his signature ambient-electronic flare. Set to arrive February 6th, 2026 via Halifax label Forward Music Group, Blue Hour is an ode to Miles Davis’ 1969 album In a Silent Way. 

Ushering a significant and playful pivot in Schofield’s meditative sonic reputation, the album introduces not only his childhood instrument, the drums, but also the interpretative (and entirely improvised!) trumpet stylings of celebrated Montreal musician Scott Bevins (No Cosmos, Busty and the Bass). 

Transportive and impressionistic, “Magic Touch” showcases Schofield feeling at-home in both instrumentation and collaboration. Before delving into his signature ventures in synthesis and electroacoustics, Schofield’s musical upbringing started with the drums at age nine, where he first encountered greats like Miles Davis and became enamoured with jazz fusion.

On the drums, Schofield shares:

“[The drums] are the most natural instrument for me to play. To dive back into this particular style of music—that is very nostalgic for me—reminds me of going record shopping and crate digging—discovering all this music that changed the trajectory of my relationship with drumming. [This project] is very much a tribute to an era of music that almost predates my appreciation for ambient.”

Listen to “Magic Touch” and watch the music video by Christopher Honeywell below!

Nick Schofield

Website | Instagram | Bandcamp

Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of Also Cool Mag. Aside from the mag, she is a music promoter & booker, and a radio host & DJ.

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2024 In Review (Also Cool's Top Albums)

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Listen along with the official Sounds Cool 2024 playlist!

Available on YouTube and Spotify below.

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2hollis - boy
Electroclash has merged with cloud rap, creating 2hollis, the bleach blonde “god boy.” Backed by his SoundCloud cult following, 2hollis gained exponential momentum opening for Ken Carson on tour earlier this year, and will be headlining his own tour in 2025. boy is as aggressive as it is tender, with almost ambient tracks like “you said my name for the first time,” contrasting with 2009-electroclash-pop style bangers like “two bad.” The album was also produced by 2hollis, and feels sonically unafraid – melding genres in a way that’s innovative without being obnoxious. 

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Alix Fernz - Bizou (Mothland)

“On Bizou, Fernz leads us down a drainpipe into an unabashed, palpitating reverie of studded leather, troublemaking and lipstick-stained dive bar mirrors. Produced in the bedrooms of three different apartments, with vocals tracked on Fernz’s iPhone mic, Bizou fearlessly criss-crosses remnants of bratty 70s-punk with new wave romanticism in a blistering 32-minutes.” 

- Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter, From Bartender to Headliner: Montreal's Alix Fernz Turns Heads with Debut Album "Bizou" (Mothland), April 15th, 2024

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Banggz - 4 THE BANGGERZ 

“The sophomore record of Nigerian-born, Ottawa-based Afro-rap vanguard Banggz has been on repeat since it dropped earlier [this year]. Aptly titled 4 THE BANGGERZ, the album delivers hit after hit along with a star-studded cast of featured performers, including City Fidelia, Asuquomo, and Jahmeema. 4 THE BANGGERZ sees Banggz ambitiously craft a ‘sonic escape,’ fusing West African rhythms, futuristic soundscapes and energetic anthems of resilience, identity and camaraderie.” 

- Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter - Also Cool’s Playlist Refresh, August 20th, 2024

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Bladee - Cold Visions (Trash Island)

Evil music is so back. Ice king Bladee is leading the way with his confessionary crash-out album Cold Visions. The 30-track album rips into feelings of paranoia, feeling too old to be in the room, and self-isolation, featuring long-time collaborators including Yung Sherman, Yung Lean, Whitearmor, Thaiboy Digital, and Ecco2k. Lyrically, the album ranges from spiralling mantras (“One second in my bag”) to the kinds of things you tell yourself when you’re too high (“I’m normal / In the club dressed formal”). Overall, it’s an icy dive into Bladee’s mind, leaving drainers everywhere rejoicing.

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Cecile Believe - Tender the Spark (ambient tweets / Supernature)

Cecile Believe is your favourite artist’s favourite artist, point blank. Tender the Spark is introspective and indulgent all at once, and has ushered in the recognition she deserves after years of innovation in the pop sphere. “The world didn’t even, but it feels like it’s gone now / Late stage self-portrait, last ride let’s kill it.” If “Blink Twice” is the invitation, “Ponytail” is a free fall dive into Cecile’s world.

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Chanel Beads - Your Day Will Come (Jagjaguwar)

Lush, hopeful, and gorgeous, Chanel Beads offered Your Day Will Come into the world this year, and was met with mass appreciation for their mystic optimism. “You owe it to yourself, gotta believe in something else / Good people out of view / Soul to bear.” Everything from the reverb of their guitars to angelic vocal treatments feels like it came from another realm – reaching its hand out to try and touch the future. 

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Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)

Modestly released unto the masses in early spring, the staggering beauty of Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee has incited a near-universal cotton candy trance. The creative aptitude of the artist otherwise known as Patrick Flegel has reverberated at different frequencies for the past two decades, but their vision for Diamond Jubilee falls perfectly into place. The record boasts a cinematic romanticism that is concurrently enlightened and instinctual. Flegel’s narrative unfurls with rigour (122 minutes, to be exact) – a psychedelic deer-legged odyssey through satin sheets and bleary dreams.

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cumgirl8 - the 8th cumming (4AD)

With their anticipated debut record the 8th cumming, cumgirl8 channels their avant-garde spark into a satisfying collection. The group unabashedly delivers a searing industrial sound with the likes of “uti,” while flirting with softer territory through the dream-pop weightlessness of “girls don’t try.” Inspired by Siouxsie, Ladytron, et plus, cumgirl8 have penned the next chapter on feminist punk.

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The Dare - What’s Wrong With New York? (Republic Records)

From dropping his gig as a substitute teacher to producing for Charli XCX, it's safe to say The Dare made an explosive entrance in 2024 with his debut long-player What’s Wrong With New York? While some thought the Dimes Square trickster on a mission to resuscitate indie sleaze wouldn’t stay relevant post-TikTok virality, the fresh-faced Harrison Patrick Smith remains plastered across tour posters and fashion outlets in his signature black suit and tie. Pumping out certified club hits for the sake of raunchy, hedonistic entertainment, The Dare makes music for those of us who came of age reblogging doe-eyed American Apparel ads with the weight of Web 3.0 looming on the horizon.

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Fontaines D.C. - Romance (XL Recordings)

This album first entered the Also Cool consciousness in Paris this summer, when every bar we went to somehow played Romance all night long. While we’ve been big fans of the band for quite some time and were happy to hear they were getting recognition, but we had no idea how successful the album had become. The innovative, surging yet punchy composition, paired with vulnerable and gritty lyricism, grabs you by the throat and leaves you wanting more. Fontaines D.C. has set a new bar for indie rock (although you can hardly call hundreds of millions of streams indie), and has given the industry a hard shove in the right direction. 

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Khruangbin - A La Sala (Dead Oceans)

Houston trio Khruangbin cast a spell of surfy grooves with their latest album A La Sala. The psych-funk record is assured in its composition, rejecting flourish for atmosphere, and it yields an uplifting result. While there are strutting basslines and loungey guitar licks aplenty, A La Sala is meant to be enjoyed in all its leisure. Every song is another petal swaying in the breeze.

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Kim Gordon - The Collective (Matador Records)

Underground polymath Kim Gordon celebrated her 71st solar return touring her fearless post-rock opus The Collective. Released this past March, The Collective serves up a “blistering collage of dissonant guitar [with] an ear-splitting trap underbelly” (Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter - Also Cool’s Playlist Refresh, February 23rd, 2024). With diaristic meditations on doom scrolling, heteronormativity and the mainstream, paired with noisy, gripping and avant-garde bed tracks, Gordon’s sophomore solo venture proves that she has yet to rest on her (self-taught) musical laurels. 

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Mdou Moctar - Funeral For Justice (Matador Records)

Mdou Moctar continues to dominate psych rock with his 6th studio album Funeral for Justice. On Funeral for Justice, the Saharan desert blues guitarist and singer, alongside his equally impressive band, delivers a masterful denunciation of France’s colonial legacy in his homeland of Niger. Embracing rebellious tones and an accelerated pace— all while uplifting Moctar’s Indigenous mother tongue of Tamasheq from start to finish— Funeral for Justice is an impeccably produced protest album and a steadfast commitment to honouring one’s roots.

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Molchat Doma - Belaya Polosa (Sacred Bones Records)

Molchat Doma have long been the reference point when it comes to dark-wave, post-punk and cold-wave. Their music is the meeting point for goths, vampires, and just about every Eastern European Brutalist video edit on the Internet. Belaya Polosa, released earlier this year via Sacred Bones, expands their universe with new techno-adjacent soundscapes, while staying true to their post-punk origins, and of course, heartbreaking lyrics. The album explores their new reality in Los Angeles and the loneliness that comes with it, having left their lives behind in Minsk, Belarus: “Everyone who I have known for a long time / Everything I haven’t lost / I put it off for years / Pain and resentment of the days – there seems to be no difference / How everyone is so used to it!” The band will continue their epic tour across North America in January.

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Nick Schofield - Ambient Ensemble (Forward Music Group)

“Self-proclaimed ‘ambient raver’ Nick Schofield (Best Fern, Saxsyndrum) [dropped] his third solo sonic venture, Ambient Ensemble, via Halifax label Forward Music Group. Along with a band of masterly local collaborators (Yolande Laroche, Philippe Charbonneau, and Mika Posen), the Hull, QC-based electroacoustic composer achieves otherworldly splendour on Ambient Ensemble. Likened to works by masters Brian Eno and Philip Glass, Schofield's delicate yet profound Ambient Ensemble is a kaleidoscope of lush, instrumental bliss.” 

- Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter - Also Cool Playlist Refresh, February 23rd, 2024

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Trevor Sloan - A Room by the Green Sea

“On Sloan’s latest self-released album, A Room by the Green Sea, the simple beauty of summer vacations gone by unlocks so much more. Sloan teleports between country fairs and shifting waters, backed by layered acoustics, subtle drum patterns, and field recordings. From the precise memories of ‘Praying Mantis’ to the sober admissions of ‘Blade on My Face,’ A Room by the Green Sea is the embodiment of what you’d hope to hear by picking up a conch shell. It’s the creamy cable-knit jumper that you slip into as the sun kisses you goodbye.”

- Rebecca Judd, A Lost Season, A Magical Year: Trevor Sloan Releases "A Room by the Green Sea", September 6th, 2024

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VICTIME - En conversation avec (Mothland)

“Deconstructing a guitar-bass-drums mold, while still embracing their unbridled exploratory approach, VICTIME have returned with a genreless sophomore manifesto that they credit as their best work to date. Hurtling at 100kph, En conversation avec is a corrosive, meter-busting rendez-vous of DIY breadboard overdubs, pixelated synth-scapes and a complete disregard for conventional musical permissibility.” 

- Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter -  Five Years and Three Cities: VICTIME Unveils New Album “En Conversation Avec” (Mothland), October 25th, 2024

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Snow Strippers, Ducks Ltd., Haruomi Hosono, Kim Gordon & More: Also Cool's Playlist Refresh

Kim Gordon by Danielle Neu

It seems that every musician we like here at Also Cool has released new music in the past few weeks, so we put it all together for you to enjoy.

This edition of our Playlist Refresh includes everyone from Kim Gordon to Haruomi Hosono, and you can listen along via our regularly updated playlist on Spotify.

Snow Strippers and Turnabout - “Luctus Mane (Snow Strippers Remix)”

Snow Strippers (Nice Bass Bro) have permeated the music scene with their signature sound, reviving the nostalgic appeal of late-2000s electroclash with haunting vocals and hyper-pop nods. In their latest endeavour, the Detroit duo step up to remix Turnabout’s “Luctus Mane,” softening its trap metal roots with a celestial touch. Vocalist Tatiana Schwaninger’s hypnotic inflections rise above the distortion and conjure a light all their own.

Allie X by Marcus Cooper

Allie X - “Weird World”

Avant-pop fixture Alexandra Hughes, better known as Allie X, has emerged with her third album Girl with No Face, out today via Twin Music Inc. This new record anchors itself in a swath of ‘80s synth-pop and dark wave—entirely self-produced by Hughes—and “Weird World” marks its latest single. This impassioned track mourns the notion of a past life while erupting with freedom, sprinkling a touch of German musings over eerie instrumentation fit for the likes of Drab Majesty.

Kim Gordon - “I’m A Man”

Kim Gordon has offered the second cut from her forthcoming album The Collective, set to release March 8th via Matador Records. Swiftly following The Collective’s breakout single “BYE BYE,” “I’m A Man” is an equally noisy testament to Gordon’s triumphant domination of post-rock. Awash with a blistering collage of dissonant guitar and an ear-splitting trap underbelly, “I’m A Man” is best played cranked at full volume, with Gordon’s meditations on the disappointments of Western masculinity taking centre stage. While some have argued that Gordon’s reflections harbour passé feminist sentimentality, we wonder if Gordon (now 70) is making space for the music she would have wanted to write in her Sonic Youth days.

Watch the video for “I’m A Man,” starring Gordon’s daughter Coco Gordon Moore.

Hot Garbage by Laura-Lynn Petrick

Hot Garbage - “Look at My Phone”

Toronto psych rock four-piece Hot Garbage barreled into 2024 with Precious Dream, the band’s second full-length on Montreal indie label Mothland. Flush with rippers from front to back, Precious Dream sneers with dark surf flirtations, motorik rhythms, and sinister synth-laden chaos. The album’s second track “Look at My Phone” is a super-charged headbanger for coping with the horrors of this cruel world.

Tyla by Annie Reid

Tyla - “Butterflies”

Tyla hit superstardom after releasing her Grammy Award-winning song “Water.” Quickly after, she dropped her debut EP Tyla via Fax and Epic Records and proved she wasn’t going to be a one-hit wonder. “Butterflies” highlights a softer, almost ethereal side to the singer – let this song transport you to a magical place!

Nick Schofield by Christopher Honeywell

Nick Schofield - “Resonant World”

Self-proclaimed “ambient raver” Nick Schofield (Best Fern, Saxsyndrum) recently dropped his third solo sonic venture, Ambient Ensemble, via Halifax label Forward Music Group. Along with a band of masterly local collaborators (Yolande Laroche, Philippe Charbonneau, and Mika Posen), the Hull, QC-based electroacoustic composer achieves otherworldly splendour on Ambient Ensemble. Likened to works by masters Brian Eno and Philip Glass, Schofield's delicate yet profound Ambient Ensemble is a kaleidoscope of lush, instrumental bliss.

Loving - “Any Light”

Loving has been a longtime staple of Also Cool’s playlists, bringing well-considered tenderness to the Canadian indie music scene. “Any Light” is the title track of their latest album, guiding us into the contemplative world of Jesse Henderson and David Parry. The 10-track album weaves through themes of love, existential uncertainty, and "the psychic consequences of living in an increasingly digitized world."

Max Leone - “Kirkland”

There’s nothing that hits harder than going back to your hometown just to discover that your memories have been paved over and replaced by parking lots and big box stores. California-based Max Leone submerges himself in this flavor of bittersweet nostalgia with his latest release “Kirkland,” which is accompanied by a music video made of home videos that act as a portal into his childhood. Watch the video below.

Moon King - “Go To My Head”

Comfortable in a cold blue light, Moon King brings us yet another slinky synthy single “Go To My Head,” off of his upcoming album Roses (which is set to release later this year on Arbutus Records). Inspired by loops found on ‘future music’ CDs from the mid-90s, FM synths, and 808s, the track rounds out with his layered, pitched-up vocals – perfect for grooving to anytime, anywhere.

Born at Midnite - “*69 (Patrick Holland Remix)”

The great music minds of Montreal have merged to create an absolute banger remix of an already great song. Born at Midnite's “*69 (Patrick Holland Remix)” will soon be added to DJs’ USBs worldwide, and dancefloors everywhere will rejoice.

In the words of Born at Midnite: “If you are anything like me, the second you hear Pat’s remix of *69, the tears will roll, everything you’ve ever heard will suddenly seem irrelevant, tingles will go up your spine and you’ll drop your Timmie’s on your Rick Owens Crocs.”

Ducks Ltd. by Dylan Taylor

Ducks Ltd. - “On Our Way To The Rave”

“Memories I'll barely retain, We're on our way to the rave.” Relatable for almost every party person, and eerily reflective of the theme of our FSR radio show (music ranging from the indie rock show to the rave), Ducks Ltd. have returned with an excellent single off of their recent album Harm’s Way.

Reliably jangly, and always fun, Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis of Ducks Ltd. deliver a highly-anticipated expansion on the sound they established in 2021. We were able to catch their set at Taverne Tour this year, and are happy to report that the sold-out show was one of the highlights of the festival.

Haruomi Hosono & Mac DeMarco - “Boku Wa Chotto”

Mac DeMarco has teamed up with Japanese legend Haruomi Hosono for their latest release, “Boku Wa Chotto,” via Stones Throw Records. While it may seem like an unlikely pairing, Hosono has long been one of Mac DeMarco’s musical idols and had previously covered his song “Honey Moon” in 2018. For those unfamiliar with Haruomi Hosono, we suggest listening to his 1978 album PACIFIC and the classic track “SPORTS MEN” off of his 1982 album Philharmony as an introduction to the incredible world of Hosono’s Japanese pop music.

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PREMIERE: Nick Schofield Unveils Blissful Music Video for "Light and Space" (Forward Music Group)

Nick Schofield, shot by Christopher Honeywell

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of his sophomore LP Glass Gallery, Hull-based electroacoustic composer Nick Schofield aptly unveils the music video for his new track “Light and Space.” Composed entirely on a vintage Prophet-600 synthesizer, “Light and Space” is a meditative soundscape inspired by the dance between its namesake within the National Gallery of Canada, located in Ottawa.

On “Light and Space,” Schofield shares:

“This composition conveys a core sentiment that inspired the making of Glass Gallery - the sublime light that flows through the serene space of the National Gallery in Ottawa. I researched the Light and Space artistic movement and noticed that ideology of perceptual phenomena applied to the architecture of the gallery, especially how the glass structure frames the ever-changing natural light and environment. In a way, experiencing the light and space of the National Gallery showed me that the world can be framed as a work of art.”

Out today, the song’s accompanying music video captures Schofield’s notion of the everyday creative sanctuary. Shot on a ferry in British Columbia using a beloved point-and-shoot camera, the glimmering footage deconstructs Schofield’s surroundings, the ocean air, wind, waves and sparkling sunlight, into ethereal abstractions. On the video’s conceptualization, Schofield remarks: “In the song, crescendos of vintage synth chords and glistening arpeggios perfectly align with the fuzzy footage of water and waves, so it felt natural to pair them together.”

Watch the video for “Light and Space” below!

Nick Schofield
Website | Instagram | Bandcamp

Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter (she/her) is the co-founder and managing editor of Also Cool Mag. Aside from the mag, she is a music promoter & booker, radio host & DJ, and a musician.

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