On April 3, 2020, Toronto’s Scott Hardware will be releasing Engel, his second full-length album, and first on Telephone Explosion Records. It will mark the end of a three-year process of writing, recording and letting down his guard (for better or worse.)

His last album, 2016’s Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, was the culmination of a years-long obsession with the HIV/AIDS crisis and how it was shaped by capitalism. Hardware’s early years after coming out were shaped by the courage of people close to him who were dealing with difficult diagnoses. 
 
“Looking at these situations from a macro/societal lens
must have been the only way I could process and share
those years of my life and my loved ones’ lives with an
audience” Hardware recalls. “From a writing and
production standpoint, I was trying to re-imagine various
eras of dance music and sound as urgent and vital as they would have in their heyday of the ‘80s and ‘90s.” 

These are artists who visualize monsters and demons hiding in plain sight. Like singing to dead queer ancestors on Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, Harwood is trying to make sense of another queer cross-to-bear, this time coming from within. The image is gory and difficult, not unlike the process of digging shame from one’s spirit. Engel, in its preoccupation with angels, the afterlife and private thoughts holds hands with the image.

This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters. Ce projet est financé en partie par FACTOR, le gouvernement du Canada et les radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada. www.canada.ca

Scott Hardware - Joy

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