Jesse Zubot Outlines Drip Audio Plans, Sets to Work on New Destroyer and Frog Eyes LPs

Photo: Jenn McInnis

BY Alan RantaPublished Feb 24, 2015

As we reported late last year, Jesse Zubot has revived his momentarily dormant Drip Audio imprint in the wake of his victory alongside Tanya Tagaq for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize and his subsequent Juno nomination for Producer of the Year for his work on her Animism. Talking to Exclaim!, Zubot shed light on a slew of upcoming releases for his label, as well as some work he's doing on the upcoming Destroyer album.

Coming up this spring, we can expect to see three albums from Drip Audio: a new progressive art-rock full-length from Skye Brooks' Copilots; a Tony Wilson 6tet album titled A Day's Life; and Joyfultalk's Muuixx, which will be the first album from a new analogue electronic project helmed by mad genius Jay Crocker.

Zubot also reports that he is close to finishing an album by Montreal baritone saxophonist Jason Sharp, and that 2015 will likely see the release of Peggy Lee's tentatively titled Film in Music and an album from Fond of Tigers, whose 2010 album won a Juno in the instrumental category.

"Fond of Tigers have been trying to finish an album for a long time," Zubot says. "We're hoping to finish that this spring. That'll come out, probably, in the fall. Hopefully, we're gonna have the time to make it way better than anything that's been done before. It's been hard to record it properly. We've been too busy, and the budget, there's not enough money or time. That band, it's hard to record because it's such a massive sound that when you record it, it almost becomes smaller, so this recording, we're gonna try to make it better than before."

Naturally, with all his recent accolades as a performer and producer, Zubot has been bombarded with offers for studio work and gigs, some of which he's had to turn down. But he will be touring with Tagaq extensively this year, including trips to Iceland and Bonnaroo, as well as likely doing some summer festival dates with Dan Mangan + Blacksmith, having appeared on their recently released Club Meds, and start working on a new album with Tagaq in the winter.

Zubot goes on to say that he's going to work on a new Frog Eyes album with Carey Mercer, and that he has been working on the new Destroyer album, coming out in the fall.

He says of the Dan Bejar project: "We just finished that. I got together a string quartet and an old friend of mine; Stefan Udell did the arrangements. We recorded them, and then I added some extra little flourishes and stuff. It was a cool way to work. It took a long time, but it's pretty awesome. I think that comes out in the fall, September or something."
 
Of course, stay tuned for more details as they become available.

Latest Coverage