Created to serve as "an ideological foster home for music and comics that aim to irreverently explore the frontiers and tamper with the boundaries of their respective mediums," Toronto label Trinket Trance has unveiled details behind its first two releases under each medium.
Created by writer and musician Scott Gray (and for the purposes of full disclosure, an Exclaim! staffer), the label's first foray into the world of comics comes with The Beard, a speculative satire/body horror multimedia release illustrated by Ryan Stanley (Cursed Arrows, Bardos) that explores "itchy id-impulses, eroding social etiquette, well-meaning idiocy, insidious ego worship, the allure of exploratory artists and the search for purpose in a world bursting at its seams with redundancy."
Designed as a digital comic, viewers can hunt and click through the artwork to find links to exclusive downloads or streams from bands and artists featured in the story, trigger sound effects, view reference pages and more. Five-page chapters will see release bi-weekly until the first 25-page issue is complete.
Along with the comic, the label has announced its first release will come courtesy of Lunar Lemur, a mysterious artist whom Gray reportedly discovered through a chance late-night encounter in a park where he found the artist in a lemur suit working away on a laptop.
"When I approached and asked 'what are you working on?' the lemur didn't say a word, just looked up, handed me the headphones and pressed play," he said. "It took less than a minute before I was fumbling for my wallet and asking if I could buy whatever it was I was hearing. The lemur said nothing. I handed back the headphones. The lemur handed me a small data stick then tapped its keyboard with furry glove-covered fingers. A Stephen Hawking voice said 'Take it. Share it'."
These "restlessly structured, beat-heavy melodic experiments" that Gray came upon will be collected as Lunar Lemur's The Indiscreet Art of Ass Puppetry, the artist's first official album that will arrive this July.
While the album opener can be found in the first issue of The Beard, you can get a taste of Trinket Trance's inaugural release with "Om Latte" below.
Created by writer and musician Scott Gray (and for the purposes of full disclosure, an Exclaim! staffer), the label's first foray into the world of comics comes with The Beard, a speculative satire/body horror multimedia release illustrated by Ryan Stanley (Cursed Arrows, Bardos) that explores "itchy id-impulses, eroding social etiquette, well-meaning idiocy, insidious ego worship, the allure of exploratory artists and the search for purpose in a world bursting at its seams with redundancy."
Designed as a digital comic, viewers can hunt and click through the artwork to find links to exclusive downloads or streams from bands and artists featured in the story, trigger sound effects, view reference pages and more. Five-page chapters will see release bi-weekly until the first 25-page issue is complete.
Along with the comic, the label has announced its first release will come courtesy of Lunar Lemur, a mysterious artist whom Gray reportedly discovered through a chance late-night encounter in a park where he found the artist in a lemur suit working away on a laptop.
"When I approached and asked 'what are you working on?' the lemur didn't say a word, just looked up, handed me the headphones and pressed play," he said. "It took less than a minute before I was fumbling for my wallet and asking if I could buy whatever it was I was hearing. The lemur said nothing. I handed back the headphones. The lemur handed me a small data stick then tapped its keyboard with furry glove-covered fingers. A Stephen Hawking voice said 'Take it. Share it'."
These "restlessly structured, beat-heavy melodic experiments" that Gray came upon will be collected as Lunar Lemur's The Indiscreet Art of Ass Puppetry, the artist's first official album that will arrive this July.
While the album opener can be found in the first issue of The Beard, you can get a taste of Trinket Trance's inaugural release with "Om Latte" below.
