Toronto Indie Rock Outfit No Frills Share New Single “Darkhorse” From Upcoming Album

With their debut album Downward Dog only a few weeks away, Toronto-based indie rock outfit No Frills have shared their latest single “Darkhorse”.

Composed of members from a handful of Toronto acts, such as Hooded Fang, Twist, Rapport, and his own previous band Grounders, No Frills’ frontman Daniel Busheikin assembled his gang back in 2020 during the first lockdown, descending into his basement and re-emerging six months later with demos in hand.

Given that recording with a full band was no longer on the table, Downward Dog began by tracking only drums and bass to tape in Gavin Gardiner’s (The Wooden Sky) garage-turned-studio. With the digitized stems from those sessions, Busheikin started assembling the album. Bandmates Maddy Wilde (keys, vocals), Jonathan Pappo (drums), Matt Buckerrough (guitar, bass) and Mike Searle (bass) would sporadically drop in to record various riffs and rhythms and provide feedback. In lieu of a sensible engineer or proper recording equipment, Busheikin found himself leaning into bizarre production techniques. To get the ideal right vocal tones, for example, he sang wearing a KN95 mask into a microphone with a toilet paper tube taped to it. 

The result is a memorable collage of lo-fi pop that filters themes of depression, despair and death through a sardonic sense of humor. Jangly indie rock and intimate ballads are woven together by warm analog production and a uniquely whimsical defeatism.

As for the latest album taster “Darkhorse”, Daniel Busheikin explains, “‘Darkhorse’ was written after I was fired from a café of the same name (oops!) and is about the carrot dangling in front of our collective faces, promising an ultimate material reward that will always elude us. Basically a more pretentious version of ‘work sucks // I know.'”

No Frills is set to play a number of shows this spring, including their album release show with Louie Short, DJ Ducks Ltd, and other special guests on April 16 in Toronto. They will also be playing a one-off show with Dorothea Paas and Poolblood on May 18.

Downward Dog will be available on April 1st.

Listen to “Darkhorse” below:

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