{"title":"Ducks Ltd","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"harms-way","title":"Harm's Way","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDuck Ltd.\u003c\/strong\u003e presents \u003cem\u003eHarm’s Way\u003c\/em\u003e, their most intuitive and organic album yet. This album is the result of keen observation, self-possessed songwriting, and a collaborative spirit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding on the successes of their previous releases, the deeply relatable album displays a band operating at a nuanced, lyrical, and musical best. \u003cstrong\u003eDuck Ltd.\u003c\/strong\u003e makes inviting and frenetic guitar pop for when life feels overwhelming.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the band’s songs are ostensibly breezy, a palpable anxiety boils underneath that communicates something deeper about everyday existence. On their latest album \u003cem\u003eHarm’s Way\u003c\/em\u003e, the Toronto duo of Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis hones in on interpersonal and societal collapses, urban decay, and the near-impossibility of keeping a level head when everything around you seems to be falling apart.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carpark","offers":[{"title":"LP - Green","offer_id":50391034429771,"sku":"2169336","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50391033807179,"sku":"2169335","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - Tan","offer_id":51406927331659,"sku":"R8923-4392","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CAK172CD_8eb63e11_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726396676"},{"product_id":"modern-fiction","title":"Modern Fiction","description":"\u003cp\u003eToronto’s \u003cstrong\u003eDucks Ltd.\u003c\/strong\u003e (formerly Ducks Unlimited), the bright jangle-pop duo of Tom McGreevy (lead vocal, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Evan Lewis (guitar, bass, drum programming), accomplish the impossible. The pair craft songs that play to very specific inspirations without drowning underneath them—immediately evidenced on their critically acclaimed EP, \u003cem\u003eGet Bleak\u003c\/em\u003e, and sharpened on \u003cem\u003eModern Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e, their debut LP.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“The Servants, The Clean, The Chills, The Bats, Television Personalities, Felt,” Evan rattles off. “Look Blue Go Purple is one I reference a lot with our production.” Echoes of ‘80s indiepop abound, but they never overwhelm. This is not a nostalgic record, after all, nor is it a derivative one. Instead, across 10 cheery-sounding songs, Ducks Ltd. explore contemporary society in decline, examining large scale human disaster through personal turmoil (hence the title, taken from a university course called Gnosticism and Nihilism in Modern Fiction, influenced by Graham Greene novels. Bookish indie fans, look no further.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWriting the album was intimate. Tom drafted the nucleus of a song on an unplugged electric guitar and brought it over to Evan’s apartment, where the pair sat in his bedroom, placing percussive beats from a drum machine under nascent melodies, passing a bass back and forth, adding organs and bridges where necessary. “It’s computer music trying extremely hard not to sound like computer music,” Tom jokes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFearful that limited and expensive studio time would kneecap the project creatively, eroding their charming naivete, the pair re-recorded the album in a storage space owned by Evan’s boss. Ornamentation through collaboration followed: there’s Aaron Goldstein on Pedal Steel in the Go-Betweens’ “Cattle and Cane”-channeling interlude “Patience Wearing Thin,” Eliza Niemi on cello (“18 Cigarettes,” a song loosely inspired by a 1997 Oasis performance of “Don’t Go Away”), and backing harmonies from Carpark labelmates The Beths (on an ode to friendship at a distance, “How Lonely Are You?,” “Always There,” and on the sped-up Syd Barrett stylings of “Under The Rolling Moon.”)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhile in his native Australia due to covid-19, Evan worked closely with producer James Cecil (The Goon Sax, Architecture in Helsinki) on \u003cem\u003eModern Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e’s finishing touches—at one point, in the mountains of the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, recorded a string quartet (featured on “Fit to Burst,” “Always There,” “Sullen Leering Hope,” “Twere Ever Thus,” “Grand Final Day.”)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s danceable, depressive fun, with some relief: in “Always There” and “Sullen Leering Hope,” \u003cem\u003eModern Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e’s faithful heart. “There’s a tendency in my writing, because of my world view, to be very bleak.” Tom explains. “A quality I don’t always see in myself and really appreciate in others is the courage to go on.” And yet, the record manages resiliency—enough for pop fans to fall in love with.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carpark","offers":[{"title":"LP - Clear","offer_id":50475081236811,"sku":"1126540","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50475080909131,"sku":"1126538","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - 18 Cigarettes Smoke","offer_id":56979626459467,"sku":"R8249-4966","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/7b307bda-487f-4003-806e-d35e3c7504b8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727442318"},{"product_id":"get-bleak","title":"Get Bleak","description":"\u003cp\u003eToronto’s Ducks Ltd. release their debut EP, \u003ci\u003eGet Bleak\u003c\/i\u003e via Carpark Records. Composed of friends Evan Lewis, on lead guitar, and Tom Mcgreevy, on vocals and rhythm guitar, the band built a reputation in their hometown for their bright, sinewy, guitar sound while sharing bills with artists like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Weyes Blood, The Goon Sax and Juan Wauters. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe opening track, “Get Bleak” sets a thematic tone for the EP, one of cultural self-awareness and satiric critiques of society’s pressures and the often ridiculous demands – and prices we pay – to exist. Chiming with breezy indie guitar sounds akin to those of Flying Nun and Sarah Records acts, the track, that features a contribution from Laura Hermiston of Twist, pokes fun at the idea that moving from city to city will fix the problems in your life. Following suit is “Gleaming Spires”, a track that zeroes in on the cities we live in and the push-pull relationships that we so often share with them. “Anhedonia”, via it’s tightly-wound rhythm and nostalgia-inked guitars, shifts focus to the times when one is unable to wring any joy out of the things that they find important in life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBringing the band’s characteristic restless bounce, thoughtful lyricism and penchant for orchestration, the tracks explore topics like troubled friendships (“It’s Easy”), self-destructive desires (“Oblivion”), and living with decline (“As Big As All Outside”) while maintaining the balance of earnest self-reflection and humor that endeared audiences to the original release. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFull of the unbridled radiance of jangle-pop, the debut EP from Ducks Ltd.’s \u003ci\u003eGet Bleak \u003c\/i\u003ecelebrates their strengths while expanding their thematic and compositional horizons, and providing an intriguing glimpse of what’s to come. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carpark","offers":[{"title":"Clear | 12\"","offer_id":50479017197899,"sku":"1120240","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Green | LP","offer_id":50479016771915,"sku":"1139991","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4471badf-ce5d-4532-85e1-201501132f5c_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727497879"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/ducks-ltd.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}