Area Resident shows off some old-school Swordplay in his latest single and video — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
Taken from Ottawa indie-rocker Doug Hempstead’s upcoming album Jardinova, the sharp Swordplay is a Heroes-tinged post-glam stomper about a man in Hempstead’s old neighbourhood who used to do exercises with a blade in the park at the end of his street. It features Blinker The Star’s Jordon Zadorozny on drums and lead guitar. Zadorozny — along with Dave Merritt of The Golden Seals — produced the new music and features heavily on much of it.
Jardinova, due in mid-September, will be Hempstead’s fifth album in as many years. It’s named for a suburban park in the Terrebonne area of Montreal which he spotted on a signpost while driving through the area last summer. Previous teaser singles included Hunkered Down In A Government Town — not surprisingly, a song about COVID — and a cover of Yoko Ono’s We’re All Water, unveiled on her most recent birthday.
But the album — and especially its title track — are primarily about the experience of moving house, which Hempstead and his family managed to accomplish during the pandemic. And as if all that weren’t enough, the prolific multi-tasker continues to maintain his day gig doing live traffic reports for the CBC. Phew.
Watch Swordplay above, check out Hunkered Down In A Government Town and We’re All Water below, and follow Area Resident on Facebook and Twitter.
