F. Scott blends nostalgia and innovation into a sonic snapshot of teenage romance with his striking new single Lakes — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Written while the Canadian alt-rocker attended an outdoors camp on John Island at the pivotal age of 17, Lakes is sweeping, orchestral, head-bopping, and gorgeously, discordantly chaotic in the way being a teen is — or at least should be. “When I wrote this song I was greatly inspired by the beautiful landscapes of northern Ontario that surrounded me, and the friends from all over Ontario that I made there,” F. Scott divulges. “The cover art showcases a picture of my friend, standing on Front Beach on John Island.”
The song is the third single off of Scotty Season, an album of 10 songs released in five parts over three months. All the songs were written in different locales in Ontario over the course of eight years in the life of F. Scott (aka Gabriel Burke). “Lakes was one of the hardest songs on this record to make,” he says. “With almost 150 tracks, it uses a variety of string samples, synths, and takes.”
The tentpole song of Scotty Season, Lakes was recorded in part by violinist Shawn Fisher in British Columbia during the pandemic, when F. Scott suddenly had a lot of time on his hands to go through old demos and recordings. “The project started as a sort of renovation of these old songs,” he says, “updating and rewriting lyrics, splicing new musical sections in, and reproducing them with more modern influences, introducing pop and hip-hop elements, in a way that these songs were never originally intended to sound like. It felt like I was bastardizing my own previous work, which was incredibly exciting.”
Burke is a Guelph artist blending folk, indie, and hip-hop influences to paint a picture of house parties, the rugged outdoors, awkward experiences, and friends. F. Scott started as a side project while Burke was studying at the University of Guelph. Having returned from a summer of tree planting in Northern Ontario, he wanted to create music that reflected the social atmosphere of that experience. Out of this came an EP in 2018 titled Normal Behaviour, made in multiple makeshift studios in Guelph, Toronto, and Creemore. From sketchy mic setups and closet studios to samples of friends at parties, almost everything was completely DIY.
Check out Lakes above, enjoy the latest chapter of Scotty Season below, and dip a toe into F. Scott‘s world at his website, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
