Doug Hempstead — the Clark Kent-like alter ego of Ottawa indie-rocker (and Tinnitist columnist / reviewer) Area Resident — endured a bit of a wild pandemic. When it began in March 2020, he was a family man in the suburbs with a wife and two kids, three pets and two cars.
By the time it ended, his marriage was over, he was with a new partner, he’d been working a split shift from home for two years, moved four times, got diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, quit drinking and put out three more Area Resident albums: Jardinova, Quasar and Polycanard.
The difficulties, triumphs and unpredictable nature of this period are certainly evident on many of the songs on those albums. By contrast, his latest album Phosphene is a bit of a return to form — a more collective, company-of-pals approach to narrative songs inspired by his career as a journalist, broadcaster and storyteller.
It’s a fun album, but also more mature and consistent. As always, it is produced by Hempstead and his life-long friend Jordon Zadorozny of Blinker The Star, who also mixed and mastered the album. Hempstead plays bass, guitar, keys, percussion and while Zadorozny provides overdubbed guitars, solos, some synth and all the live drums.
Phosphene arrives April 7 on Surkeus Records, Hempstead’s first release for the label which signed Area Resident last year. Naturally, we asked Doug to take us through the album, track-by-track. And he did:
New Carburetor, Yer Golden
“This track was inspired by a co-worker of mine at CBC Ottawa, Stu Mills. He drives in to work from a rural area near Wakefield, Quebec, and routinely sees a vast array of large household items people have dragged out to the edge of the highway for pickup/removal by the biweekly garbage truck or salvage hobbyists. Stu got into the habit of stopping to take photos of the more notable items, like colourful late ’90s iMacs, orange sofas, aquariums and telescopes. As CBC‘s resident traffic reporter, I would take those photos and humorously tweet them as commuter “visual distraction” hazards. They proved so popular that I started an Instagram account called @stuffstusees — New Carburetor, Yer Golden is essentially just a list of the items photographed, combined with details of the time Stu fixed the old snowblower which I liberated from my own neighbour’s curb. All it needed was a new carburetor, which I ordered from Amazon for $23.”
Chateau Of A Doubt
“This one is about an ongoing caper at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier hotel. For many years the famous portrait of Winston Churchill by Ottawa photographer Yusef Karsh hung on one of the storied Chateau’s walls. A little more than a year ago someone noticed the portrait was a fake, meaning it was likely switched and stolen. But nobody knows how long ago.”
Phosphenes
“The title track, or almost-title track, is a love song for my sweetie Chelle Lorenzen, who also did all the album’s artwork (which has three colour variants depending on if you bought the LP, CD or cassette). Phosphenes is the phenomenon of seeing light without light entering the eye. It can happen when the eye is stimulated mechanically, electrically, or magnetically. It can also happen to people who are on hallucinatory drugs, or those who are enduring long periods without visual stimulation, like inmates in solitary confinement. This is where the love song part comes in, comparing my partner to illumination amidst the pandemic and my darkest hours. There aren’t many love songs for 40-somethings, so here’s one. Gareth Auden-Hole (aka Jack Pine) provides mandola while Dave Merritt of Golden Seals adds guitar and backing vocals. The dominant second vocal on the chorus is by Stella Panacci.”
Crepe Paper Leaf
“This is a song inspired by another musician I know whose music and lifestyle are nowhere near as laudable as they think. Matter of fact, it’s all cringey and the butt of many jokes. This features Jim Bryson on the slide guitar-sounding Mellotron towards the end.”
Grow Up
“The first Area Resident song I ever recorded, done for the fourth and final time with revised lyrics. I honestly have no idea what it is about, nothing really. It just sounds like it is.”
The Hammer Of Lazarus
“I’ve been obsessed with both the true crime podcast Last Podcast On The Left, and ancestry.ca lately, learning about famous murders as I compile and investigate my geneology. I was adding the birth and death dates to a particular group of Hempsteads from the 1800s when I discovered three of them named Lazarus. I imagine all of them were named after the biblical figure who was supposedly brought back to life by Christ after being dead for four days. But I noticed the death location of one of these Lazaruses (Larzari?) was the infamous Broadmoor asylum. Turns out, this Lazarus was convinced his wife was carrying on an affair with a butler the pair knew when they all worked in the same household as servants. His wife ultimately chose Lazarus over the butler and the pair had six kids. But as he gradually slipped into mental illness, Lazarus became obsessed with the notion his wife was secretly carrying on with the butler. While the children were in their beds in the downstairs bedroom, their father went to the kitchen and took a hammer from the wall. He went upstairs to the bedroom and smashed his wife’s head in while she slept. And then went for breakfast before turning himself in, leaving the children to discover their mother’s bloody corpse.”
Second-Worst Mascot In The NHL
“In November 2022, a poll ranking the popularity of the NHL’s team mascots made headlines. Here in Ottawa, the Senators have Spartacat. The anthropomorphic lion ranked second-last. But it turns out one of the first people hired to wear the Sparacat costume has had — and continues to have — a stunning life of crime and mayhem. The former mascot and weatherman is currently doing time for burglary and kidnapping.”
Compelled
“This one is about my ADHD, specifically my compulsion to clean up after everybody. One of the first songs recorded for Phosphene, it features Auden-Hole on backing vocals and mandolin.”
Son Of A Bitch Song
“My first song to feature swearing is a song about itself. This track was a pain in the ass. It was intended to be a cover of a song I call Snowflakes by my friend Grady Franey, which he and I did a demo of several years ago before I started Area Resident. But I couldn’t sing it. I tried over and over. And then changed the words and melody entirely — twice more. Venting my frustration to Jordon, he laughed when I referred to it as “that son of a bitch song” and suggested I do a track with that title sometime. What you hear is from one take. Sometimes you need the right subject matter before everything falls into place. This one also got embellished by chorus vocals courtesy of Stella Panacci.”
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
