Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
To date, there have been 71 New Music Monday features published through this collaboration.
This week, Blush. is the New Music Monday highlight!
It’s been nearly two years since local indie outfit Blush. have released new music, but the time has finally come as the band has now put out two singles off their upcoming album In the Grey.
The band is comprised of Anton Wilson on guitar and vocals, Eric Josephs on drums, Renata Baldwin on keys and Rosie Said on bass—all of whom met while working at The Courtney Room, though Josephs is the last one left standing.
Since releasing their debut EP in April 2024, Wilson says that Blush. has been working hard.
“The past two years, after Still Wet, we just grinded, playing as many shows as we could and we did a little tour, wrote a bunch of music, recorded another EP, got to play Sled Island in Calgary, play with Surf Hat,” he told Victoria Buzz.
“Just play with a lot of cool bands, meet a lot of cool people and grow as friends and as a band.”
Still Wet was a nostalgia-fueled take on shoegaze and alternative indie rock, and the band’s new EP holds true to that sound, but both Wilson and Josephs say that their sound has evolved since then.
“I think the biggest change may not be a musical change, but just with the confidence in our instruments,” Josephs explained.
He noted they were all fairly new to their instruments when Blush. started, but after playing so much together, they all are able to lean into the music a bit more than they could before.
“With that comes the ability to really start driving the songs a bit more, playing those loud parts with a bit more confidence, play the soft parts with a bit more subtlety,” Josephs continued.
“When we get to those louder, more crunchy parts you can hear in our new single ‘Wrong Answers Only,’ it’s with a lot more authority than it would have been previously, and then we can kind of pull things back like in ‘Seasons,’ our other single, it’s got a lot more carefulness to it.”
Josephs noted that the two singles he spoke of, which have already been released to tease In the Grey, represent the two ends of the band’s spectrum of dynamics. “Seasons” being a softer representation of what the band can do and “Wrong Answers Only” being the heavier side. Everything else on the upcoming seven-track EP lands somewhere between the two songs, dynamically speaking.
Highlight Track – “Wrong Answers Only”
Blush. just released “Wrong Answers Only” to the world on Friday, March 13th as a single, and with an accompanying music video.
Wilson says this song was written not about one thing in particular, but more a feeling he was trying to invoke in the music.
“The song, honestly, isn’t about one thing, but it does have this pushing kind of effect to it,” he said.
“Whether that means pushing through being uncomfortable, just always pushing for more, or pushing past [adversity] — just jumping hurdles really.”
He added that this “pushing” notion translates to the music as well, it being the heavier track on the EP.
This song, and the rest of In the Grey, was recorded at The Hive recording studio in Victoria by producer Colin Stewart.
“We tracked guitar and drums together and from there we got to play around with a lot of pedals, re-amping stuff, just trying a lot of crazy things,” Wilson continued.
“We added synths and put this crazy bass tone on Rosie—it was a lot of fun.”
As for the music video that was released for “Wrong Answers Only,” Blush. wanted to host a fun, crazy house party as the backdrop for the video.
“The song has a real driving, moving energy to it, so we wanted the music video to represent a lot of that chaos, and so we figured a house party theme with a lot of close up shots and fisheye shots would capture the same energy,” said Josephs.
“The funny part about it is we didn’t really think about how to execute that party and we were on a timeline so we tried to pull something together as fast as we could and found ourselves hosting a party while shooting the video.”
Though they worried if they had been able to do either thing properly, the result captured the essence of that pushing feeling and the chaotic energy they were after.
Check out the music video for “Wrong Answers Only” by Blush. below:
To listen to “Wrong Answers Only” and Blush.’s other single “Seasons,” check them out on Bandcamp, Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music.
The seven-track sophomore EP In the Grey will come out on May 1st.
Those looking to see Blush. live in Victoria are in luck, as they are playing at the Capital Ballroom on Thursday, March 26th for Standard Issue Pleasure Model’s album release show alongside Ghost Darling.
Blush. is also working at putting together a release show of their own, but at the moment the details are to be determined.
To stay in the loop with future shows and releases, follow Blush. on Instagram.
Related:
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“I think that CFUV is the centre of the local, DIY scene in Victoria,” Wilson said.
“It’s uplifting so many new bands and so many established bands at the same time. They’ve only ever been too kind to us.”
“They’re a really awesome community hub,” Josephs added. “So many of its members are people who play in bands around the city, they’re promoters and they really do what they do for the right reasons.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Blush. in the comments below.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source victoriabuzz.com ’
