Canadian indie rock/bummer pop outfit No Frills share their long-awaited debut album, Downward Dog. They have also shared a music video for the record’s last single, “Darkhorse.” Speaking on the “Darkhorse” music video, songwriter Daniel Busheikin wrote: “‘Darkhorse’ is about the illusions of time and progress, so the music video tries to play with images of basic movement, often trapping things or people in these boomerang moments – forward, backward, forward, backward… up, down, up, down… which was actually inspired by the Eleanor Rigby sequence in ‘Yellow Submarine.'”
On the record, he continued,
“Downward Dog is, I hope, a fun and sad pop record with a deliberate irreverence. For me, it’s also a distillation of my unceding fear, cynicism, joylessness, self-loathing, existential dread and my other day-to-day hang-ups, and basically captures my entire life experience with comprehensive totality. Yes, I know that’s melodramatic, but I’m not trying to be heavy here! This project has actually brought me a lot of peace. Maybe it’ll even bring you some too.”
On No Frills’ debut record, Buskeikin calls himself names. He’s a bummer, a drip, a dog. It’s the latter that was embraced for the album’s title, Downward Dog – a description of Busheikin’s general malaise, and a nod to the yoga position he attempts every morning as part of a positive mental health routine.
When Toronto shut down in the spring of 2020, Busheikin descended into his basement and encircled himself with guitars, vintage synths and a nest of guitar pedals. Six months later, he emerged with fifteen demos and a vague plan.
Given that recording with a full band was no longer on the table, Downward Dog began by tracking only drums and bass to tape in Gavin Gardiner’s (The Wooden Sky) garage-turned-studio. With the digitized stems from those sessions, Busheikin started assembling the album in piecemeal. Bandmates Maddy Wilde (keys, vocals), Jonathan Pappo (drums), Matt Buckerrough (guitar, bass) and Mike Searle (bass) would sporadically drop in to record various riffs and rhythms and provide feedback. In lieu of a sensible engineer or proper recording equipment, Busheikin found himself leaning into bizarre production techniques. To get the ideal right vocal tones, for example, he sang wearing a KN95 mask into a microphone with a toilet paper tube taped to it.
The result is a memorable collage of lo-fi pop that filters themes of depression, despair and death through a sardonic sense of humor. Jangly indie rock and intimate ballads are woven together by warm analog production and a uniquely whimsical defeatism. “Ice Cream Cone” channels 50s crooners, while “I Don’t Wanna Be Your Dog Anymore” bobs along under a 90s college rock raincloud. Keyboardist Maddy Wilde takes lead vocals for the Stereolab-esque “Copy Cat,” a sugary number with gurgling synths. When the record draws to a close with the lo-fi lullaby “Pancake,” Busheikin tenderly offers an overtly simple reflection to conclude the journey: “that’s just normal life / it is nice / and it’s sad / and it’s the only one you have.”
