Junior Boys

Junior Boys – the Hamilton, Ontario, duo of Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus – share “Waiting Game,” from their new album, Waiting Game, out October 28th on City Slang. Waiting Game marks Junior Boys’ first album in six years – their first since 2016’s Big Black Coat – and finds the pair switching up, trading R&B-infused dance melodics for tender and contemplative moods. Following the “stripped down, atmospheric lead single” (Toronto Star) “Night Walk,” “Waiting Game” is another confident step in Junior Boys’ serene, new direction. Greenspan says, “Resolutions ruin art. As with everything, the waiting is the best part, and so ‘Waiting Game’ is an ‘ode to inactivity.’ This song is about the intensity of emotion that comes in times of protracted postponement and expectation. Forced isolation can be cathartic and music can be a happy little home, a small island.”

The accompanying video is directed by John Smith and “is an homage to the groundbreaking 1967 experimental film ‘Wavelength’ by Canadian artist Michael Snow, often described as the apotheosis of ‘structural film’,” explains Greenspan.

In the years since making Big Black Coat, Greenspan co-produced and mixed two albums for Jessy Lanza, cared for and then mourned his father, and built a recording studio in Hamilton. In early 2020, Didemus joined Greenspan there, jamming and recording for several weeks before returning home; by March, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world into lockdown. In this uncertain period, drawing from Didemus’s co-writing and musicianship, Greenspan wrote and recorded Waiting Game.

The titles and lyrics of Waiting Game orbit around a singular theme: the feeling of waiting around for something, anything, to happen. During his walks through an eerily quiet Hamilton, Greenspan tuned in more closely to other people’s conversations. When he heard a phrase that seemed interesting, he wrote it down verbatim, and when he came across something beautiful or odd, he wrote down a description of it. This patchwork style of lyric-writing feels light and bright, with a sense of freedom.

Greenspan concludes, “Waiting Game is intended to give the listener some respite. I like the idea of people putting it on a home and exhaling in relief, even if that relief is tinged with some sadness.” In this, Junior Boys have made an album that reflects the quiet beauty of the world, so long as you’re prepared to truly listen.