Matthew Bailey and Carl Schilde play fully improvised music oscillating somewhere between bingo hall Casio suites and kosmische dreamscapes. The duo perform under the name Playdate, and are sometimes accompanied by 90s instructional videos, larger than life amateur dancers, and outdated light shows.
Last summer, they travelled to a remote cabin on Manitoulin Island and recorded their debut album in two days, improvised live onto stereo cassette tape. They ceremoniously recorded two 30 minute tape sides each morning, afternoon and night, surrounded by insect drones, forest breezes and lapping waves. Manitoulin Tapes is the distillation of that bucolic experience. Like the mutable remote island environment, the recordings are sometimes warm and pastoral, like an Algonquin Cluster, at other times somber and brooding, like Sympathy Nervous, Pan Sonic or Cabaret Voltaire inspired by the Group of Seven rather than Dada.
Name: Playdate
Genre: cosmic bingo hall suites
Founded: 2017
# of Albums: 1
Latest Release: Manitoulin Tapes
Latest Single: Tape VII AM
Latest Video:
Favourite Restaurant?
The Island Cafe
Favourite band as a teenager?
Weezer
Favourite band now?
Makaya McCraven
Guilty Pleasure Song?
Anything ever produced by Max Martin
Live Show Ritual?
Turning on our exclusive Dollarama light show
Favourite local artist?
Beverly Glenn-Copeland
Sneaky Dees nachos, pasta from Terroni or a superfood salad from Fresh?
Pasta plz
Queen or College St?
Queen
Trinity Bellwoods or High Park, Riverdale or Kew Gardens?
High Park
EP or LP?
Double Live
Early bird or night owl?
Hoo Hoo
Road or studio?
Studio
Swiss Chalet or Roti?
Treasure chest puts SC over the top
Where can we follow you?
Any shows or albums coming up?
Manitoulin Tapes was released June 7th!