PREMIERE – Ruby Cikada releases new video for “All You Pretty Girls”

Toronto, ON based alternative/ psych rock band, Ruby Cikada released their new release, EP II today. The EP features the single, “All You Pretty Girls” which they actually just created a video for, and we are happy to be premiering it on Canadian Beats. The video is a “silly visual account of the before and afters of an impromtu house party”. If you enjoy the song and you’re in the Toronto area, you are in luck as the band has a release show happening on June 8 at the Piston. Stay tuned to Canadian Beats for our review of the album coming tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this segment of Five Questions With.

Care to introduce yourself to our readers?

Sure thing! My name is Lennox (guitar, vox) and I play in Ruby Cikada, a fun alternative/psych rock band based out of Toronto, ON with fellow members James (bass), Aniqa (vocals), Aaron (keys), and Emory (drums).  The band has been together almost five years now and we just recently got Emory and Aaron into the mix. We’ve been busy with recordings over the past few years, with a debut album Magicikada (2014), our first Ep, titled EP (2015), and now our second Ep which is aptly titled Ep II (2017). We’ve been playing almost exclusively in Toronto in that time, getting to know the scene in our hometown but we’re definitely looking to eventually branch out and play shows all around Ontario and Eastern Canada at some point.

Tell us a bit about your music and writing style.

The music has consistently been described as ‘eclecitc’, but the one constant in the music is the influence of 90s alt-rock and 60s/70s psych and folk (sometimes funk) in the songwriting and arrangements, which is why I label it as ‘alternative psych’ rock. That said, this new EP definitely has more folk rock going on throughout, which has been part of our sound before but never to this degree.

With writing, I usually come to band with words and music and we render it according to the demands of the song – is this a pop tune? More choruses. More of a funk tune? More bass.  Hard Rock? Guitar & Drum assault and so on.  The band arrangements have been the glue that keeps everything together, while my songwriting (intentional or not) definitely jumps genre quite frequently.

That said we like to do multiple genres and styles, kind of yielding an older form of ‘variety show’ approach (we used to do vaudeville but have forgone that route), however we try to filter everything with our brand of psych/alt weirdness for consistency – or at least that’s how I would qualify it!

Do you have any upcoming shows? For someone who has yet to see you live, how would you explain your live performance?

We do! We’re doing a special release show on June 8th at the Piston with Valois, Antibliss, and Drago Dit Dragon, all friends from different walks but tied into the Toronto scene we’ve grown into.

Our live performance is like a shuffle playlist of your favorite rock music from the past 40 years, sometimes grungey, sometimes beatles-jangly, other times funky or jazzy, but all done with the same band. The one thing we like to boast about our live show is, for anyone who hasn’t seen us, you won’t know what to expect song to song – we are definitely not one of those bands where you can predict the vibe of the setlist off the first two or three songs. With that in mind, I do believe there is a song for everyone in our setlist, whether you hail from the metal scene or are a pop music fan.

If you were asked to suggest only one of your songs for someone to hear, which would it be?

Probably our single, “All You Pretty Girls”, which is also the track for our new music video that we’re premiering!  A lot of people have been positive towards this one, and I’d admit it’s probably one of the more catchy tunes off the EP. I’ve had a couple of people tell me that they’ve had it stuck in their head after a listen or two,  which bodes well if it’s an earworm for other folks and not just yourself. It’s also an interesting marriage of my favorite decades, the 90s and 60s vibes, with weezer and perhaps the Tragically Hip on one end and the Byrds and the Beatles on the other.

Canadian Beats is all about Canadian music, so who are your current favourite Canadian bands/ artists?

Well, I can’t say for the rest of the band, but I have been MAD about Mac Demarco for these past few years.  I recently purchased a twelve string guitar last year – more to do with the Byrds & Beatles than anything – but sometimes I find that his odd signature guitar sound has elements of that 12 string jangle that I adore. With that in mind, there are times recently where I recognize something ‘Mac’ about our new tunes, not necessarily the production but the vibe, especially ‘All You Pretty Girls’ if I were to throw in another name for influences on that track.

Next one I can name is Toronto group Alvvays – I fell in love with that album completely last summer, and it definitely was a huge influence for our track ‘On the Run’, which is totally an ode to Alvvays, Bruce Springsteen, and the Byrds. Our mixing engineer, James Mulvale, was joking with me saying ‘so you like Alvvays eh?’, and every time he gave me a rough mix he’d say, ‘More Alvvays?’, too which I’d say ‘MORE’.  He probably hates them now but I don’t!

Outside of those, we’re all fans of the local Toronto scene and play around town in other groups as well – Aniqa and James have been having great success with Aniqa’s project Aniqa Dear, while Aaron has been the chief architect of local glitch/ambient band Bears and Children, both of which we’ve played with and are considered sister bands. I’ve personally been drawn to the burgeoning Psych-scene that’s come out of the Central/Smiling Buddha family, namely Kaleidoscope Horse and Hot Garbage. Those two played a show at the Piston last summer with Katelyn Molgard (now playing with all girl punk band, the Nude Dogs, check em out!) and I fully thought I was in Haight-n-Ashbury circa ’67, it was so beautiful and magical. There are too many great artist in this city to name but I’ve definitely been drawn to that element of old-school psych coming back in a different dressing, something I hope to capture in my writing soon.

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