Figure Walking is drummer Rob Gardiner (Conduct, Pip Skid) and Canadian independent music stalwart Greg MacPherson (baritone guitar, vocals, keys). Based in Winnipeg, minutes from the geographic centre of North America, Figure Walking makes music that is at once unmistakably local (fighting through the isolation and limitations of what is essentially a mixed up, outpost town) and reflective of the complex lives being lived beyond the horizon.
Last week, the band shared the first new track off their upcoming LP, Vertical / Horizontal. About “Last Dollar (Green July)” MacPherson says :
“Whether it’s a fresh new pandemic cooked up by some dead-in-the-eyes STEM worker or it’s thousands of aging atomic weapons hidden in fields off the I-29, it seems sometimes that our civilization is getting good at being awful. ‘Last Dollar’ is a song about Winnipeg this summer, it’s about being happy and in love, making out and smoking menthols over a giant pile of fireworks on the hottest day of July.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by-ErPE64Yc&feature=youtu.be
Recorded in Montreal and Winnipeg, the band’s second album, Vertical/Horizontal paints a colourful portrait of a beautiful world spiraling through the heartache and mystery of late stage capitalism. As ever, MacPherson’s storytelling pulls the curtain back and offers an up-to-the-minute report; characters fighting the law, crossing the Canadian border into North Dakota, born on a holiday, living with tragedy and winning in style. Vertical/Horizontal will be released by Disintegration Records on September 11, 2020.