_______NEWS
01.01.2023
Qualms LP Out Now
Qualms is the second LP by Better Models and the follow up to 2022's Tiny Monsters.
Unlike its predecessor, Qualms is more experimental, making use of multiple drum machines and bass. And, at the same time, sections of the album are more ambient and concept-driven. The 10 tracks trace a journey from creation to entropy that straddles and weaves together the personal and the cosmological.
10.31.2022
Tiny Monsters LP
The first full-length album by Toronto-based Better Models is available now via Bandcamp.
A balancing act between the eerie and the ecstatic, the dark corners of the psyche and the liberation of the dance floor Tiny Monsters deals with both personal and global concerns, ranging from self-sabotage to the wallows of the Anthropocene. The common thread tying this song cycle together is a reflection on what we make when we're not paying attention—the spells we cast without trying and the things we bring to life (for better or worse) along the way.
Released October 28, 2022.
08.08.2022
Sealegs EP
The first official release by Better Models is out now via Bandcamp for only $5 CAD ($3.85 USD). Individual tracks can also be purchased for $1.
To get your copy head to bettermodels.bandcamp.com/releases
The Sealegs EP includes six tracks of eclectic electronica spanning stylistic influences from classical to swedish electro pop to vaudeville.
Written during a short span of only two weeks in June and July of 2022, the EP is an experiment in sporadic and discovery-led composition using only a phone to create—specifically the Medly drum machine and mixing app.
Hear a 30-second sample of each track below.
∆001 Sealegs EP
01 . Sealegs
02 . When you cross
03 . Somewhere in Strasbourg
04 . In Virgo
05 . The itch & the scratch
06 . Grackles
02:27
03:14
03:44
03:33
04:11
04:27
Released August 8th, 2022.
All music and words by Better Models.
Available as a digital download in MP3 or FLAC formats as well as unlimited streaming from the Bandcamp website.
_______ABOUT
Better Models is the plural, queer, delightfully synthetic and fully contingent alter ego of Toronto-based designer, writer and artist-academic Zach Pearl.
Zach is a trained fine artist, graphic designer, curator and media theorist with specializations in art, technology and critical theory. He teaches at OCAD (Ontario College of Art & Design) in downtown Toronto and also at the University of Waterloo in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. His work often interrogates the distance (or lack thereof) between feminism, storytelling, activism and technofuturism.
Better Models is Zach's first official foray into music-making despite a childhood spent in band and choir programs as well as living amongst many musicians of an incredible range in style and philsophy. In it, the 'I' becomes 'We' in an effort to think more organically about the somatic relationship between body and instrument, flesh and circuitry, in the making of something expressive and 'alive'.
Succintly put: Better Models makes music for dance parties and sequestered computer nerds at the same time.
There are conscious influences from artists and groups like: The Knife, Matthew Dear, Curve, The Cure, Tool, George Frideric Handel, Erik Satie, Bjork, Kate Bush, Depeche Mode and Radiohead, just to name a few...