My new album Forager dropped last Friday. The past week has been a whirlwind. In-depth conversations I had with Vish Khanna for Kreative Kontrol and Tom Power for CBC q hit the web. There were some thoughtful words about Forager shared by KEXP, Le Devoir and Shatter the Standards, whom I thought did a particularly great job of capturing the essence of the album:
I put on a pair of vintage pop-up events over the weekend in Hamilton and Toronto, where I got to kick it with people IRL and further emphasize the theme of the album by sharing my clothing curation with folks in person. The response to the record and these events has been so heartening and I’ve appreciated all of the kind messages I’ve received on various platforms.
Putting on these vintage markets is all in service of the album’s theme. It’s a ton of work and you’d only do this stuff if you truly cared about it, much like being a musician. For example, for the Toronto event, I packed up my car full of crates of clothes, drove in from Hamilton at 7 am, lugged the crates one by one up three flights of stairs, unpacked and prepped everything, sold it all by myself for a few hours, deconstructed the whole pop-up, and then drove back home.
That doesn’t even take into consideration the time I spend sourcing clothes, which requires me to drive far distances to separate the wheat from the chaff, or the effort involved in cleaning / repairing garments after I get them. If I just wanted to make some cash, it would be much more effective to get a job on the rigs back in Alberta like some of my friends did than it would be to do any of the stuff that I choose to do.
There are few things more rewarding than helping other people to find the jacket of their dreams. In Hamilton, I sold an older woman a ‘70s Sears wool-lined denim jacket. Watching her try it on and pace around, it looked as if it had actually always been hers in the first place.
Similarly, I sold a distressed French chore coat to a woman who looked like she could’ve once been an artist who worked out of Warhol’s Factory. She had a Cindy Sherman vibe. I gave her a deal on it simply because she looked so ridiculously cool. I aspire to have swag like her when I get older.
Clothing is a way for us to relate to one another. I increasingly find myself searching for this manner of connection, especially at this time of fake fans and AI slop. I have always preferred to do things the slow way, cherishing the little vibrational moments when I can truly share something tangible with another human being. Those moments are more meaningful to me now and I hope that they feel the same way to you.
I’m bringing the Forager Market to Montréal this Saturday! Along with my crates, I’ll have the denim variant of the album with me as well. Here are the vendors:
I’ll also be doing a free in-store performance and vinyl signing at Sonic Boom in Toronto on May 13th:
Hope to see y’all there!
You can find me updating my playlists or hanging on TikTok, Instagram and Bluesky. You can listen to my music on Apple Music, Bandcamp and Spotify. You can get Cadence Weapon merchandise here. Pick up your copy of Bedroom Rapper here and please rate it on Goodreads.
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