Supergroup The Syncopation Rebels (Martha Johnson, Mark Gane, Chloe Kay, Alex Exists, John Orpheus) Reimagine Goldfrapp's 'Number 1'

Fri Jan 10, 2025
The Syncopation Rebels

Choosing a song to put your own signature or stamp on can be daunting. One often has to walk the line between not being a mirror image of the original but not going overboard and completely renovating the arrangement. For the highbrow pop super group known as The Syncopation Rebels, they've walked that line perfectly with a stunning cover of Goldfrapp's "Number 1." It's guaranteed to leave you putting the song in rotation if not on a loop.

Martha and the Muffins and John Orpheus As Chemical Dreams Cook Up Funky Magic on ‘Buttermilk’

Thu Nov 21 2024
Martha and the Muffins and John Orpheus

On paper, there are few team-ups less obvious than the pairing of new wave legends Martha and the Muffins with kitsch-funk revivalist John Orpheus. But they’ve hit pay dirt together before, and now they’re about to do it again. On “Buttermilk,” their second joint single in as many years, the unlikely coconspirators throw down a groove that just won’t quit—and prove the success of their ongoing part-time partnership is no fluke.

High In The ’90s: Toronto Hip Hop - Funk Connoisseur John Orpheus Heats Up The Summer By Taking Us Back

Fri May 17, 2024
John Orpheus

Get Right! EP Release Party June 18 at The Rivoli. Tickets Now Available: eventbrite.com/e/john-orpheus-get-right-ep-release-celebration-tickets-880410671017?aff=oddtdtcreator

Baggy jeans and Timberlands for everybody! Toronto hip hop - funk connoisseur John Orpheus teleports us back to the salad days of the late 20th century on his new single, “90’s Fool.” And young and old alike take notice: What we have here is a throwback with real pull. Check it out on YouTube here:

Orpheus Ascending: Old-School Funkateer John Orpheus Reaches New Heights On “Get Right!”

Fri Apr 12, 2024
John Orpheus

Break out your velvet couches, champagne flutes, and Soul Train swagger: Performance artist, musician and author John Orpheus brings back the golden age of get-down on his mood fixer of a new single, “Get Right!” Watch on YouTube here:

Like an urgent, time-traveling bulletin from an era when funk, punk and pop coexisted happily on the dancefloor, the new record finds the Trinidad-born, Toronto-based Orpheus applying his talent for musical shapeshifting to deliver a motivational sermon that's nostalgically succinct:

If it feel right, jump on it
If it ain’t right, we don’t want it
If it ain’t right, we don’t get your money

BTW- Wax Mannequin, Dan Mangan, The Hearts, John Orpheus, Lucy Rose, Church of Trees, Cordovas, Julian Taylor Band

Fri Jun 29 2018
Wax Mannequin

The oft enigmatic Wax Mannequin (aka Hamilton, Ontario's Christopher Adeney) dropped his seventh album, Have A New Name, on June 22 through Coax Records/Outside Music The album was launched with Wax Mannequin's June 23 show at This Ain't Hollywood in Hamilton, followed by a full Canadian tour that kicks off July 14 at The Rivoli in Toronto.

As Wax Mannequin, Adeney has established himself as a profound lyricist and songsmith, as well as a self-effacing showman. His music also reveals him to be a student of the human psyche, constantly finding fresh and interesting ways to frame the people we are and the things we encounter. All of that is gloriously displayed on Have A New Name, the result of Adeney reuniting with producer Edwin Burnett, with whom he made some of the first Wax Mannequin recordings in the early 2000s.