Toronto-based producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist The Ugly Fun has unveiled his latest track, “Bounce.” The single combines oscillating octaves, sunny lo-fi pop and garage with a unique and progressive guitar lead to bring the electroclash and bloghouse scenes of the late aughts into 2022.
It’s innovative, catchy, and like all music of that time, is the cumulation of collaboration; he had been approached by a UK producer via Instagram to write 20 pop tracks, in the hope that they might appeal to one of his artists, and is now mixing and releasing the best of them. This one, “Bounce,” is about a childhood friend he can’t find anywhere, despite living in an age of social media and hyper-connectivity.
The artist explains:
“We used to sleep on the roof of his house, make cassette tapes of our private conversations and break into the local high school on weekends hiding from the janitors behind costumes in the drama room, but I can’t find him. It’s like he disappeared. I hope he’s still alive; our childhood friendship will always haunt me. I’m building a video for ‘Bounce’ now and it will be along the lines of what I’ve been calling beat-collages on my instagram account. I’ll push it on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but I’m not a fan of the highly popular rinse and repeat method of posting repetitive messages on a daily basis. I like to be a touch more sparse and creative if I can. The pedaling of our private life for attention and metrics is troubling, but I’ve met some of the best people in my life on social media and I look to them for suggestions and strategies.”
Stay tuned as The Ugly Fun will be unveiling more tracks ahead of his 2023 EP release.
