Capitol is a Hamilton, Ontario quintet made up of brothers, RJ and Josh Kemp, Matt and Wes Lintott, and Chris McLaughlin. Over seven years since their debut, they have released one full-length album, Dream Noise, out in 2019 via Meritorio Records, a four-song E.P, All The Rest Of My Heads (2021), an instrumental film score (Light Between Us, 2023) and several singles. Their next effort is their sophomore album, Sounds Like a Place, out November 8th through Meritorio Records. This eleven-song record has been a long time coming, with the initial  recording at Toronto’s Union Sound Company back in the summer of 2022.  Sounds Like a Place bears a mix of the industrial, electric hum of Capitol’s hometown of Hamilton and the shoegazey dream-pop that they’ve been leaning into since their debut single, 2017’s English Girls. This time  heavily inspired by alternative indie artists of the 90s/00s and still  tinged with a dash of 80s New Wave, the album weaves in and out of genre  and decade. Capitol enjoy films, local beer, and making each other cry of laughter with a single glance.

What They Say: “We built Crooked Knees around Wes’s lead guitar part. The first time he played it, we felt it was this psychadelic, trance-like siren sound, and we wanted to see where we could take things from there. To me, it sounded like a drunken gaze into the mirror. I think this is where the idea for the second-person lyrics came from, and the video too — just talking heads whose faces slowly melt or blend together. Writing something so personal to me while using second-person language created this distance or artifice, so to acknowledge the songwriting head-on in the second-verse’s lyrics felt like the right bow to tie to round out the song”. (Josh)

“Twenty-Eight in Drag is us asking, “Should we write another sad fast song?” Probably not, but we tried. It’s got this unrelenting energy right up until the end that we wanted to counter with timid words and a chorus melody that feels like a release. There’s this high level of performance in the music and we felt it could confront this ongoing social performance lyrically. I habitally overanalyze how much we “perform” in a public setting in ways that can feel unnatural. These acts of confidence, intelligence, self-possession and specifically gender that we put on consciously and unconsciously are all just indefinite things, veneers that waver from setting to setting, day to day, mood to mood. When you develop this hyper-awareness of it, it becomes exhausting and can make you forget what the realest version of yourself feels like. This one reminds me to check my pulse.“

Their Mixtape:

Leonard Cohen – Memories

The first time I heard this song (admittedly too late in life) I fell instantly in love with it. It’s got such a charming swing. It reeks of whisky and bad decisions and sounds like a big, bold grinning face. Had to shoutout a Canadian and who better than the Ladies’ Man himself.

Mica Levi – Love

All things Mica Levi. Their score work in film rattles to the core — it can be beautiful, terrifying, and always captivating. “Love” is the popularized piece from one of our favourite films, Under the Skin, and it encapsulates the beauty and terror all in the bending and shifting of a few notes. Highly recommend checking out all of Mica Levi’s work and the films that accompany them (Monos, The Zone of Interest).

 

Underworld – Custard Speedtalk

This is what stars sound like. Underworld holds a spot in our hearts (of the blood pumping, pulse-pounding kind) but the softness and longevity of this track will never cease to amaze me. It’s like electricity in slow motion, and I find something new to love about it every time it’s played.

Scribble – Mother of Pearl

Stumbling across this one recently, it latched its hook into my skull immediately and I’ve been humming it ever since. But it’s beyond an earworm: it’s a cool, it’s sexy, it could be the song you highlight to show someone in the car or the one you play casually in the background, and it feels like it could be from any decade of the last 50 years. 

Mary Jane Dunphe – Opening of a Field

If this song does not floor you in a trance, I don’t know what will. It’s bold and minimal at once, and every time I hear the frenetic rhythm I cannot tell if I am identifying individual breaths or instruments. Mary Jane Dunphe’s matchless voice somehow fits punk, country and dreampop interchangeably. Check out her continued work in CCFX, CC Dust, The County Liners and more. (Special shoutout to the timeless The One to Wait by CCFX as a cheat addition to this mixtape.)

 

Brian Eno, John Cale – Empty Frame

Who could be dared to not nod along with this one? We are boyishly obsessed with all things Brian Eno, his shining discography of ambience and mood music, and similarly obsessed with John Cale and his strange, genre-bending songwriting. These are two pioneer musicians of their time, and “Empty Frame” is proof they could write a catchy hook like nobody’s business. This one is the goofball karaoke anthem I have been waiting to sing all my life. 

Sounds Like a Place is out now via Meritorio Records. Look HERE for more information on Capitol.