FIELD REPORT: Nicole Dollanganger // Foxes In Fiction // Emily Reo

All Photos: Dylan Johnston

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Gerard Marcus

This was a strange bill, and I thought so from the moment I saw it. Besides the fact that they're both from Canada, I couldn't really imagine the similarities between Foxes in Fiction and Nicole Dollanganger. The former was an obvious pair with Emily Reo, seeing as they're collaborators, but for some reason throwing Dollanganger into the mix seemed like a mismatch.

The idea was intriguing, though, and as I listened back and forth between the discographies of each artist, I started to see where the connection might be coming from. Though the reasoning was still a bit opaque, my curiosity won out in the end and I made my way to Baby's All Right to experience the wonderfully bizarre lineup. Pics and notes below.

Emily Reo

The first two acts were, as we've come to expect, aggressively chilled-out. It isn't surprising if you've meandered through Emily Reo's music—her nicely minimal, slightly folky style of dream pop is like a soundtrack to aimless, late-night reflection. And when you come off a nine-hour day of manual labor like I just had, you quickly realize that's exactly what you want.

Foxes In Fiction

Ever since its release last September, Foxes In Fiction's Ontario Gothic has consistently been one of my favorite albums. Sadly, every time I've tried to see Warren Hildebrand live, something has come up and prevented me. Since I couldn't catch his concerts, I just dove even deeper into his recordings, getting perhaps a little too familiar with every little nuance and texture.

Then I didn't touch it for a while. In fact, the first time I've listened to any of the songs off Ontario Gothic since that initial over-saturation was at this concert, which made for a crazy experience because it was all done as a solo set.

At first, I was worried that the music wouldn't be as powerful as it is on the album. That ended up being true, to a certain extent, but what we got instead was a much more fragile and intimate rendition that was absolutely beautiful. The stripping of instrumental layers left the audience with an introspective performance that showcased the vulnerability of Hildebrand's vocal delivery and the simplicity of his guitar work.

Nicole Dollanganger

Nicole Dollanganger has fascinated me for a while now with her mix of soft, intimate lyrics and dark musical textures. It's one of those weird combinations that's surprisingly engrossing. Her music is even more fascinating in the group's live performance, with the small and introspective Nicole Dollanganger surrounded by a bassist who seems to be channeling a troll and a man who plays both guitar and percussion while he stares, unblinking, into the audience's soul with mascara-covered eyes. It's a striking vignette, but one that helps give context to the world in which this music was forged. I loved it.

Review: Foxes in Fiction - Ontario Gothic

Sarah Tembeckjian

Imagine you’re in an empty theater. You’ve just come in from the daylight and it takes a minute for your eyes to adjust; but soon after the door closes behind you, you realize that you’re in complete darkness. Blinking and feeling your way down the aisle, you search for the stage and climb up. The darkness is thick, almost palpable. It engulfs you as you become aware of your breath, feeling your chest rise and fall.

Warren Hildebrand of Foxes in Fiction has delivered another powerful album with Ontario Gothic, and like darkness in an empty theater, the sound is overwhelmingly enveloping and meditative. It allows you to focus and relinquish expectation. It invites you to be still. However, the aesthetic itself isn’t dark at all. Hildebrand paints with vivid colors on this album, starting small and using sweeping brush strokes to reveal the music in time.

Take a closer look at “Shadow’s Song,” which starts out with a soft fingered guitar melody, wobbling in the silences in between each phrase. The hesitant, minor start to this song is then ripped open with a wave of sound. Hildebrand strikes a chord on the guitar and lets it resonate across the space he has created, anchored by a thumping beat and synchronized lyrics. Each strike is like breaking through a new layer, rippling deeper into the rich colors and patterns of a kaleidoscope. The song also features Owen Pallet on violin, adding a soaring melodic layer to the otherwise low and misty aesthetic. It widens the color spectrum and leads into the title track, where the same violin and guitar melodies continue to develop.

On “Ontario Gothic,” Hildebrand reuses the guitar pattern from “Shadow’s Song” as an ostinato, a small melodic motif that repeats on a loop. However, it takes on new life with different instrumentation, articulation, and tempo, all of which give it a stronger direction and energy. Despite the song’s more upbeat and optimistic tone, the lyrics relate to a dark and tumultuous period in the artist’s life. Hildebrand writes, “lyrically, ‘Ontario Gothic’ is written about a close friend named Cait who died in 2010 and to whom the album is dedicated … getting to know, open up to and spend time with Cait during those first years helped open me up to kinds of happiness and a love for life that I didn’t think was within the realm of possibility at that point in my life.” This context provides a fascinatingly intimate insight into Hildebrand’s emotionality and inspiration. His technique and aesthetic definitely lend themselves well to the subject matter – after such a trauma, wouldn’t your mind be cloudy, too?

The trademark fuzziness of Foxes in Fiction comes from Hildebrand’s various tools and processors, including an old reel-to-reel tape machine. He’s previously stated that pure, unaltered sound is too clean, too digital for his taste. Instead, he’s attracted to the warmth, haziness, and imperfection that results from multiple processors, a practice that stems from pioneers in experimental pop and ambient music, like Brian Eno and Atlas Sound. 

With Ontario Gothic, Hildebrand has added another phenomenal work of art to the Foxes in Fiction oeuvre, and the strong melodic quality of most of the tracks is definitely a welcome departure from some of his earlier, more purely experimental ambient projects. Despite being at least partially inspired by tragedy, I think this record represents a joyful new direction for the project.