WATCH/SHARE 'EDITOR' VIDEO HERE

Two years ago, Calgary musician L. Adam Fox abandoned an album’s worth of idiosyncratic folk-rock songs, intended to be released under his former nom de plume, Field Assembly, as his burgeoning obsession with electronic music production developed. That obsession became his new project Carbolizer and on October 26th he'll be releasing an album's worth of new music as Carbolizer's self-titled debut.

After releasing 2 singles in 2017 ('Ring' and 'exe' ) Carbolizer's third single 'Editor' was released last Friday when the video (directed by Parker Thiessen) premiered on Northern Transmissions. Carbolizer will be playing a string of Canadian tour dates around the album's release starting in Edmonton on October 20th. See below for full tour listings. 

With Carbolizer, L. Adam Fox pivots and moves in a completely different musical direction than his previous project Field Assembly, and he found it to be a welcome creative change. 

"I had been spinning my wheels for a couple of years following the release of Field Assembly's album Narco," says Fox. "I actually recorded an album of material, but in the end I scrapped it. I did work out some new methods in the process of making that record that led me to the realization that I could expand stylistically by removing some of the limitations that I'd been imposing on my work. I started writing with different instruments, approaching writing without the conventions I'd become used to - that led me from piano to keyboards, to synths, to drum machines, samplers, etc. I realized I could really do anything I wanted, and that led to Carbolizer." 

Drawing on a pool of synths, samples, and electronic sources that lean towards the darker spectrum of new wave, industrial and ambient music, Fox’s debut self-titled album as Carbolizer is the musical manifestation of his own existential anxieties of mortality, human and artificial intelligence, and a world on the brink of chaos.

At times conjuring the dreamlike scores of ‘80s-era fantasy films, Fox taps into this unease with airy, elegiac shifts (‘Sky’), blissful futurism (‘Editor’), and a vintage, synth-hued whimsy (‘exe’). With a knack for beautifying the sounds of malaise, some cuts are unintentionally dance-oriented. ‘Ice’ is a collision of wailing electronics, drum machine claps and cold, percussive pitter-patters that flicker like the steady flash of a strobe light, while ‘Time’ moves to a motorik beat, and ‘Ring’ unearths Fox’s most nostalgic analog inclinations.

A traditionalist when it comes to his artistic workflow, Fox opts for hardware over computers. That linear approach to music making also translates into his live shows, which frequently feature the multi-media work of artist Parker Thiessen (also the director of Carbolizer’s latest video 'Editor').

"I love working with Parker, " says Fox.  "We actually spent a couple of weeks together in close quarters at an artist residency at Banff Centre last fall, where I finished writing and recording the material that ended up being this record. I've always been attracted to the aesthetic of his visual art, and I thought that it would be a good fit with some of the themes I'd been preoccupied with. Tensions between technology and progress - antiquity and modernism. The way he manipulates dated technology to create these new ideas is really inspiring to me. I think there's an echo in the dichotomies and questions that informed a lot of the direction of the album."

Carbolizer will be available on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services on Friday, October 26th. For more information and the most up to date tour listings, please visit Carbolizer's Facebook page. 

CARBOLIZER UPCOMING TOUR DATES
Oct 20 - Edmonton, AB - Sewing Machine Factory
Oct 26 - Windsor, ON - Phog  Lounge
Nov 1 - Hamilton, ON - Boxcar Sound Recording
Nov 3 - Montreal, QC - La Plante
Nov 4 - Toronto, ON - Handlebar
Nov 9 - Calgary, AB - Em Media
Nov 10 - Vancouver, BC - Merge
 

CARBOLIZER - CARBOLIZER TRACKLISTING
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 26th, 2018 (Independent)
1.  Sky
2.  Editor
3.  Ring
4.  Ice
5.  Time
6.  Exe
7. Wave
 

FB: facebook.com/carbolizer
Instagram: @carbolizerrr
Twitter: @carbolizerrr

MEDIA TOOLS
WATCH/SHARE Carbolizer - 'Editor' HERE (via YouTube)
CLICK HERE for high-res press photos + album art