Friday Night Inn, the offspring rap+trap music label
Introducing Friday Night Inn, the new music label created by van garden and beamer!, aka JJ and Theo!
New album, Popstar!
The first release was van garden’s Poetic Reconstruction, vol. 1: Montreal. It is also the first in a series of releases inspired by the spirit of place, childhood memories and spontaneous bursts of creative expression. It is notable also for composition through the intricate layering of audio tracks produced by van garden, including seven layers of solo drums, haunting guitar and medieval instruments.
Poetic Reconstruction, vol. 2: Costa Dorada tells the story of the waves and moon. His next full album was Dirty Sand and Tree Thoughts was inspired by travels in Helsinki and Seoul.
beamer!’s first single and his 5 song trap ep PLANET BEAM! are also out at Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music. His follow up was RIP BEAM and he then released a new album in collaboration with his friends, Montreal producers and rappers, entitled 88BEAMAC.
van garden and beamer! have grown up in a household where creativity is at the forefront, and thus began composing and recording at an early age, producing several unpublished albums even before their teens. They are inspired by underground rap, trap and free jazz. Always prolific, they have several more recordings slated for release in the coming year. They also appear on Michel’s latest Ars Transmutatoria recordings in Helsinki and Rome, and Jeannette’s Opera of the Unspoken and Portrait Landscape both as vocalists and lyricists.
In addition to producing music, beamer! is a freelance illustrator (see beam.illustrator on Instagram) and has created album art for a large range of artists, primarily rap and jazz musicians, the clothing brand 4D, as well as creating live drawing multimedia performances for several concerts and animated music videos that have been featured at a number of film festivals. He’s studying art at Concordia University and abroad.
van garden has completed his Psychology/ East Asian studies undergraduate degree from Mcgill University during studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea and is currently dedicating himself to artistic pursuits full-time. His most recent release, I Love You Today, I Love You December, was recorded in Seoul. He also has two experimental albums waiting the wings so watch this space for release announcements.
Here are some quotes from reviews describing their work on Ars Tranmutatoria and Opera of the Unspoken:
“poétiques et étranges, sombres et mousseux” LA GAZETTE BLEUE
“modulations plus recherchées, du rythme contrôlé de leur scansion, de la charge des lettres, mots et phrases aux césures calculées” LA GAZETTE BLEUE
“comme une lecture accompagnée époque ‘Beat Generation’”LA GAZETTE BLEUE
“decisive, comping rhythms, painting thick lines around Michel Lambert’s trembling snare patterns” THE WHOLENOTE
“a tongue so precise it proves that words can briefly take back the mantle from pictures” THE WHOLENOTE
“Dans une approche non éloignée de ce que proposer Mike Ladd ou Edash Quata, les deux jeunes gens transforment totalement le climat qui se teinte de plus en plus de nuit” CITIZEN JAZZ
“gamelans and spoken word rail against the immoral incidents” THE WHOLENOTE
“Voix de vocalistes, poètes qui s’unissent, captent les énergies telluriques et cosmiques, ramènent les rêves dans le réel pour transformer le chagrin en beauté” LA GAZETTE BLEUE