2016 sees the launch of Toronto indie band Last Hologram’s album Brave New Universe. But not before a death match with Toronto indie band Lickpenny Loafer.
Okay, it was a metaphorical cage match. We used to be called Lickpenny Loafer. But that ran its course.
In our defense, our singer and fearless leader, Arunachal Subramanian, was inspired by an O. Henry story, “A Lickpenny Lover.”
He’s inspired by some strange and varied things: He grew up in India, the grandson of Indian classical music composer Indira Natesan (aka grandma). He came of age musically in Johannesburg, where he lived and worked for a time, listening to South African music like Kweto – and a lot of Morrissey and Radiohead and Talk Talk.
Add to that the influences of his bandmates and other collaborators — Devin Hannan (long-time songwriting collaborator and guitarist), Jen Benton(bass player for The Cliks and Andy Kim), James Scott (drummer for Hot Wax Meltdown), Karl Mohr (Sound Designer, Dead Red Velvet and others), Scott Galloway (keyboards/synth, Dean Brody and others), Stephan Szczesniak (drummer for Hawksley Workman, Sarah Slean, and others), and Marc Rogers (bass player for Philosopher Kings), and you get the picture.
As Lickpenny Loafer, we won over Toronto music fans with our headlining shows at the Horseshoe Tavern, Lee’s Palace, Revival, the Reverb (before it closed down), the Drake Underground, El Mocambo, C’est What, and many others. We put out two solid albums, and toured India.
After the progressive pop of 2011’s People Will Talk, we’ve gone in a new direction. Better name, better music. Brave New Universe is a marriage of synth-driven ’80s pop with dense rock grooves.
We’re 21-st century multi-culti indie. We’re CanCon! And we rock live. And yes, we’re unsigned – for now. But you said it yourselves: Indie comes in all shapes and sizes.
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