La Force

La Force, the mesmerizing solo project from Ariel Engle, unveils today the title track from her brand-new album, XO SKELETON, out this Friday via Secret City Records. “'xo skeleton,' the song - is the overarching theme of the record,” says Engle. “It’s an image I’d love as protection. A carapace that keeps the goo inside. This protection is in love, kisses, and hugs. It’s what bolsters us in life. The love is an invisible shroud that we adorn others in and are adorned in. It’s a reminder that within us are skeletons. Symbols of death and yet the architecture that animated us while we are alive. It’s a song about the inevitability of death as both a motivator to love fully and at times disincentivizing Force - why bother if I’m going to die versus I must do so much while I’m still alive.” 

Early singles from the album have been praised by MOJO, Rolling Stone France, Stereogum, NYLON, The FADER, Brooklyn Vegan, Clash Magazine, BBC6 Music, Exclaim! and more. The new album was included in CBC Music Fall Guide: 19 new releases you need to hear, and the twelve Quebec albums to hear this Fall from Journal de Montréal. La Force also performed at France Inter “Côté Club” last week in Paris; listen HERE.

Be sure to catch the "XO Skeleton Performance Series” only in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa this Fall. These concerts are meant to be a full 360 experience, combining live music with performance art, sensory installation, immersive sound design, and video projection. The performance series will center experiences and topics often relegated to the background—of music, of popular culture, and of our own psychic landscape—whilst pushing the boundaries of traditional musical performance and creating an augmented, embodied experience for its audiences.

XO SKELETON is the supple, steady, uncanny sophomore album by La Force: a mixture of haunted pop and hot-blooded R&B that glistens at the meeting point between life, death, and love. The album was coproduced by La Force and Warren Spicer (Plants and Animals). “The theme of the album revealed itself in the making,” she explains, recalling how the title track is rooted in a telephone call with her life-insurance broker—one everyday banality on the periphery of death. “At one point she said, ‘God forbid you should die.’ I was gobsmacked. ‘Well, there’s one thing guaranteed: no god or goddess is going to keep me alive.’” 

Born and based in Montreal, La Force made her electrifying studio debut on Broken Social Scene 2017’s Hug of Thunder. The following year, Engle released La Force, garnering a Polaris Music Prize long-list nomination and drawing attention from Stereogum, the Globe & Mail, and NPR’s “Morning Becomes Electric,” as well as The National’s Aaron Dessner, who recruited Engle to appear on the new Big Red Machine LP alongside Bon Iver, Taylor Swift, Fleet Foxes and Sharon Van Etten. Engle was also invited to contribute to the recent album by Patrick Watson, who used their collaboration as the lead single on 2022’s Better In The Shade. Engle recently released a critically acclaimed (★★★★ - MOJO) album part of ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT, Engle’s drone/modular synth/voice team-up with Godspeed You! Black Emperor founder Efrim Manuel Menuck. Engle has appeared on stage with the likes of Maggie Rogers, Martha Wainwright, Leif Vollebekk, The Barr Brothers and more.

Early Praise for XO SKELETON:

“Engle sets the emotional controls for the heart of the moon, stirring up gothy atmospheres […] The Bat For Lashes smoke-and-mirrors of Outrun The Sun and How Do You Love A Man’s minimal Lana Del Rey moves are supple pop, saxophone and synth supporting Engle’s taste for theatre. All the ethereal turmoil, though, can’t mask XO Skeleton’s good songwriting bones.” – MOJO (UK), ★★★

“While the songs on XO Skeleton are intimate and sometimes gutting, there's so much life in them that together the pop and R&B tracks make a dance record anyway — just one that might make you cry while shaking all the feelings out.”– CBC Music (CA)

“La Force confirms the English-speaking, lo-fi and intimate indie pop vein”– Rolling Stone France,  ★★★

“the sound of an artist moving deliberately towards evolution.”– Clash Magazine (UK)

“[…] Engle is such an evocative singer that she imbues these songs with a gravitas that belies their fragility […] Engle has such a confident melodic sensibility […] her vocals transcend everything that is happening around them. Ariel Engle is a talent to be appreciated on her own, not just as a member of another project.”- Northern Transmission (CA)

“Accomplished, passionate and slick.” – BBC6 Music (UK)

“Engle delivers a singular and spectral version of R&B, laced with the sparseness of Young Marble Giants with catharsis and yearning bursting from every note of her immaculate vocals.”– The FADER

“Over nimbly plucked guitar and jazzy horns, her rich voice sounds like pulling over an old knit sweater as she sings about watching the cyclical decay of animals and plants”– NYLON (US)

“Mesmerizing… Engle’s new album is a treasure trove of delights, taking in everything from spectral R&B to haunted pop. It also has a rare kind of intimacy hich pulls you further into her world.” – Crack (UK)

“La Force gives us magnificent pop and R&B songs shot through with melancholy and introspection, which focus on the universal themes of life, death and love.”– Journal de Montréal (QC)