ENSIGN BRODERICK RETURNS WITH TWO NEW ALBUMS

COME DOWN
AND
MIRROR RING
OUT MAY 16 TH

PRESENTS “INVIOLETTE” AND “CATHEDRAL CITIES”

“Dark, lush songs from a Canadian glam cult artist…Sniderman makes old-school glam sound urgent, gritty, and absolutely vital”- 8/10 UNCUT Magazine

“Jason Sniderman returns as Ensign Broderick, his 80s glam-rock persona”- The Globe & Mail
“a dash of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust mixed with Nick Cave’s bold audacity, and a splash of Mick

Jagger’s’ flamboyant swagger” – The National Post

“After quietly crafting Ensign Broderick songs for decades, the thrill of giving them a public release

here feels palpable” 8/10 Exclaim!

“The arrival of Ensign Broderick on the scene is one of the most fascinating musical stories…”-

Billboard CA

Toronto, ON – March 6 th 2024 – Ensign Broderick today announces his return with not one but two
new albums: Come Down and Mirror Ring, set for release on May 16th and unveils the first tracks
“Inviolette” and “Cathedral Cities.”

Six years ago Ensign Broderick, the long hidden glam rock alter ego of Jason Sniderman, finally emerged and put out an astonishing five records at once becoming “one of the most fascinating
musical stories of 2018” (Billboard CA) and earning praise from likes of UNCUT, Exclaim, and The
Globe & Mail. Ensign Broderick has however been an integral part of Sniderman ever since he was
a teen, before Sniderman began his storied career in the studio and on the stage. Back then, he
would write and record original songs on a reel-to-reel tape machine as Ensign Broderick. But no one
else heard them until six years ago.

With his latest releases, Come Down and Mirror Ring, Ensign Broderick is stripping everything down
and starting anew. Both albums are built around just piano and voice. They’re companion records,
split into two only because back in Broderick’s earliest career, albums should never be more than 40
minutes anyway.

Come Down and Mirror Ring feature the kind of songs few people seem to write anymore:
ambitious, with an air of grandeur, with emotional, visually evocative lyrics about faces behind veils of
tears. There are three unexpected covers: one is a deep cut by Rush (“Bravado”). “I Keep a Close
Watch,” is from a mid-’70s John Cale album and The Kinks’ “(A)Face in the Crowd.”

Ensign Broderick is an enigmatic man, suggestive of another time, another place and space. His
new music is timeless—not just in the sense of being both familiar and future-forward, but as from a
place where clocks don’t exist. So don’t worry too much about who Ensign Broderick is. Revel in the
mystery and sink deep into the songs.

Now this is so cool. Thank you JUNO Awards, Kris Knight, James Mejia, Chris Peters, Stefanie Schneider, and Six Shooter Records.

Thanks everybody for everything.
Love
xoxo

THE KEY OF X: ENSIGN BRODERICK JOINS SARAH SLEAN AND ERIN COSTELO FOR PIANO-FOCUSED SHOWS IN TORONTO AND NYC.

“A reclusive, romantic, tear-stained baritone and unabashed opus bringer.” – Globe and Mail

“Broderick makes old-school glam sound urgent, gritty, and absolutely vital.” – Uncut

A condemnation disguised as a benediction, Ensign Broderick’s BloodMyth speaks out against hate, pernicious nationalism and vainglorious self-destruction through characters that embody these, the very worst, ways of being. The album is an inverse/reverse/perverse excavation of 2018’s BloodCrush, a meditation on frailty and fallibility that edged ever closer to the brink. With BloodMyth, more a finale than a companion to its partner album, Ensign Broderick pushes things over the edge, where concepts of personal and political extremism come to swirling, chaotic conclusions.

“Swept Away,” a 5-minute melodrama, explores the oceanic disorientation of being over one’s head. With a classic backbeat, horns and pedal steel, the song channels late 60s FAME Studios rock, the overall aesthetic somewhere between bedazzled Manuel contrition and glam dandy swagger, the twin pillars of Ensign Broderick’s sound and style.

Appalachian folk meets California pop in “Our Angel of Morphine,” a sweetly celestial treatment of a truly dark and nasty tale. Ethereal, soft-focus brokenness is also present in “Love Died Here,” an atmospheric opiated half-time reworking of a song from BloodCrush. Pain, of whatever sort, and the treatment thereof is a major theme in the album, in both lyrical and visual form. The vinyl package contains a collage built around a main image of a spinal-fusion operating table, its sleek chrome more Ducati than OR supply.

The inescapable disintegration reaches its apex with “The Telling Part,” the last and oldest song on the album (c. 1970), a tale of alienation and abandonment. Over twelve minutes, anger boils and bubbles over. ‘Tell me about starvation and sustenance,’ it goes, which in its way encapsulates the poisonous imbalance of give and take found at every turn. BloodMyth’s villains – anonymous caricatured embodiments of the deadly sins – trade only in damages.

In contrast to the desert glitter of BloodCrush, BloodMyth’s physical form – a vinyl-first release for Record Store Day Canada (a move true to form for an artist with such a deep connection to music’s physical places and pieces) – unravels in similar fashion. From jarring hi-def patent leather to the scribbles and edits on the lyrics, the vinyl edition echoes the devolution and deconstruction of music and narrative in art.

With six albums out in just over a year, Ensign Broderick’s story and experience of launching his solo career at age 59, has little precedent. Each album conveys a fully realized and distinct dimension of the artist and persona, yet a complete picture of the inner life and creative ambition of the artist is only just starting to take form. “You’re getting a different Ensign Broderick with each project,” says the artist. “The progression from the childlike perspective of Ranger to the totally superficial, fully realized glam of Feast of Panthers, to the very personal depth-plumbing of BloodCrush/BloodMyth is a maturation and a devolution. These are all puzzle pieces.”

Listen to Ensign Broderick in conversation with Danko Jones here.

TOUR DATES:

TORONTO, ON: The Key of X, The Mod Club, June 18 w/ Sarah Slean, Erin Costelo
NEW YORK, NY: The Key of X, Public Arts, June 19 w/ Sarah Slean, Erin Costelo

Ensign Broderick’s THE KEY OF X series brings classical, contemporary and experimental artists together to celebrate piano-based composition and performance.

The inaugural Key of X took place at Winnipeg New Music Festival in 2018 with Ensign Broderick and Jónas Sen (Björk).