Premiere: Innerouter explore new territory with live performance VIDEO featuring unreleased music
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston
Calgary shoegaze outfit Innerouter have spent the last few years carving out a space in the local scene as a one-to-watch band with a crunchier take on the genre. On their 2024 debut album Get Real, they lean into the heavier side of dream-pop and collaborated with a range of producers/artists from The Passenger, In The Well, and the ambient experimental group Quiet Winter on a remix pack of past work. Now, as they prepare to enter their next chapter, the quartet is offering an early glimpse of what's to come.
Filmed inside Second City, the fifteen-minute session showcases a band pushing beyond the murky haze of their debut toward something sharper, while still holding onto the melancholy, intensity, and beauty that define their sound. Ahead of the premiere, we caught up with the band to discuss unconventional performance spaces, new material, and where Innerouter is headed next.
REVERIE: The video title "at the moment, forward & backward" - what does it refer to, and why did it feel like the right name for this session? (if this is what the title is going to be when it drops!)
Those are the song names. There is a third one on there called One Two. To be honest, we copied TAGABOW's NTS session with the title.
REVERIE: This performance was filmed at Second City. What drew you to that space specifically, and how did the environment shape the way these songs were performed or captured?
We wanted to place our performance video in an unconventional space where you wouldn't typically see a band (venue, studio, jam space). At first we had lined up a retro mall in the heart of chinatown, but that ended up falling through. Our guitarist Sunny works at Second City printing and mentioned that we could likely film in their warehouse, so we jumped on it. This ended up being a blessing in disguise because we could take way longer to set up (which we ended up needing), and also the band ended up sounding huge in that space.
REVERIE: ‘Get Real’ has now had some time to live in the world, but this video explores something new?
We will be coming out with our new album As If either later this year or early 2027 (depending on vinyl turnaround), so we wanted to showcase our new material going into Sled Island and our upcoming tour. This performance will be the first time the world hears these songs on the interwebs.
REVERIE: A live session often reveals different qualities in a song than a studio recording. Were there any moments during the performance where a track took on a new meaning, energy, or arrangement?
At one point during our live session we switched instruments and started jamming (there is a snippet of that in the outro). This was the most meaningful moment to us because we intend on creating new material in the fall and we showed ourselves that we are all capable musicians on multiple instruments. Perhaps instrument swapping is in our future.
REVERIE: For readers discovering Innerouter through this premiere, how would you describe the project at this moment? What do you hope people understand about the band after spending fifteen minutes with this performance?
We consider ourselves a heavy melancholic band. There is a sadness and intensity balanced with hope and beauty. Going from our debut album Get Real, we have shifted slightly from a murky hazy sound to a little bit more clarity where we're showcasing our vocals and detailed/textured guitar work.
REVERIE: What's the next chapter for Innerouter?
In the nearterm we have a bunch of shows, including a tour to the coast. After that we'll be filming some music videos and launching our album rollout for As If. In the background we'll be writing songs for our next album and looking at touring outside of Canada.
