Fiver is Toronto-based Simone Schmidt, whose deep discography explores the experimental fringe of North American folk and country. For their latest release, they posted up in Scotch Village in Mi’kma’ki, otherwise known as Nova Scotia, and teamed with the Atlantic School Of Spontaneous Composition, known for their collaborations with Beverly Glenn Copeland. The resulting eight tracks push Fiver’s psychedelic country tendencies into jazzy experimental territory.

Parts of the album resemble Feist’s Metals and Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool and Bruce Hornsby’s windswept piano landscapes, while lead single “Leaning Hard (On My Peripheral Vision)” is flecked with wah-wah guitar straight out of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love. “Leaning hard on my peripheral vision/
Trawling on the edges of my mind,” Schmidt and Jeremy Costello’s harmonized vocals begin. “Wading through the dregs of this condition/ I can’t abide — I got you on my side.”

Schmidt shared this statement on the song:

There is this part in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail where Martin Luther King Jr. says, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” He goes on to admonish “the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” That’s the negative peace I’m talking about in the second verse of this song, and from there I think you can piece together the rest.

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Yeah But Uhhh Hey”
02 “Leaning Hard (On My Peripheral Vision)”
03 “June Like A Bug”
04 “Jr Wreck”
05 “Sick Gladiola”
06 “Death Is Only A Dream”
07 “Paid In Pride”
08 For Your Sake” (Feat. Special Costello)

Fiver With The Atlantic School Of Spontaneous Composition is out 5/7 on You’ve Changed Records.