This band actually hails from Hamilton, but they play here often and their concept warrants rapt attention. A sort of Olivia Newton John acid trip, members switch off singing lead and doing hyperactive dance moves, with alternately robotic and feminine vocals alternating over heavy drums and electronic sounds. - blogTO

PERSONS and people everywhere are looking for a fix. We need something to fill the time, something to help us escape dull reality. Whatever your dependency is, PERSONS will provide.

With their new video for “Persons for the People,” premiering on Chart Attack from the recently released self-titled album, Hamilton’s deranged disco darlings (f.k.a. Nick Persons) depict the sacrifice at stake in creating art.

PERSONS - Persons for the People
The whimsical, offbeat video is centred around a vagabond, messiah-like figure as he journeys to deliver precious jugs of water to a haughty “aristocrat” in a pink wig. Upon receiving his water, the aristocrat rewards the vagabond with a strange, muddy brown concoction as the “persons for the people” refrain plays out for one more jubilant round.

The symbolism here suggests that PERSONS are campaigning for the liberation of the artist from co-dependent relationships imposed by the elite. The video’s co-director Jen Warne invites us to “straddle the dreary existence of artful makers without resources and catch glimpses of a ruling class who no longer have any class left to rule.”

Once freed from this capitalistic relationship, the artist can engage directly with their audience. That's what PERSONS do through exhibitionist dancing, nostalgic sampling and conversational, sing-song vocals. Their platform is clear, now you just have to decide if you can get behind it.

“Persons for the People” was directed by Jen Warne & Adam Kemp. Music by PERSONS (Jackson Darby, Benita Whyte, Katie McDonald & Sam Rosenberg)

PERSONS is now out on HAVNrecords and available to stream/download here.

Catch PERSONS on tour with Guy Madonna on the following dates (venues TBA):

Dec 1 Hamilton
Dec 2 Brantford
Dec 3 Toronto
Dec 4 London
Dec 5 St Catherines
Dec 6 Kingston
Dec 7 Guelph
Dec 8 Peterborough
Dec 9 Ottawa
Dec 10 Montreal - Chart Attack

They're not really new, but they're new to me (in 2015). They provide some heavy duty entertainment. - Chart Attack

From the utterly demented universe created by the brain of Hamilton’s Nick Persons, in collaboration with Silent Shout’s favourite bodily fluid-named sibling, Bile Sister, we’re pleased (and somewhat frightened) to present the premiere of “Fries Without A Dog.” The electro-pop and hip-hop deconstructor has put together a wonderfully imploded hip-hop jam that alternates between syrupy-slow synth-heavy grooves and stretches of beatless ooze. There are definitely similarities to Hamilton hometown hero Motem, but instead of smooth and uplifting, Persons keeps things shifting and unsettling. But it’s the kind of chaos we love!

Check out the rest of Nick’s work on Bandcamp. And last week we featured the first single from Bile Sister’s Dohn Valley side project, and you should hear that too. - Silent Shout

Radio-wave signals are temperamental when driving between Toronto and Montreal. In classic road trip fashion, your tape deck is broken but at least you got the radio. The search button is permanently pressed, so channels laced with static frantically switch. Normally this drags, but luckily you realize a demented genius has taken over the dials to save your trip vibes. You dig his mind-blowing style and hand the power over to your new DJ, Nick Persons. The destination is known but the journey is full of surprises.

Agony Ecstasy is an abrasive yet chilled out exploitation of recognizable hits juxtaposed with obscure tunes. Nick Persons expresses the tweaked result of a ’90s hip-hop music consumer baby within a warped ’70’s disco/soul template to create an innovative style of lo-fi experimental rap. His pitch-shifted vocals are slyly seductive, while paying tribute to the art of sampling. Mangled, interwoven sounds are chopped at random to pave a bizarro, disjointed beat. While totally authentic, some moments are vaguely familiar, others intentionally recognizable. I vibe this sonic adventure, it takes me places. Agony Ecstasy is an all-night channel-surf party on a helium-rap, noise-sparkled casino cruise.

Feel the sexual groove, the abrasive touch. A DJ mentality combined with an impulsive tick. Nick Persons is a statement, a persona, and a concept embodied. Keep an open mind. Jackson Darby and his drummer/keyboardist sidekick ‘Rawky’ Rosenberg have tapped into a new genre. Give in and take a dip. - Weird Canada

Y'all are in for a treat this week, as I got Jackson Darby, the guy behind Nick Persons, to put together a playlist for you. He chose twelve songs he would play in a DJ set. He also kindly answered our Their Pretty Looks questionnaire (which from now on will be called Who's That Boy/Who's That Girl). I have to say, he has some of the funniest answers so far, so y'all have, yes HAVE, to read on.

1. A/S/C?
24/Montreal

2. What’s your occupation? What’s your passion?
Artist, musician, DJ



3. Who's your style icon?
Sun Ra. So funky, glittery and shiny. Spacey. Up there with him is Parliament Funkadelic and George Clinton. If only I could ever look as funky as they do, oh man. I just could never pull it off like they did.

4. What’s your favourite trend of the moment?
Hot dogs, goats, barfing.

5. What are some of your fashion pet peeves?
I don't care what people wear, but I wish they were funkier.

6. Where do you usually shop?
I mostly like to wear clothes that my friends don't want anymore, or that I find in the garbage. I try to spend zero dollar on clothes. So far, that has been working out great for me.


7. What’s your best-kept style secret?
Vests. Funky vests. My favourite vest has a sort of nautical theme with a pattern of sailing ropes and clamps on it. It's also reversible to an all-red side which makes me look like an employee at K-mart.

8. What song do you have on repeat right now?
Hood Pass by Dam Funk. That guy's got a raw-ass funky style.

9. Your favourite hangout?
Probably Crobar in Montreal. Really crappy bar on one of my least favourite streets in the city. But the beer is the right price, and there’s never anyone upstairs so you can plug your own iPod into the PA. The open mic nights filled with 19-year-old metal heads are always a good time.



10. What’s the one item that your friends are tiiiired of seeing because you wear it too often?
They don't care, really. I think they like mostly everything I wear.

OH and most importantly, Nick Persons is releasing his fourth album, Agony Ecstasy. If you want to help (of course you do) in the process of producing actual CDs and not only digital copies of the album, head this way!

Stay up to date about Nick Persons' endeavours on his Facebook page. - Ton Petit Look

Nick Persons will take the stage with their distorted fever dream. Like the aftermath of a vinyl collection hitting a ceiling fan, the listener is riddled with aural shrapnel that leaves them hemorraghing rainbows. - Barbara

Nick Persons released a 45 as Jackson D a few years ago, and I often reach for it when I want to have an intensely, vastly referential listening experience. He's a super skillful artist who truly appreciates the history of hip-hop and I expect nothing but great things from this new project. - Midnight Poutine

Si vous passez vos journées à dessiner sur Paint et que vous détestez les chèvres, venez voir la prestation de Nick Persons. Ce rappeur montréalais ne cessera de vous étonner avec son hip-hop complètement psychédélique. - POP Montreal

Nick Persons is a Montreal-based rapper and his beats sound like The Avalanches on peyote. The ceaseless parade of samples that he raps over is eclectic and inventive. One second he’s spitting over old-school soul, the next over the sounds from a porno. - POP Montreal

In hope that he will see this tribute before he departs into the woods for the next several months, I am posting the latest Nick Persons album now. I apologize for interrupting my occult Italian trilogy but one must Goethe with the floweth. With the terminal defunctness of his group Fucked Butter, rap antagonist Nick Persons has had to keep busy creating his own brand of fucked hop. 2012 has so far seen the release of his primarily instrumental debut 66 Cents and more recently his return to the mic in Depart. Produced largely in bed in the wee hours of dusks and dawns, Depart captures the various altered states which occupy the mind at such times. "My House In Compton Is Off Limits" sounds like Prince on crack at 5AM after a wild house party in the 80s that Foreigner showed up to with some bad blow that gave everyone bloody nostrils. A hit to be sure. "Popular Kids" coins the proverb "we all know how to party, just clap" and makes one believe they do so much so that they will. "Yellow Drink" sounds like a stoned and tense philosophical conversation between Nick himself and Pizza the Hutt. "All the Hardcore" closes off the strange trip with the only sample Dilla was not lucky enough to pick up. All in all, Depart is an incredibly strong effort from a frighteningly deranged mind and deserves to be lauded as the truly innovative take on the hip hop idiom it is. Word up Persons.
- Big Jesus Trash Can

On the way back to check into my hotel, I technically see my first band. There’s a welcome BBQ happening in the small grassy space outside HQ, and a strange beat is pulsing from within. I walk over to find Nick Persons hunched over a synth, dressed in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and yelling (as best I can tell) “I believe!” over and over into a microphone modulated to the point of sounding robotic. Off to the side, two girls in high-waist shorts and belly shirts dance (read: swing their arms wildly) to the drummer’s syncopated beats, clearly dying in the heat of the sun. The set ends before I can ready my camera. Canadians are weird. - Consequence of Sound

Currently based in Hamilton, Ontario Nick Persons combines disco motifs with dissonant rapping and hip-hop idioms. Wrapped up in a mish-mash of vinyl samples and keyboard jolts, Nick Persons creates a conceptually-driven performance including live dancers, projections and a hype-man. - POP Montreal 2015