Biography
For over a decade Harkness has been tirelessly working in his home studio honing his songwriting and production skills. He sings, plays guitar, bass, piano and drums, and also produces everything himself. He counts Prince and Todd Rundgren - both of whom also worked this way - as major inspirations.
Born in Toronto, Canada, Harkness is the 2nd in a brood of 5. Both his parents were talented musicians. His father fronted The Al Harkness Orchestra a band consisting of horns and winds along with a traditional rhythm section. His mother was a top French horn player at North Toronto Collegiate, a high school known for their music curriculum, as well as a beautiful piano player, who taught the local kids, including her own while they were growing up.
As a child, in order to listen to his Dad's vast record collection, Harkness would often fake sick and spend full days at home hanging out listening to John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, The Carpenters, Billie Holiday and Miles Davis.
Playing piano since the age of four, it wasn't until Harkness was shown his first guitar chords by a friend at age 12 that the fire to pursue music was lit. Recalling that moment he says, "It was almost eerie how easily it came to me, hearing the music come straight out of my hands felt so powerful, it was an immediate high that I knew I couldn't live without. Right away I started writing my own songs."
He dropped out of school at age 17 to go on tour, and never looked back. He played all over Canada, U.S., U.K. and Europe, with a number of musicians and bands including Paul Humphrey, Sara Craig, Nicolette, Chunk o’ Funk, The Stars, The Suns, Creature, Kong, Snipejoint.
"I was shown what appeared to be the blissful advantages of leading an imageless life," says Harkness when asked why he wears the gown and visor. “In the age of ‘look-at-me selfies’, I choose to go in quite a different direction.”
To facilitate the expense of maintaining his studio and paying other musicians to play on his songs, Harkness has spent many years in the restaurant industry serving tables, during which time his love of cooking flourished alongside passionate discussions with Chefs encountered along the way. Don't be surprised if one day you see the Harkness Psychedelic Rock and Roll Cooking Show. He’s already packaged and is selling his famous Harkness Hot Sauce.
Harkness doesn’t rely on machines or music samples, he works with real people playing real instruments to create lush evocative, deeply human sonic-scapes, all with a fresh, modern Pop aesthetic.
"I really do believe that deep down we are all the same and feel compelled to share what we've created,” notes Harkness. “Hopefully as others experience these songs I’ve created, they'll recognize miraculous things about themselves, just as I have about myself."
Despite all of the warm 3 to 5 part vocal harmony and sophisticated hooks, there is a dark undercurrent brewing underneath the surface of much of this music. A reflection of the chaotic division expressed throughout the world around us.
"Ultimately though,” adds Harkness, "I hope that while listening to these songs, people at once feel the urgency and desperation of our time but are inspired and emotionally moved enough to take steps in their own life to help improve our collective world."
Releases
The Occasion
Title Track & Video
"Listening to Harkness I was completely blown away by his grasp of vocal harmony and arranging. His songwriting and production is some of the best I've heard in years."
- Roger Manning (Beck, Jellyfish, TLQ)
“The mysterious Harkness arrives with a debut that is as imaginative and exciting as anything else released in 2021. Awash with lush harmonies and full of unexpected left turns, this is a psych rock/pop masterpiece. Surely, in such a bland, vanilla-flavoured world, such daring and boldness is something to celebrate… if any album deserves to be heard in 2021, it is this one."
- Gordon Rutherford, Louder Than War
For over a decade, Harkness has been tirelessly working in his home studio honing his songwriting and production skills.
A self-produced multi-instrumentalist, Harkness - mystically clad in visor and gown - wears his inspiration from musical titans such as Brian Wilson, Prince, and Todd Rundgren on his sleeve.
He sings, plays guitar, bass, piano and drums, and produces everything himself. At a time when many artists are relying heavily on machines, Harkness focuses only on real instrumentation to create lush, evocative, deeply human sonic scapes, with a fresh modern pop aesthetic which calls to mind Soft Bulletin era Flaming Lips.
His next live performance is Thursday December 9, at Supermarket in Kensington Market in Toronto (268 Augusta Ave.). His one-man show is quite the spectacle and is a definite must-see.
Nothing short of ambitious, the debut album The Occasion begins with its title track, an 8-minute opus consisting of a variety of musical ‘trips’ which journey through various inner and outer states of destruction and rebirth, seeking a revolutionary inner truth and freedom. Commencing with a violent explosion (the sound of a piano dropping, and an acoustic guitar being thrown at a piano harp), the song sails through passages of soulful west coast pop harmonies and strings, brooding cinematic big band menace, Stravinsky-esque overtures and driving Indie-Rock.
“This single tune is like an album of ten tracks in one song,” notes Louder Than War’s Gordon Rutherford, “a veritable Bohemian Rhapsody for our times, and is probably the most ambitious thing I have encountered all year.”
”Just as you are recovering from that,” continues Rutherford, “Harkness lays the world’s catchiest hook on you. The Beck-like I.D. is so infectious, it should be legally required to double mask. From there, it’s into the uplifting and anthemic Tornado, propelled by Harkness’ soaring guitars. GM GM (an abbreviation for good morning) is pure Brian Wilson-inspired songwriting. It’s lush and melodic, and represents something of a change of pace from the headiness of the opening three tracks. But it’s also a really important milestone in this album, because as you take it in, you begin to realise just what a talented songwriter Harkness is.”
Album-closer Moonspell, begins as a reverie that poignantly evokes a locked down COVID planet caught in a massive hex. “Some other day we'll wake our world from slumber” Harkness pines over a radiant, melancholic arrangement. After passing through orchestral and choral tumult, the song then returns us to a place where we can once again privilege ourselves to imagine “dreamy days of nothing wrong.” In another standout track, Lure of the Pollen, low range tubas and bassoons flirt with flutes and marimbas, creating a unique and vibrant sound picture that conjures a passionate interplay of instinctual energies, of those butterflies in the stomach that occur during early romance.
"I hope that while listening to these songs,” notes Harkness, “people will feel the urgency and desperation of our time, but are inspired and emotionally moved enough to take steps in their own life to help improve our collective world."
August, 2021: The Occasion was digitally released on Windchild Records.
September, 2021: The Occasion CD/VINYL was released.
November 12, 2021: Harkness performed live - first time in a decade - to a sold-out crowd at Living Colour Music Venue, in Toronto.
December 9, 2021: Harkness performed live, along with 3 other bands, at Supermarket, a music venue in Toronto.
Full Bio here
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