This Friday, June 26th, Montreal duo Born At Midnite — comprised of visual artist and pop musician Amery Sandford (whose solo project, Amery, you may have seen supporting Molly Nilsson last September at Johnny Brenda’s) and David Carriere, producer, songwriter, and guitarist in TOPS (who you may have seen the following month at Underground Arts) and TOPS side project Marci — drop their debut album, Eternal BAM Nation, courtesy of Arbutus Records (also home to TOPS, Marci, and our phriends Blue Hawaii). And this August Born At Midnite will hit the road for a tour that will take them through Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe, including a very special date at Johnny Brenda’s on August 14th. “I think Philly is gonna be our first show outside of Montreal,” David tells me during a May phone chat, before Amery enthusiastically chimes in, “Our first international show!”
Although Born At Midnite are just about to drop their first full-length and embark on their first-ever tour, Sandford and Carriere actually started the project about half a decade ago while casually jamming, quickly recording and releasing their namesake single on Arbutus in 2020. Over the course of the next five years (which included as many shows, although never outside of Montreal) the label dropped twice as many singles, culminating in 12-track compilation Every Single Time, which was released last November. “I don’t think we ever planned for it to be anything. Arbutus surprisingly wanted to put it out and it got randomly really good responses and sucked into the algorithm of streaming really well,” says Amery of Born At Midnite’s roots, before adding, “I think that our philosophy has just been this fun side thing that we both do… We work really quickly and use samples of our own voices and other samples and other fun toys.” “Our process is a bit toy-driven,” says David, with Amery explaining, “We really prioritize having fun.”
Eternal BAM Nation was written and recorded over the summer of 2025 in Sandford and Carriere’s Montreal studio, above a bourgeoisie baby clothing shop, utilizing a tape machine that restricts the amount of tracks they can use and prevents any sort of editing (According to their press release, “Born At Midnite aspires to be the one hour photo of music.”) And, like previously released singles, the eleven and a half songs of Eternal BAM Nation embrace the duo’s love of punk (post and traditional), techno, house, and new wave (which may be the most obvious). However, when I ask Sandford and Carriere if they have any personal favorite debut LPs, I’m surprised to hear Amery name Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly (“That is not something I would normally fuck with, but I’m really loving it.”) and David mentions a great affection for Nirvana’s Bleach, Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory, and New Musik’s From A to B (Okay, that one actually tracks pretty perfectly.)
Earlier this month Born At Midnite dropped Eternal BAM Nation’s third single, “Pt. III,” which features Montreal indie pop artist Fireball Kid. The single is accompanied by an “Official Tranquilizer” (it’s a video) by Amery, who also created animated Official Visualizers for previous singles “Wash You Out” and “Smash” (in addition to all of the band’s other animations and artwork). She tells me that Born At Midnite’s most recent visuals have a few very specific inspirations, although admits that they’re of a genre that’s a bit outside of her own wheelhouse: “I really look at anime… I think, stylistically, for this one, I was really inspired by the anime Angel’s Egg from 1985, which is super creepy. The sound design is very minimal, and there’s almost no sound for the first like 20 minutes; it’s really eerie… Also, Neon Genesis Evangelion… But I don’t really know how to draw anime [laughs].”
*Get your tickets here.
