Photo: Nightshades

From left, Dylan Ranney, Caleb McAlpine, Andrew Judah and Nathanael Sherman

First and foremost, Kelowna band Nightshades is “having a blast” on stage.

After forming in early 2023, the four-piece band is set to release their debut full-length album, Reducer, with a concert at Red Bird Brewing.

In recording the album themselves, the band worked to recreate the sound from their live shows as closely as possible on the record.

“A lot of songs that are from this album, Reducer, basically just came from playing a lot of live shows and figuring out the arrangements throughout the year by playing them live,” said Nightshades member Nathanael Sherman.

“We wanted to capture that live sound that we had honed in playing a lot live last year. We wanted to be able to capture that energy.”

To do this, they recorded in their own practice space “live-off-the-floor,” rather than recording individual instruments separately and mixing them later.

“It's kind of a motto of how we're wanting to write, and how we've been writing, which is essentially just to let the live versions that we make while practising in our studio, how can we capture that live feeling and that informs what ends up being recorded,” Sherman said.

While they labelled themselves Nightshades in January 2023, band members Sherman, Andrew Judah, Caleb McAlpine and Dylan Ranney have been playing together in some fashion for years. They've put out two EPs, It's Not Weird and Yellow and Green, but Reducer will be their first full-length album.

For the second year in a row, the group spent several cold January days in a small cabin in the Shuswap area, to get away from their day-to-day responsibilities and focus on creating new music. And by all accounts, it was a successful few days.

“We ended up finishing up what is now Reducer but then we were able to write and record four new songs that weren't really there before,” Sherman said. “It was really exciting, we wrote more than we know what we do with, we're really excited to share it.

“We couldn't turn the faucet off creatively speaking; after a while we were all kind of in a haze of 'what just happened?'”

Nightshades will be performing their new album Reducer, front to back, during their June 1 show at Red Bird Brewing, along with some of the newer songs that came out of their cabin trip.

After spending months crafting the 10-song album, Sherman says he can't wait to send their creations out into the world and share it with a live audience.

“We just love playing music together ... we're just having a blast,” Sherman said. “It's the best feeling in the world.”

Reducer will be released on digital streaming platforms on May 31, followed by the album-release show at Red Bird the following night. Tickets for the show, which also features performances by Kelowna's Kailee Duggan and Winnipeg's Amos the Kid, can be found here.

Sherman says they hope to be able to release the album in a physical form at some point in the future.

For a sneak peak at one of Reducer's songs, check out Nightshades' performance of Leave Space below. The video, which was released this week, was part of a series shot by local videographer Harrison Mendel at Rutland's Kelowna Film Studios earlier this year.