Rising Toronto producer, River Tiber (born Tommy Paxton-Beesley) is a vocalist, multi-intrumentalist and thriving live-performer whose music combines R&B, rock and electronic tones.
Today, Pitchfork has the official stream of “Illusions” and Zane Lowe premiered the track as a “World Record” on his Beats 1 show. “Illusions” is River Tiber’s new collaboration with Pusha T, which was co-produced by KAYTRANADA & Doc McKinney. The track will be released as a two-song digital single on April 8th via Red Bull Sound Select, which will feature a second track, “Gravity,” also coproduced by KAYTRANADA.
River Tiber has also announced a string of west coast tour dates with Kaytranada. All dates below.
“Illusions” is the first Red Bull Sound Select track release by a Canadian artist. KAYTRANADA and Paxton-Beesley are friends and frequent collaborators, so the integration came together naturally. Paxton-Beesley shaped his parts of the project during his travels from LA to Paris, back to LA and home to Toronto over several weeks in late 2015 and early this year.
“I had played at 30 Days in LA the night before heading to Paris for Red Bull Music Academy. When I was flying, the attacks happened at Bataclan and the Academy had to be cut short. After a couple days, I went back to LA. That experience was the most surreal…a bizarre juxtaposition of moods,” said River Tiber.
River Tiber recalls, “the night before the session with Push and Kay in LA, I had food poisoning… and hadn’t slept or eaten. Me and Kay had made this beat a couple days before, Push came through and killed his verse in one take. He’s a master…that session was amazing and inspiring.”
The song was completed back in Toronto during a marathon stretch at the studio of legendary producer Doc McKinney. “I did a few sessions with Doc and we rearranged the structure, writing and production – he really challenged me to find the song. We would start in the afternoon and go overnight, I barely saw the sun for a few days. I wrote the chorus in the last session – it felt right. The song isn’t really about this story, but that’s where it comes from. I tried to take a piece of what I observed in LA and turn it into something universal.”
River Tiber has been a Red Bull Sound Select artist since 2014. His first showcase in Toronto was supporting BADBADNOTGOOD. He then headlined October 2015’s showcase, at Toronto’s Adelaide Hall with fellow Red Bull Sound Select artists Charlotte Day Wilson and Tennyson. In November 2015, River Tiber opened for Flume, alongside Taskforce, at Red Bull Sound Select Presents: 30 Days in LA, and was one of three Canadians selected to attend Red Bull Music Academy Paris in 2015.
Tour Dates:
5/24 San Diego, CA – Observatory North ^
5/25 Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre ^
5/26 Orange County, CA – The Observatory ^
5/27 San Francisco, CA – Mezzanine ^
^ w/ Kaytranada
