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Hopeful Monster

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Psychedelic chamber pop

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Hometown	Toronto,, Canada
Genres	Indie Pop, Indie Pop
Band Members	Jason Ball; Jose Contreras; Randy Lee; Alex McMaster
Achievements	» more
Upcoming Shows	None

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About the Artist

psychedelic chamber pop since the year 2000

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Achievements

Pop Videos Winner, July 2013

Reached 5th in Best of Pop chart in 2011. In the top 20 for 9 weeks.

Reached 5th in Best of Pop chart in 2011. In the top 20 for 11 weeks.

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CANADA'S VERY OWN GREAT LAKES by Bees Knees
Canada’s very own Great Lakes would have to be Hopeful Monster. Demand a refund on your latest Sloan record, and get this record! Hopeful Monster is all about the Zombies, Rundgren, Lilys, Love, Wilson and Parsons. You get 60s orchestra pop with lush strings, bubblegum, r&b grooves, and country-tinged songs all within the first few tracks. Hopeful Monster is one man for the most part—Jason Ball—and you can tell he has spent loads of hours in a studio, as this project has the sound of someone who plays, produces, and engineers. It’s full to the very last note, and hard to imagine a better Elephant 6 record not made by those Athens/Denver collective.

HERE’S TO HOPEFUL MONSTER by chartattack.com
Until recently, 2002 seemed destined to be remembered as the year the music died. Many of the hyped critical releases have passed by this reporter with little interest or sympathy. […] Then a little package from Halifax's Hopeful Monster landed on my desk a couple of weeks ago and I'm in love, well, maybe just very very happy and sappy. Multi-instrumentalist Jason Ball with the help of Paul Aucoin has made the best solo pop album since Todd Rundgren's amazing tour-de-force, Something/Anything. The self-titled release skitters through many different styles: pop, new wavey electro-pop ("River Reflective") cool Bacharachian piano-pop ("Daily Electric") and spacey-pop — all this in just the first two songs. Throughout this album I find myself singing along to lyrics like "I want you so bad I damn myself to hell" from "Goldmine" and banging on any surface to "Stars Are Photomagnets" and "Cobra Wings." This is my favourite album of 2002 so far!! By Chris Burland

HOPEFUL MONSTER—A Remarkable Debut by Exclaim! Magazine
Some recording projects just seem to have a miraculous touch to them, and JBall’s debut as Hopeful Monster is one of those. Pieced together in rural Nova Scotia at his own Nervous System Studio, Ball writes and performs much of this sweeping, layered pop record, piling horns, strings and extra touches atop his simple, catchy melodies and managing to keep the whole under control—something that acclaimed Elephant Six producer Robert Schneider, dealing in similar circumstances, often has trouble doing. In many less experienced musicians, ambition is one thing, execution quite another, which is why hopeful monster comes off as such a masterstroke. From the quieter, more introspective tracks like “Universal Donor” to the zippier Zombies-esque romps, to the delicate balladry and ambitious arrangements, Ball manages to pull it all off with aplomb. His familiarity with the landscape of pop’s history allows him to both submerse himself in it and subvert it from within, like “Goldmine.” A remarkable debut that sparks hope that this Hopeful Monster is a marathon runner, not a sprinter. By James Keast

HOPEFUL MONSTER—A Welcome Addition by Canadian Musician
HOPEFUL MONSTER is an evolutionary term, referring to the process by which an organism mutates to the point of being recognized as a new, unique species. Likewise, Hopeful Monster, the band, springs from recognizable musical DNA to create something worthy of celebrating on its own terms. An ace arranger, JBall revels in studio layering and stacks of harmonies a la Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys or more contemporary soundscapers like The High Llamas. "Both of those references have pretty sophisticated arrangements, which is something that I've been working towards," says Ball. "They're both good shoulders to be standing on." What keeps the baroque sound of Hopeful Monster intriguing is the infusion of rootsy elements, like steel guitar and fiddle, punches of horns here and there, and brightly strummed acoustic guitars. Among the standout tracks, "Daily Electric" offers Bacharachian horn parts, bouncy pop piano and theremin. "Goldmine" is a deftly written ballad adorned with steel guitar and vibes, and "Cobra Wings" shimmers and soothes like an afternoon in the shade of a palm tree. Ball's voice is the perfect instrument for these tunes, evoking comparisons to pop vocal princes like Todd Rundgren or Carl Wilson. Hopeful Monster is a welcome addition to the diversity and ongoing evolution of East Coast music. By Jim Kelly

HOPEFUL MONSTER—A Beguiling Sound by Amplifier
Hopeful Monster’s mastermind Jason Ball plays guitars, keyboards, bass, percussion, mandolin and theremin, but this isn’t a one-man show. Creating what could be described as an “analog orchestra” (also populated with strings and horns), Ball has given this disc a lush and quirky sound. If the theremin signals a clue into Ball’s love of the Beach Boys, then the sweet layered vocals and the sunshine pop vibes make his affection explicit. Separating Ball from the other would-be Wilsonians is his creative use of country elements (particularly Dale Murray’s invaluable pedal steel playing). While “River Reflexive” and “Daily Electric” kick the record off to a bouncy start, the twangy and dreamy “Universal Donor” slows the pace. Instead of writing about surfing and girls, Ball favors rather knotty lyrics (“cast me off this naked bough/ the fruit is rotten”) that make his songs more esoteric than engaging. Its notable that “Goldmine,” which recalls both early Todd Rundgren and Neil Young, stands as the disc’s most emotionally direct track as well as one of its most memorable songs. With one foot in the ‘60s Space Age and the other in a desert sand dune, Ball has created a beguiling sound for his Hopeful Monster. By Michael Berick

Sunshine Psychedelia by electricroulette.com
I've got a paid vacation and I'm headin' for the sun... Some cats got in touch and say "Hey! We think you might dig our LP!" and of course, I was left mutterin' into my chest and grumblin' "What the hell do you know? Jerknow how many bozos get in touch with lamo indie that sounds like The Liberti... whatthefug... is that Colin Blunstone?! Fact is, Hopeful Monster wear their influences on their lapels... and for the most part, they're the kinda influences that make me bubble at the snout. We're talkin' Lovin' Spoonful, Harry Nilsson, The Zombies and newest fave LeckRouleck band, The Junipers. Toytown is calling me back and I jusso happen to own a passport... Where to start with these guys? Well, before I continue, I'll tell you that they hail from Canada. Of course, Canada is like America, if America was inhabited by nice people and wooden cottages. This may not be strictly true, but hey, who gives. If you wanted facts, you'd be reading some news website. So back to the fiction. Canada is filled with people who look like the cast of Northern Exposure and they all sit around smoking cigarettes and sharing cooking tips. Canada is a lovely place to visit. They even have guns legally and don't bother usin' 'em. So what's that gotta do with Hopeful Monsters? Well, the prevailing sound of 'Metatasking' is one so laid back that, if you don't mind, could you pop a coaster under your head so you don't get your dreams on the carpet? The LP kicks off with 'Uncivilised' which is piano-led pianner popsike that could easily be on 'Odessey and Oracle', if Emitt Rhodes sat in on the sessions. Dig that! It continues too. From the opener straight into the stupendous 'Air Highway' which has something of John Sebastian about it. No lie. They hit those weird jazz notes through lullaby chords. The kinda songwriting that you ain't seen since when. "Come on darlin', open up your eyes..." swoons around in gorgeous ooooohing backing vox. Man, you'll throw away your guitar and give up. Closer, 'Perfect Riddle', you start thinkin' of Harry Nilsson, Brian Wilson making his glorious pop on the cusp of Pet Sounds. Not quite Pet Sounds... but imminent. Basically, when this album... this band... are good, they're almost unparallelled. However, this ain't completely a joyous glide toward golden slumbers, nosir. See, the LP is blighted by some 'rockers'... namely, 'Alpha Disco' and 'Humpty Dumpty By The Bag'. Just think of the difference between The Zombies and Argent. When the amps are kicked into overdrive, this band don't work at all. When the low them to hum, then they feel like the best band in the whole world and you can't believe you ain't heard of 'em yet. Somethin' tells me that they kinda agree. Go to their Myspace page (here) and it's all sunshine psychedelia. The rockin' tracks nixed. That said, it's not worth writing off a band on a coupla songs. Man, these guys are amazing. If they live up to their name (Hopeful Monster is a term used in evolutionary biology to describe an event of systemic mutation, which contributes positively to the production of new major evolutionary groups) they'll only get better. Here's hoping, as the world needs bubblegum psych like this. You can buy Hopeful Monster's 'Metatasking' by clicking here. [mof]

HOPEFUL MONSTER—Going Coastal by Calgary Straight
Where do they come from, these bottomless reserves of melodies that evoke every great Californian pop moment of the past 30 years –whether the Beach Boys or Flying Burrito Brothers or Fleetwood Mac – without mimicking any of them? And why is that their most generous springs are almost all clustered in Nova Scotia, lying in wait for yet another local prodigy to harvest an album’s worth of them and then share them with the world? And why does our country continue to ignore them while, overseas, tongues wax ecstatic? Last year, Halifax’s the Heavy Blinkers released Better Weather, an evocatively titled masterpiece seemingly broadcast from an alternate universe in which AM Top 40 radio dictates the tenor of life. It remains one of the best classicist Canadian pop record in years, but it has strong competition in this debut from Hopeful Monster, the vehicle for one Jason Ball. Written, performed and produced by Ball at his rural home studio in Seabright, he and a supporting cast of over a dozen have created 11 songs that strive to do justice to a bygone era of pop in which grandeur was requisite, size mattered (think Phil Spector, Pet Sounds). Hopeful Monster gets down to business immediately, “River Reflexive” letting loose a flurry of horns, harmonies, and Who-like drum flourishes while Ball declares “Someday when the stars are all in line / I’ll make gospel of the cliches.” Perhaps better still is “Daily Electric,” a Theremin-dappled gem that imagines the Banana Splits taking over from Brian Wilson after his late-’60s meltdown, but fronted by the Zombies’ Colin Blundstone. There’s also a clutch of lovely chamber-country ballads; the pedal steel that weaves throughout “Universal Donor” sounds as if it’s been left to fend for itself in the desert, while “Cobra Wings” and “Silver Lining” rise out of their initially disconsolate moods to become widescreen testimonials to joy. Another under-the-radar homespun classic. What will it take to make more people hear the brilliance in our midst? By Michael White

Catch the Buzz: Hopeful Monster by SPIN.com
Canadian songsmith Jason Ball gathers a psych-pop troupe to flesh out his bubbly electronic, harmony-laced numbers recalling the best of the Postal Service. BY JOE COSCARELLI 08.18.08 Hopeful Monster head Jason Ball began his studio experimentations in rural Nova Scotia, Canada before settling comfortably amidst the Toronto indie scene where he crafts '60s piano-pop throwbacks, building staccato, Zombies-style ditties and updating each with electronic flourishes. Ball -- with a recently cemented five-piece line-up, featuring members of the Hylozoists and By Divine Right -- delivers synth lines conjuring Grandaddy's bounce and emotive melodies that breeze over measured computer buzzes with the earnestness of the Postal Service.

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