The Shame of Winnipeg

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  2026: Underground Frequencies & Modern Nocturnes

  Adelino Valente

  Whole empires rise and fall within the songs of Devon Church. On his latest album, The Shame of Winnipeg, Church cajoles and consoles us in the “immaculate decay” of late stage capitalism: “come back to bed, baby, call in sick”, he beckons, “I see no use in making rich people richer.” In mixing the sacred and the profane, Church manages to make the profane sacred Just as striking is the sonic world that Church creates for us. While his lyrical insight suggests he’d be a natural fit at a Frankfurt School philosophy roundtable, you could just as easily imagine him behind the board in the control room for Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” or Blackstar-era Bowie. Church produced and mixed the record himself, as well as recording nearly all of the parts. Church can croon like Scott Walker, and play guitar like Vini Reilly (Durutti Column), but the resulting sound is all his own. Beneath the rubble of capitalism’s moral atrophy, Church retains a deep sense of compassion and desire for connection. Love takes on many forms through The Shame of Winnipeg, “a dirty joke”, “a fallacy”, an “educated guess.” In fact, it’s what wakes Church up, what makes him cry, and most crucially of all, what keeps him surviving: “it’s the only true concept to the heart of the Earth.” Though the record begins with us crushed under the grind of modern toil, The Shame of Winnipeg reminds us that “intending to be human we are almost infinite.”

  from spotify