The influential indie-rockers are considering getting back together. Shows, recording and releases are in the talks.
Ten years ago, Canadian group the Unicorns released an EP titled 2014 and it served as the band’s ‘goodbye’. The band conformed by Nick Thorburn AKA ‘Nick Diamonds’ (Islands, Mister Heavenly, Human Highway). Alden Penner (Clues, Hidden Words and solo album called Exegesis) and Jamie Thompson (Islands) discussed with the Kreative Kontrol podcast how 2014 is “The Year of the Unicorn” and that a reunion is not a discarded possibility.
Regarding potential reissues and releases, Penner said the band recently acquired the master rights to the 2003 LP Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? and that the release of a remastered version of it plus “some other recordings that never made it out” is being considered.
Furthermore, Penner added:
the important thing right now is that we might play some shows and maybe even record some new material while we’re at it. These are all maybes, which have been thrown out there a lot. I guess good practice is that you do what you say (…) We might arrange a handful of shows, we’re definitely talking about playing together and seeing what happens. And we’ll probably do some shows in the major cities we’ve played in–probably Toronto, Montreal, New York, L.A., Vancouver—that sort of thing. Whatever’s feasible and it being conditional on it being fun for us to do.
On December 2004, four years since it’s birth, the seminal band posted a short message on their site which read “THE UNICORNS ARE DEAD (R.I.P.). Apparently the reason for their brake-up came from personal differences between band members. Penner has now confirmed – as seen on Pitchfork – that he grew apart from Thorburn during the years the band was active and that the possible reunion is based on their friendship.
We met in high school and had this sincere, nice, musically-based friendship that, unfortunately got torn apart by music industry circumstances and competing attitudes about how things should be done. That’s really a minor thing when it comes down to renewing a friendship and that’s why I feel good about this particular endeavor—it’s not really a cash grab or based on any sort of nostalgia coming from those who’ve been calling for it for a long time. It feels like a point in my life where it’d be nice to honor that friendship. It’s never too late to that sort of thing, even though it might feel that way as you get older.
With all this being said, it is important to stress that maybe or maybe not 2014 is in fact the year of the Unicorn. Don’t get your hopes up, but – for what is worth – cross your fingers.
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