Party

Personnel: Colin Nealis (strings).Audio Mixer: Noah Georgeson.Recording information: Castle Röhrsdorf, Dresden, Germany; Studio One, Regina, Saskatchewan.Illustrator: Meghan Fenske.By the time Andy Shauf's lonesome prairie pop debut, Bearer of Bad News, had reached the rest of the world, the Saskatchewan native had nearly completed recording his similarly intricate follow-up. After receiving a small-scale Canadian release in 2012, the album went on to make critical waves three years later thanks to a reissue by American indie Tender Loving Empire. Just over a year later comes The Party, another hyper-detailed set of literate indie pop songs produced and almost entirely performed by Shauf. The ten loosely conceptual vignettes revolve around the characters at a party, presumably in the microcosm of small-town Saskatchewan. As he displayed on his debut, Shauf has a knack for creating a lived-in, intimate world and his carefully constructed pop arrangements support his provincial narrative