If you come across an album that was recorded in Toronto and blurs the edges between indie pop, new-age gloss, and sultry jazz grooves, chances are Joseph Shabason was involved. Forget indie sleaze—Shabason’s aesthetic hews closer to “indie smooth,” whether he’s contributing suave sax licks to Destroyer’s Kaputt, forming a culinary-themed soft-pop supergroup called Fresh Pepper, or pursuing a headier avant-jazz approach on his solo records. The saxophonist is a musical shapeshifter who lends his talents far and wide, but his dreamiest, most conventionally melodic music usually arises from his long-running collaboration with vocalist Nicholas Krgovich.
The pair recruited multi-instrumentalist Chris Harris and became a trio for 2020’s Philadelphia, an airily beautiful LP that established the hallmarks of their work: languorous soft-rock grooves, crystalline warmth, and a wide-eyed sincerity emanating from both Shabason’s woodwinds and Krgovich’s honeyed croon. Subsequent releases tweaked the formula gently, depending on who was involved. For 2024’s Shabason, Krgovich, Sage, a collaboration with intermedia artist Matthew Sage, they veered toward drifting ambient-jazz soundscapes; last year’s Wao, recorded with the Japanese duo Tenniscoats, favored more playful dream-pop transmissions.
Four Days in June is another disarmingly beautiful meld of styles, and also a surprising left turn for the duo. Here they embrace the soft-focus twang of ’90s pop-country, welcoming banjos, fiddles, Wurlitzer, and pedal steel into the mix. Shabason swaps out the alien processed sax of his solo albums for lighter textures, including flutes and a Roland Aerophone wind instrument. From the slow-dissolve mood-setter “Begin Again” to the swaying gratitude of “Time of Your Life,” which takes us out on a note of hard-earned serenity, the album exudes a warm, pastoral glow. With a mood board of influences including CD-binder staples like Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and alt-country lifers Blue Rodeo’s Five Days in July, Shabason and Krgovich summon the spirit of a backyard campfire attended by folkies and experimental jazz nerds alike.
Across 11 songs, Krgovich finds bliss in the everyday: meeting a neighbor’s new baby, petting puppies, hearing a bird outside singing in the same key as a friend’s piano playing. The morning sun, the midday sun, the setting sun—they’re all opportunities for quiet reflection. “What to make of these little things/Like they’re all you’ve got,” Krgovich croons in lush harmony on “Begin Again.” He’s a silky-voiced but never louche crooner who surveys daily life from a state of dreamy remove. Sometimes his lyrics veer too far in the direction of 40th-birthday Instagram caption sentimentality; if you’re not in the mood to marinate in midlife contentment, you may find it all a little precious, but the delicate beauty of the music can’t be denied.
Although it’s credited to the core duo of Shabason and Krgovich, Four Days in June leans on a community of treasured collaborators; some are longtime members of the duo’s Toronto cohort and others outsiders dropping by. In the former category, Fresh Pepper members Bram Gielen and Thom Gill fill out the ensemble on bass/piano and guitar/piano, respectively, and Toronto songwriter Dorothea Paas duets with Krgovich on the winding melody of “Dry Corner,” a cover of a seldom heard tune, written by Anina Ivry-Block (Palberta), aka Heart Loss, that feels like a lost standard. In the just-visiting category, folksinger Sam Amidon happened to be in Toronto for tour dates and swung by Shabason’s home studio to lay down banjo and fiddle tracks. His contributions bring a subtle twang to sighing reveries like “Along the Dance Away” and “Road,” while Ian McGimpsey’s pedal steel weaves through the spry, Talking Heads-referencing “Midday Sun,” a welcome surge of momentum.
Last year, I asked Shabason about his deepening affinity for ultra-smooth, AOR-coded textures, and he described a kind of serenity that accompanies aging. “We’re fucking old,” he said, referring to his regular collaborators and himself. “I don’t think any of us are thinking about what is cool anymore. Unless you’re very blessed or very confident, it can only really come with age—to be old enough to say, ‘I really like this and it feels good to me.’”
Four Days in June epitomizes that attitude in its musical choices but also its lyrics, which are full of kernels of gratitude about getting older. In “Begin Again,” Krgovich marvels about “making new friends in middle age,” and in “43,” he approaches the titular age with some mix of wisdom and delusion: “Still you make like this is the best season of your life.” Listening to Four Days in June, I kept imagining how deeply corny this music might sound in less capable hands. Schmaltzy country-pop tunes about smiling at joggers and hanging with your friends’ kids and reveling in domestic comforts? Come on. But Shabason and Krgovich have the chops and vision, not to mention the heart, to make it pop. They make losing your edge sound sublime.
