December 2021. Our first Christmas in lockdown. In the cold darkness of the season, songwriter and media composer Damian Weston had mostly given up on music. But a vocation is not something we choose to do - it’s something we have to do. Instead of giving up, he thought he’d take a left turn into dark, 80s-infused electronic music. Posting an ad in his adopted hometown of Guelph, Ontario, he called into the ether.
December 2021. Elena Stocco is in lockdown and bored. So bored that she may have had an extra glass of wine that night, and happened across an ad looking for a singer. Perhaps it was the boredom, perhaps it was the wine - but she answered it (as did the former lead singer of a VERY well known Ontario band). They formed a quick rapport, but Damian feared what he would hear when he asked for a vocal sample - made worse when Elena said she was sending it courtesy of a karaoke track she recorded with a microphone from the video game “Rock Band” - but when he heard her sing - someone who had never sung professionally - SEASON OF THE SENSES was born.
Quickly realizing that her voice deserved more than a home recording (Their first singles Awakening and Young & Strange were mostly recorded in Damian’s basement and the vocals in Elena’s closet), they ended up at Phase One Studios in Toronto with Darius Szczepaniak (I Mother Earth, Barenaked Ladies, Big Sugar, Sum 41) for their next two singles (Bel'Luna and This Is Not The End). The addition of guitarist Christian Pritchard soon after resulted in a new sound for SOTS: the same electronic base with the addition of modern rock/metal edge - first featured in their immense cover of ABBA’s Summer Night City and a feature in Germany’s biggest alternative print magazine Sonic Seducer (and a finalist spot in their annual Battle Of The Bands). The trio returned to Phase One for their next single, Villain - a massive wall of theatrical electronic rock that one reviewer described as “Elle King meets Marilyn Manson”.
In early 2022 the trio added multi-instrumentalist Rob Clarkson on Bass (and other instruments) and 17 year-old wunderkind Maxwell He on Drums. They recorded their first singles as a 5 piece in March at Phase One: EVER - a Bowiesque heavy-pop bullet and ETERNAL - a complete left turn into more gothic territory featuring lead Tuba and Accordion.
Season Of The Senses is committed to existence as a musical chameleon: on a certain type of day you can look at the sky, stand in one direction and see the sun: Its promise of warmth and joy - but in the other direction see an impending darkness. SEASON OF THE SENSES, stand between the two skies, with a foot in each. Drawing from Electro and Industrial and Metal but equal parts Pop, Soundtracks and even Disco - powerful instrumentals find a counterpoint to their sonic bombast in the warmth of Elena’s soaring and soulful voice with lyrical content exploring what it is to be human - with all of its sun & storm - and what it is to become something more.
