Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Conjure Hand is the New Music Monday highlight!
Conjure Hand is a five-piece rock n’ roll outfit from right here in Victoria who are pretty new to the scene but already making big moves.
AJ Kovar, lead vocalist and guitarist for Conjure Hand says that their sound is infused with the southern sounds of the 60s and 70s with influences from various Black artists like Thin Lizzy and Nina Simone.
He says that as a Black Canadian with Caribbean heritage, he wants to use this project to celebrate the Black experience and highlight Black history.
Conjure Hand spent a couple years developing songs, going through some lineup changes and growing pains before finally being ready to debut in 2023.
“When I moved to Victoria I started looking for people to jam with, which was kind of hard during COVID,” Kovar laughed.
Eventually, Kovar found his lineup, which is now comprised of Victor Horne on bass, Ben Boyd on guitar, Duncan Chisholm on drums and Arin Argus, also on guitar.
“I’ve always wanted to have three guitar players,” stated Kovar.
Related:
- New Music Monday: TK The Artist shares ‘fat and funky’ R&B sound with Victoria on new single
New Music Monday: Zoë-Blue tells stories of liberation through folk songs - New Music Monday: Victoria-based Ranger croons on latest three song EP
- New Music Monday: Victoria’s own Fever Feel release new album ‘Family Milk’
So far they have recorded and released two demos and a cover song, but are working on a full-length album which is in the pre-production phase but Kovar is hopeful they will be able to release it digitally before the end of the summer with vinyl being pressed for it later on.
The most recent recording they have is of a live session Conjure Hand played at CFUV.
In it, they played their two demo tracks along with some of their newer unreleased stuff as well as a cover of Got to Give it Up by Thin Lizzy.
Kovar says that their song Spellbound Blues, in particular, is an important song that they played during this session.
“That is written about a man named Henry Bibb,” Kovar explained.
“He was a runaway slave from the US that had a family in south central US that he was separated from and he had escaped multiple times up to Canada and helped other slaves through the underground railroad.”
Kovar said that Bibb was caught and arrested several times but always managed to get free, and eventually he got his family out of the US and into Canada.
“What that song is about is perseverance and it’s a love story in a sense of keeping going, regardless of the adversity—being reunited with your family, having love for your people—and hope also,” Kovar said.
“I hope people hear that and realize the world is far from perfect, with police violence and poverty and everything else we deal with, and people can use these songs as inspiration for their own revolution.”
Listen to Conjure Hand’s live CFUV session here:
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
Coming up between March 15th and 22nd, they’ll be doing their annual Funding Drive, where they will have special shows and programming in order to help them raise money to operate the station.
“What I loved about playing the session at CFUV is that I came into the control room and Koby was playing Betty Davis and some really interesting music, and I was thinking, that’s awesome, this is exactly the kind of music I hope would be played after my band played,” Kovar explained.
“You would never hear that on a regular radio station.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online and, if you can, donate to their Funding Drive!
There are three CFUV produced concerts coming up as part of Funding Drive and Conjure Hand just happens to be playing one of them along with ex-cowboy and Poppa Don Gernie on March 21st at Lucky Bar.
Let us know what you think of Conjure Hand in the comments below.
