Victorious Combinations

We are excited to announce the release of our second full length album, Autonomous.  Twelve songs that combine the style and sound of modern electronic dance music with more experimental and traditional song writing.   Have a listen, download it, share it, comment on it.  We'd love to hear what you think!! Autonomous by Combine the Victorious DANCE - ENJOY! with love from Mark and Isabelle thanks to: Robert Edmonds for the artwork  Don Harrison for the guitar Leigh Grant for the drums Stefan Sigerson for the bass and brilliance Ingrid Schroeder and Barry Flynn for the song writing Jordy Birch for the additional production Paul Schroeder and Adam Percy for their brilliant mixes & Matt Kennedy, Hugh Ellenwood, Elaine Henderson, Jesse Smith, Kevin Jones, Misty Reid, Jane Dunlop, Vince Tuckwood, Patrick Gilmore, Helen Mitteregger, Hajnalka Mandula, Richard Bafaro, our families, The Population Drops, Jim Newto...

It's Still On (Paul Schroeder mix) This is a very substantial update of our song "Please" (off the Disagreements ep) retitled It's Still On for 2015.  Good friend and excellent music producer Paul Schroeder has given us a gorgeous mix and we felt the need to put it up! Isabelle created the background visuals for this clip, gathered from just about everywhere.  Hope you enjoy it. It's Still On written by Mark Henning, Isabelle Dunlop, Ingrid Schroeder, Barry Flynn Produced and engineered by: Henning (Boutique Empire Studio) Mixed by: Paul Schroeder Mastered by: Craig Waddell (Gotham City Studio) Vocals: Isabelle, Mark Backing Vocals: Ingrid, Barry extra production elements: Paul Schroeder Drums: Kevin Jones all instruments: Henning Lyrics: Waking up, still tired feeling down, uninspired draining out, the hard work washed away GIving up, so heart broken all the dreams, left unspoken see them smile, as we become the same Don't be sc...

Well, we've been working for months now and the album is finally taking shape!  So far we've decided on at least seven songs that will be for the vinyl version.  They are in no particular order: Stand in Front of Tanks It's Still On Hardly Spoken Caught Up to You California'15 Best Tonight Real Life Turns Me On Some of these songs we've written on our own but several have been collaborations with old friends and new.  We can list Ingrid Schroeder, Barry Flynn, Stefan Sigerson, Jordy Birch, Justin "Juice" Kadis, Misty Reid, Leigh Grant, Don Harrison amongst our writing partnerson this album.  It's been really interesting comparing the results of each collaboration, as the songs are all playing together quite nicely. I think we still have a couple really long and hard vocal sessions for the rest of the material we're considering, and there are still so many ideas that we've started in the past that have only reached an ver...

Our new track - It's Still On - has a long history.  We initially wrote and recorded a version for our second release, the Disagreements EP.   It was an ok recording but really in retrospect I always heard it as a demo rather than a finished record.  We'd shared the writing with our pals Barry Flynn and Ingrid Schroeder and it was an exciting moment.  However, the years rolled by and the song started to feel forgotten. We were considering tunes to play for Isabelle's parents Golden Anniversary, and, because there was going to be a piano at the party, I recalled our old song Please .  It was written around a completely free form piano part, with wildly varying tempos and time signatures, very romantic.  Isabelle and I began rehearsing for Scotland and after the first time we tried it just with piano for accompaniment we both felt the excitement again. While over in Scotland, we had the pleasure of driving up through the Highlands and had a brilliant vis...

We are very pleased to share our song It's Still On .   Our good friend Paul Schroeder (Stone Roses, Campag Velocet) has gifted us with this new mix.  Let us know what you think, leave a message here or follow us on Facebook  / Twitter . It's Still On - produced and performed by Combine the Victorious Written by Mark R Henning, Isabelle Dunlop, Ingrid Schroeder and Barry Flynn Mixed by Paul Schroeder Mastered at The Valt Studio by Jordy Birch and MRH Vocals: Isabelle Dunlop, Mark R Henning Backing Vocals: Ingid Schroeder, Barry Flynn Drums: Kevin Jones all other instruments: MRH

I know it's been a while since we'e posted anything on this blog, and I apologize for the delay.  After we got back from Scotland things have just been constantly busy! However, we have a the first of the new material finishing up and we've just completed a reworking of an old favourite of ours.  A song we wrote with our friends Barry Flynn and Ingrid Schroeder back in 2008 called Please, now re-titled It's Still On , will soon be up online.  Just putting some finishing touches on the mix.  We 've even approached the mysterious Paul Schroeder (Stones Roses, Verve, Campag Velocet) to do a mix - still waiting on that one! Tomorrow I we'll start letting a few glimpses of the music out again.  It's been a long time and it'll be great to have our new music out there. Thanks for reading. M

We are very proud to announce our new EP - Crumbling Hearts . First off we both want to thank Robert Edmonds for his cover art,  Klee Larsen for the amazing photo, and of course model Megan Jones.  It's an ethereal image that almost appears holographic. Additionally we'd like to thank Stefan Sigerson for his help in the production, and Jim Berry and Simon Hunt for their drumming and Marc Wild for his guitar work. It was a pleasure to work with you all, thanks! Crumbling Hearts by Combine the Victorious Crumbling Hearts (dunlop, henning) Produced by Combine the Victorious with Stefan Sigerson Recorded and mixed by MRH at Imagined Aire Studio, Vancouver BC, Summer 2012 Vocals: Isabelle Dunlop Backing Vocals, instruments and programming: Mark Roland Henning Live Drums: Jim Berry California State of Mind (dunlop, henning, schroeder) Produced by Combine the Victorious with Stefan Sigerson Recorded and mixed by MRH at Imagined Aire Studio, Vancouver BC, Summer...

We've been writing and recording our next album pretty much all summer long.  It's coming together, slowly, and though I can't quite see all of it yet, it seems to be taking shape! In August we started working with producer Stefan Sigerson to help us finalize a few of the songs we've been messing around with for months!  One in particular was our song " California State of Mind ".  While Isabelle had been in Scotland last summer (where she started writing our song Glasgow ) I was back in Vancouver working on new ideas.   California came out of those sessions.   I sent a copy of the rough mix over to our friend Ingrid Schroeder who gave us back a lovely vocal part.  We worked on a mix and came up with our initial version (you can hear that one thru this link ). Later last fall we sent it around to a few producers and got a couple brilliant remixes. Check em all out on our bandcamp page : I love how they have such variety in their approach.   Big th...

New song: California (featuring Ingrid Schroeder) We have a new song: California, which features the lovely vocals of our good friend Ingrid Schroeder. This is an early mix, we are still working on a few things, but I was too excited to keep it under my hat for any longer. This will most likely be the first single off our upcoming third album (which we are still writing). Rather than hold off and wait, we thought we'd share the new sounds and get some feedback. California (f.Ingrid Schroeder) by Combine the Victorious 25 Sep 2011 Writing "California" After more than a year away from Combine the Victorious Isabelle and I have picked up the keyboards and started writing new songs again. Last year I was pretty much dedicated to Guilty About Girls and getting that band going, but suddenly I found there was a rather large collection of songs in my head that weren't going to fit that project. Instead they seem to have arriv...

24 Mar 2010 The First Boutique Empire compilation: I've been putting together a compilation for Boutique Empire.  We now are the proud partners in Boutique Empire: Rec'10 .   It features 10 different bands, with new singles form Guilty About Girls " Candy Candy ", Combine the Victorious and a remastered version of New City Anthem from Sex With Strangers .  Also in the mix is Ingrid Schroeder (London), Gilles Zolty (Saskatoon) and Marc Wild (Vancouver) as well as a new single from Ten Suns (Vancouver) who Isabelle and I saw for the first time last night and they were brilliant.  Additionally there are songs from our new friends Chiwawa (Montreal) and Piper Davis (Calgary) and a remix from Lurch of the CtV song The Hours . Things are busy.  I'm playing a show with Jordy Birch this Friday in Victoria as Guilty About Girls and Isabelle just got back from Sex With Strangers' first appearance at SXSW.  We're also still trying to book...

24 Nov 2008 "Disagreements: tomorrow (hopefully) Happy Monday to you! Well if all is going according to plan, we should have our second release up on iTunes tomorrow, November 25th 08 .  The Disagreements ep took quite a bit of work, and seemed as though it might never be finished: but we did put a stamp on the package and sent it in to our distributor last month in the hopes of it actually being processed in time for our release date.  We decided to release the ep entirely online, no cd's, just downloads.  So far we've sold almost five times as many copies of The World Over from iTunes than on cd (I'll admit that this might possibly be due to not utilizing a physical distribution system other than our myspace and .com page - but I've had nothing but grief from such services in the past) so it makes sense to us.  Additionally neither Isabelle nor I have actually purchased a cd in more than 15 months - we're truly converted to the con...

7 Nov 2008 New Song: Please Current mood: inspired After many months of writing, recording, erasing, re-recording, re-arranging, waiting for objectivity to return, abandoning, peaking at it and sharing it with friends overseas we've finally posted our best song to date: Please.  Well best song is rather subjective so I'll let you decide which is best, but it's certainly the best one in my opinion. Please was written in it's first draft back in January this year.  We posted it for a while in that version but it started to grate on me a bit so we took it down thinking it just needed a better recording to make it work.  I had Kevin over to track the drums at a slightly faster tempo than the demo, and then I figured it would just be a case of overdubbing the parts onto the bedtracks and we'd have our song.  However it was anything but that simple.  Rather like our song Decay , Please took months of reworking to get it into the arrangemen...