Victorious Combinations

 We are pleased to announce that our next single will be released worldwide on January 25th 2023. Rushes Over Me combines the dark moodiness of trip-hop with 90's inspired shoe-gaze and features the trumpet of Felix Taylor.  Words and Music: Combine the Victorious (Dunlop/Henning) Produced and recorded by Mark Henning Vocals - Isabelle Dunlop Bass, guitar, keyboards: Mark Henning Drums: Leigh Grant Percussion: Greg Hanberry Trumpet: Chad "Felix" Taylor

  Isabelle and I are very excited to release our next single. We Are Not Alone was initially inspired from a day spent on the water whale watching last September as part of a birthday present for Isabelle! While we where out there the magnitude of the animals in the water, and the sheer vastness of the ocean all around us and the seemingly infinite horizon really made an impression on me. Perhaps this was due to spending so much time inside over the past couple covid years.  As our ferry returned from Vancouver Island and the city of Vancouver slowly began to appear as a tiny dot on the shoreline I was hit again with the scale of the world and how self absorbed I had been over the past decades. All my life was contained in a dot on the horizon and seemed so huge while we were there. Yet the moment we left the city the whole world began to filter into my consciousness. After getting back that weekend Isabelle and I went into the studio and We Are Not Alone was born.  Pete...

We were asked to perform again at this year's Rock n Roll Marathon here in Vancouver.  Of course we said yes, because who doesn't love waking up for a Sunday 6:30AM load in to play a cold wet stage in the darkened corners of East Van?  (I only half kid about that.) Yes, we will be blasting our songs out to the thousands and thousands of hearty runners who take part in this half marathon.  It's been fun the last couple years so we're looking forward to it. Even more importantly we have booked a show at the Fox Cabaret for December 14 2016 as part of a full Boutique Empire evening.  To start the night will be an exclusive Isabelle Dunlop Clothing fashion show, with co-operation from David Briker's store Platform , and Erin Templeton Bags.  The fashion show will be followed by a live performance by Combine the Victorious ,  who shall be joined onstage by Leigh Grant on drums, and we shall conclude the evening the band Terrace  with the dance...

When we were writing Autonomous there were several different directions and ideas that were tried over the past year and a half.   Even though some of the songs were re-workings of older songs ( It's Still On is a remixed, re-recorded version of our song Please from the Disagreements ep - 2008) a few of the songs happened all at the last minute.   Happy Girl was one of them. Happy Girl was born of a drum track.  My old friend Leigh Grant did us a big favour and came into the city to track drums on a couple songs, and a few ideas we had.  Back in the Spring of 2014 we had him come in to record at Valt Studio, Jordy's downtown production space.  It was hardly a massive room, and the equipment was simple and effective, but we ended up with a lot of great stuff!  It was during this session we recorded the drum tracks to Hardly Spoken, Happy Girl, and two others that didn't make the album but may still be used one day! Originally I had Leigh track drums...

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...

Here's another new song from our forth-coming Autonomous album.  This one is sequenced as the album's closing track, a sweet way to say goodbye (before starting the whole thing over again!). We started writing Stop Givin Up On Love over four years ago.  It was titled If Not Love and was much slower, with a completely different chorus.  However the story behind the lyrics has remained pretty much  the same.  It's a song I wrote initially about my brother, who was going through a very rough patch, and in it's initial iteration was very slow and a little depressing sounding.  We put it away and hardly gave it a thought for years.  It was written in the same weekend as our song California, which also started out much slower than it's ended up. At around xmas last year I was going though all the various songs that we'd sketched, recorded, or finished, trying to get a feel for what was going to make up our album.   Because I've started writing an...

Had a great day recording last weekend when Leigh Grant (original drummer from Pure) came in to play on three more songs.  It's been really fun to see how adding live drums to the tracks makes everything come to life.  He's now playing on over half the album. Leigh killed it once again. We tracked drums on Best Tonight, California '15, and Stop Givin Up On Love.    I started with Best Tonight so we could enter it into CBC Searchlight, and I've just finished the edits on the last of the three,  They as sounding super solid.  Very proud of Boutique Empire studio, it's turning out some big sounding songs! Last year Jordy Birch and I had Leigh come into The Valt studio, (Jordy's studio downtown), and he played on four other songs, one of which we later dumped the original song entirely and built a new one on top of his drumming: Happy Girl.   I know we were all hard on each other in our old band back in the day, but man, Leigh can really drum. ...

We've just finished this track, Best Tonight, and are going to enter it into the CBC Searchlight contest, so please help us out with some voting this April!   Combine the Victorious - Best Tonight Produced and performed by Combine  the Victorious Recorded and mixed at Boutique Empire Recording by M Henning Music: Henning, Dunlop, Harrison, Grant Lyrics: Henning, Dunlop, Birch Vocals: Mark, Isabelle Guitars: Don Harrison Drums: Leigh Grant Synthesizers etc: Mark Best Tonight The odds are long but we'll still make it Set a records and then we'll break it We booked a flight and then we'll take it Australian nights and getting naked Short on money, long on soul what we found funny was all that we could not control So we'll travel the world and visit our friends We're putting our dreams together again "Cause nothing makes me happier than music We'll make the best tonight So we'll trave...

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...

We recently had the pleasure of having old friend and former Pure bandmate Leigh Grant come into the studio and record drums on new Combine the Victorious songs.   It was a near complete Pure reunion that day, as Jordy Birch* was on hand to help with production.  The song in the clip below ( Come Down ) is a track that was co-written with Justin " Juice " Kadis and Misty Reid, we'd started it in 2013 but never completed the recording.  As Isabelle and I listened back to it this spring I could hear where live drums could really add a lot of life to the track. Live drums always seem to have that magic. So we asked Leigh to come down to the studio and put down his magic.  The section of this clip is the very first time Leigh's putting drums to the song, I love how much energy he adds from the very first cymbal crash. Thanks again Leigh, sounds amazing!  As I was messing with the mix a bit I solo'd his performance and found myself thinking of Pureafunalia ,...

I had a lot of fun this past Friday in Bank Vault Studio with former Pure bandmates Jordy Birch and Leigh Grant .  It was the first time since 1994 when we were recording Generation Six Pack that the three of us have all been together in a recording studio!  Leigh came downtown to put down some drum tracks on four Combine the Victorious songs with Jordy helping out with production. The day began as it must, in a music shop.  We picked up a rental kit from Tom Lee after a nice perusal of the Steinway piano room upstairs.  It's an understatement to say it's pretty nice playing on a nine foot grand!  Anyway, we grabbed a kit and went to the Bank Vault and quickly set up.  Leigh is probably even better than he was back in Pure days, he locked in with the songs effortlessly and has really given everything a great burst of energy.  After hearing a couple of these songs for almost a year with programmed drums it was liberating to hear a human take on the...

We had a great show on Sunday night performing at VALT2013 in the Centre for Digital Media.  The new five piece band, including Leigh Grant (former drummer of 90's alt rock band Pure ), sounded incredible.  I don't think we've sounded better in fact.  Here's just a few photos that have made their way to us from the show.  We had a digital media artist running extra images for us during the gig, which none of us actually saw while we were on stage, but in fact made for quite an interesting looking event! Thanks to Michelle Harding for sharing her photos with us!  

Juice has been editing some nice footage from a recent rehearsal and put this together.  The new five piece band has so much energy, and the sound is nicely rounded out, it's hard to remember when Isabelle and I were doing this as just a duo! Check out the clip, we are playing Glasgow with Leigh Grant (former drummer of Pure) on the drum kit, Juice on guitar, Misty and Isabelle handling the singing and me on keys.  The new band is amazing.  Our show last night at VALT2013 was a tonne of fun, and we reportedly have sounded incredible!  Got to find some footage from the night to share. In the mean time please check out this clip:

We just had a wonderful performance at the Rio Theatre here in Vancouver this past Thursday night. We were invited to perform the release party for Katrin Bowen 's comedy " Random Acts of Romance ". While it was a little different to be following a movie as an opening act, it turned into a very enjoyable experience! Combine the Victorious performed for the first time since 2007 as a five piece. Another first was Leigh Gran t, the original drummer from 90's alt rock band Pure, joined us to complete our sound. With Juice on Guitar, Misty on Bass, Leigh on Drums, me on keys and running Ableton, Isabelle even picked up a little keyboard for one new song:  we never sounded better. The set was succinct and powerful, very dance oriented and quite satisfying. Here are a few photos taken from Chuk Foto's instagram page. More will surface before the weekend's out I'm sure, but I really wanted to share some today, it was such a good night1 We play...

We shall be performing tonight over in New Westminster as part of the Change of Frequency festival.   Combine the Victorious will be on around 8:30 and we'll be debuting two new songs, one of them written specifically for the event.  It's titled Brotherhood and was written about our departed friend Todd Simko who left us last year.  The other is the song we revealed earlier this week called Hardly Spoken .   The four of us are sounding exceptionally great and really looking forward to this one. We checked out the Columbia Theatre last night and I have to say it's a lovely venue, with great sight lines, acoustics and a cool stage.  Quite looking forward to sharing our music in such a venerable space! Hope you can join us, and then stay for the Pure / Guilty About Girls set (which shall contain all of us with the added bonus of having Leigh Grant join us for a very authentic rendition of Denial) .  Lots of talent on stage tonight, and it's all to be...