Victorious Combinations

 We put out our summer single " Smooth Sailing " on July 1st, and have been blessed with many radio plays around Canada, but especially here at home in Vancouver. Thanks to CFRO and CBC for the love!    Smooth Sailing is definitive Combine the Victorious sound. Blending Fleetwood Mac with Sade over a Sting inspired chord progression but somehow ends up sounding even more like us. Daniel Clement  (guitarist) and I became friends in Junior High in White Rock, BC.  Back in 1981 we started rehearsing our band Idle Minx in his family's garage. We know each other quite well and musically even better. The old records we shared as teenagers are the shorthand between us that has become the modern sound of Combine the Victorious.  And with this song, as with so many of our songs, this one was born from another Isabelle Dunlop chorus hook. As soon as she sang that we all knew we had a good song on the line.  Dan's guitar work on this one is lovely. The chorus gu...

  Amnesia is now available on our bandcamp site for listening and buying and you can order the cd from that site as well. So the options are slowing opening up to check out our new album. It is streaming on Tidal now and available for download from the iTunes music store as well.  On December 19th, the night of our Cd release party the album will become available on most streaming site, excluding Spotify, and of course be available for sale at our show the the Fox ! 

  We are excited to announce our CD Release party on Friday December 19th at the one and only Fox Cabaret with our pals Skaboom closing the night.  Early show, doors at 7PM, Combine the Victorious will begin at 7:45 sharp and Skaboom with follow starting at 8:45 until 10. Tickets available here 

 We are very excited to announce we have completed our new full length album and have begun the process of finalizing the art for its release! The album is titled "Amnesia" and features nine songs, including the title track Amnesia. This is the first album we've made with our guitar player Daniel Clement assisting with the writing and performing and his influence shows up dramatically throughout the songs.   Produced and recorded at the Boutique Empire studio here in Vancouver by Mark Henning, Amnesia offers a hint of hope in a world seemingly destined for destruction. The wistfulness of Monsoon Afternoon and Amnesia are matched with the darkness and intensity of Long-term Solution and Pick Up the Pieces. We have opted to add in a few of our favourite singles from the past year as well, with I Really Like Yout Style, Awkward Connect and Danser tout le temps appearing to round out the sound.   It will be available in early November on some streaming sites and wil...

 We have spent most of the past year writing and performing new material, some of which we've released as singles up to this point but also finishing off five additional new songs all of which shall be collected as a new full length album.  Since our guitarist Danial Clement joined the band we have upped the speed with which we write and record. Additionally we've altered our sound to incorporate a lot more guitar and moved into new territories. As the song Monsoon Afternoon indicates Combine the Victorious has adopted a more organic approach to our music, blending traditional Latin rhythms with our darker sounds.  Isabelle's vocal melodies and lyrics really shine on this new collection. There is a wonderful sense of joy to the new songs, pulling the moods from darker tones and lifting things up to a more hopeful and positive vibe.  Nine songs, all made to fit onto vinyl, which is our goal, and ready for a full release.  tracks will include: Danser tout les temp...

This is just a quick note to talk about the progress we've been making on our next full length album. We've been releasing singles for the past few years in attempt to get the algorithm going on the streaming sites and for a bit it has seemed to work. However we, Daniel, Isabelle and I, all feel like its time to collect a few of our favorite songs and add them to the growing pile of completed new tracks to bind them together into a new album.  We have four completely new songs never released and are working hard on finished a pair of freshly started tracks. It is our intention to grab just a few of the songs we've released over the past three years to complete the music journey. I confess it is rather excited to have so much new material and all of it is sounded quite great - plus I've made a handful of updated mixes from our other repertoire that will someday become B-sides or part of an EP in the future. As always we shall be giving our previews of tracks on our bandc...

  BE25045 Release Date - April 4 2025 We are pleased to release out latest single, it forms part of a three songs that explore a similar tonality. Monsoon Afternoon features another exquisite guitar part from Daniel Clement supported the delicate vocals of Isabelle Dunlop, Recorded in the early winter of 2025 the song embraces a more mature sound and explores the subtle balance of hope and realism.  Words and music by Combine the Victorious (Dan Clement, Isabelle Dunlop, Mark Henning)  Production, engineering and mixing by Mark Henning Recorded, mixed and mastered at Boutique Empire Studio, Vancouver, Canada.  Artwork by Boutique Empire  Have a listen thru any of the links below! Apple Music Spotify Amazon Bandcamp

 Well we had a decently busy year, with our biggest show to date back in June opening for Images In Vogue and a mini tour to Manitoba in August, three shows in November and hopefully a lot more in 2025.  We've decided to complete writing and recording a batch of new material to combine with a few of our previously released singles to make a full length album. Vinyl is being considered this time, which would be a first for us, as we've really only pressed CDs of our first album The World Over and done very limited runs of CD-Rs for other releases just to promote.  The first of the new songs is now complete with a couple more started in the demo stages. Hopefully we'll have four songs done by New Year's Eve!  Stay tuned and I'll drop previews of the songs on this blog and our soundcloud page. Really want to make as great an album as we can and I'm feeling as though we'll have the material to make it memorable!

  We are quite excited about our new single " Awkward Connector ." This is a song where the original idea came from Daniel Clement , guitarist, and we worked on it over the summer. We did try playing it live a few times while we were in Manitoba but it never felt like we had it totally finished. November 1st we are releasing it into the world with hopes it will find us new friends!  Featuring Isabelle 's vocals once again with Dan's lush guitars filling in many of the spaces. The synths were a fun addition as I explored a few of the new virtual analog synths I'd purchased this past year. Several of the sounds are multiple layers of synths to complete the sonic palette.  Once again our friend Greg Hanberry came into the studio to add a conga part to the song. His congas have really become integral to the Combine the Victorious sound over the past two years. He's now played on at least five of our songs!  To complete the release we asked our frequent artist col...

  We are excited to release our next single "goodbye Bad Times".  This is a continuation of our songwriting with Daniel Clement, and I think offers up one of our happiest choruses in ages!   Release date is set for June 7th, 2024,  just a day before we perform as the opening act for Images In Vogue here in Vancouver at the Rickshaw Theatre. Please check your preferred streaming service (or our bandcamp if you would care to support us more directly) next Friday! Listen today on soundcloud or bandcamp .

We have set up our new song " Danser tout le temps " to be available for streaming or purchase on our respective Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages.    Please click through to either if you are a patron.    Soundcloud Bandcamp     The single will be released  onto all streaming platforms on March 1, 2024.

 We had a fun night in the Boutique Empire studio on Monday evening, when Sean McFarland (aka Jean Vercoe) took to the camera and filmed us performing live in the studio our new single "Danser Tour le Temps."  In effort to give the video a little more authenticity we actually played our parts to a small group for friends who heard it for the first time. A little bit of dancing and fun was had by all! Tonight Isabelle and I had the chance to have a first look at the footage and cut together a rough edit to start building our next video. It is turning out really well and big thanks to everyone who came out on that rainy Monday night to help us celebrate our new single. Progress is being made, the video is looking good and the song is set for mastering.  We shall be setting the release date very soon! Here's just a quick glance at one of the shots we liked from the video.

 It is really exciting to release this single today! This is the first song we've written with our new guitarist (and longtime friend) Daniel Clement . I Really Like Your Style is a slight departure from the trip-hop inspired songs of the past few years. We start out with a kind of homage to that sound but then quickly shift into a more uplifting reggae influenced sound that builds to a charming chorus filled with Isabelle's lifting melody.  This song has been brewing in the background for a while now but truly came to life when we shared it with Dan. The addition of the guitar changed everything about our approach and the song transformed into the shape we have today. During the past months one day in rehearsal Dan and I were jamming on a descending riff and then Isabelle popped into the studio and sang the line "Is this everything you wanted." I was so surprised by that melody and the lyric I knew we had to incorporate it into the song. I had been needlessly concern...

 We are excited to release our next song, " I Really Like Your Style ." This will be the first song we have written with our new guitarist Daniel Clement . It's been a bit of a journey getting this one together.    It started as a completely different song back in 2021 with now only the chorus line remaining the same. Originally I had written a completely different lyric for the verses but they were not working for me on review a year later. So early 2023 we abandoned the old arrangement and began the version we will be releasing. Isabelle took over writing the lyric for the entire song, and thanks to a lucky moment while we were rehearsing we unveiled a totally new intro for the song. I have been consciously attempting to keep our ideas in a certain tempo and mood in hopes of creating a unified collection of material for a full length release. Well " I Really Like Your Style " has turned into a happier song, with a strong lean into reggae for influence in the c...

 First reviews are all positive so that's a good sign. Here's hoping we land a couple big playlists with this single. If you are into it please have a listen on which is your preferred streaming site and add the song to a playlist. Those couple of things help us get into the patterns of the algorithm and may even get us approved for an official Spotify editorial playlis. If you haven't yet please listen to Rushes Over Me!  Click hear to listen

 We are really happy that our song "Crazy Story" was chosen as song of the day for the Earshot Distribution System.   We hope all of Canada starts listening to this one soon!  Thanks Earshot!

  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 are very pleased to announce that we have a new album about to drop!   Paros is a collection of remixes, remasters, and new tracks (including Façon Fashion , the song made popular on the Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things ) being released on Thorvald Records, April 29th. The anthology is curated and directed by Thorvald Record label chief, record producer and impresario Stefan Sigerson .  We have collaborated for over a decade on songs, dating back to our Crumbling Hearts ep, where he co-produced and co-wrote several tracks. His support over the years has always been uplifting and inspiring, so it's exciting to launch this package out to the world with his new label's guidance and assistance!  A wonderful surprise from this venture has been the connection with graphic artist Steven R Gilmore . (famous for branding Nettwerk Records, Steven was the graphic artist on the 1988 After All album, as well as the debut Pure album Pureafunalia .)   He has created ...

Hello! Isabelle here. Just wanted to share a little bit about our song Thunde r from the lyrical perspective.  The lyrics for Thunder were born from an idea sparked at my studio at the shop, the hum of the sewing machine plain to hear in the backdrop of my original voice memo. “I’m feeling you, it’s coming through like thunder” I've often found that as I sew or iron away my mind can drift off into analyzing conversations and moments that have been caught in my head. Last summer we were in the process of moving from our home of 24 years and I realize that I was kind of saying goodbye to that place. It had always been such a safe, protective and creative space. It was like losing a friend. The same as with friendship there is an ebb and flow as we need it and it’s okay when things change, in fact it’s completely natural. As we walk away from an old home I feel no pain because I believe in the new adventure and all that it holds. The cool thing is that I played the nugget ...

 We are really pleased to release our song "What's Going on in Your Head," this week. It has been a long journey to arrive at this release, starting from the Los Angeles living room of friend and producer Stefan Sigerson, to making the song fully twice over. The initial version took on a more full band sound, with live drums and electric guitar and rhodes piano in addition to our usual electronics. However, even after making a final mix and having it mastered we never felt the song connected properly.  So even though we'd spent almost two years attempting to perfect that version I finally decided to scrap it and start over. Taking the drum stem from the original version we imported that into Abelton Live and build an entirely new song. This time instead of quoting so directly from the trip hop influences of Portishead and Massive Attack we took it more minimal and created a new synth driven riff to centre the song to. You can hear it in the intro, the icy slightly dis...