Ira Dot | In Blue Time

In Blue Time, the debut LP from Toronto-ish duo Ira Dot (Eddy Wang & Ryan Akler-Bishop), is an ode to all things blue: the shade of melancholy, of ocean water, of the body’s maze of capillaries. Marrying Wang’s metaphysical, confessional vocals with Akler-Bishop’s eclectic production, the record is an intimate whisper from a beloved friend, peppered with cosmic crescendos and gargantuan choral sections.

Across In Blue Time’s five-year evolution, the duo recorded in bedrooms, remote cabins, music halls, and studios across North America in cities including Victoria, Vancouver, Whistler, Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, New York, Philadelphia, and plenty others. Ira Dot embraced a diverse range of influences: Anne Anlin Cheng’s writing on racial melancholia, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Babatunde Olatunji’s drumming, Fibonacci Sequence polyrhythms, Takashi Ito films, new loves initiated, old loves dissolved, and various animals calls (to name a handful).

This blue menagerie moves from twee slacker rock into intimate chamber pop, from sound collage to Beijing opera-infused lofi folk. Across this genre blend, In Blue Time is a fluid expression of identity asunder. These are songs of non-belonging, songs that wrestle with the concept of hyphenism, born between clear-cut labels of both genre and national identity.

Ira Dot have been profiled in publications such as C Magazine and Our Culture Mag, featured on radio networks including NTS, and performed in a diverse range of venues, spanning garages, art centers, galleries, churches, and music halls.

Written and arranged by Eddy Wang

except 6, with poem by Fan Wu

Produced by Ryan Akler-Bishop

Mixed by Eddy Wang & Ryan Akler-Bishop

Mastered by Alastair Cavanagh

Additional Engineering by Prince Nifty

Cover Art and Liner Notes Drawing by Vicky Huang

Album Rear and Liner Note Design by Benjamin de Boer

Coordination by Julian Yi-Zhong Hou