Ducks Ltd. are Tom Mcgreevy (vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards and bass) and Evan Lewis (lead guitar, bass and beats), a duo currently based between Canada (Toronto) and Australia (Geelong) who have made a name for themselves for their devotion to the jangle-pop genre. According to the band’s Spotify introduction text, the key to the Ducks Ltd. sound is “simple charms, just like in the music that inspired it,” and they cite several 1980s indie pop bands in this regard, such as Felt, Orange Juice, Close Lobsters, McCarthy, The Go-Betweens, and projects associated with the independent record label Flying Nun Records. However, the genealogy of jangle-pop (although the term was not used in the press at the time) goes back to the 1960s, and the Byrds’ version of Bob’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan, a song that contains the expression “in the jingle-jangle morning,” is perhaps the one that best encapsulates the whole aesthetic in question: the bright reprise of open chords on electric guitars, the gliding melodies over larger harmonies, and, perhaps most importantly but also most incommunicably, an ambiguous, nostalgic feeling that is simultaneously jubilant and melancholy (listen to the Ducks Ltd. single “18 cigarettes”). The thing took shape after McGreevy and Lewis met on tour while playing in different Toronto bands, and found a mutual desire to develop work in this sub-category of rock. Now, having released their EP Get Bleak in 2019 by Bobo Integral – then re-issued in 2021 by Carpark -, having played with the likes of The Goon Sax, Weyes Blood and Juan Water, and having reached the critics of Pitchfork, A.V.Club and NME, Ducks Ltd. arrive at ZDB in quartet form, one of the stops on their extensive 2022 tour of Europe and North America. AR
