French Paddleboat

In 1996, French Paddleboat (aka Scott August) released his first cassette Constantinople on his private press Canadian cassette label Granted Passage, followed up quickly by 1997’s Rome Loves Tan (Union Pole Cassettes / Catsup Plate Records) and then finally Conversions In Metric (Scratch Records). This all happened very quickly and simultaneously with his output as 50% of Kelowna’s Vote Robot (Scratch / KRAAK) and as drummer for the Nova Scotias (Cactus Gum / Bees Make Honey /Bacchanalian Revel International).

As the 90’s vanished it seemed so did French Paddleboat, as Scott’s creative focus turned to visual art, small Vote Robot tours, and releasing albums for the Vancouver bands Destroyer and Ladyhawk.

Then in 2024, while writer Joe Posset was researching the history of the Union Pole tape label he discovered a secret, Scott had never really called time on French Paddleboat. A record, started in 1999, had been carefully worked on with a squad of top-rate collaborators and was waiting for the right time to bloom. French Paddleboat’s Fleeced At Golden Hour is decades in the making, recorded between 1999 – 2019 the album grew from something that was originally “itchy and noisy” to “lush orchestrated calligraphy” through the act of collaboration. On Fleeced at Golden Hour Scott is joined by: Jon-Rae Fletcher, Darcy Hancock (Ladyhawk), Kim Koch, Ian Krist, Cary Pratt, Denver Rawson, Jordie Robinson, Joseph Shabason (Destroyer / Shabason & Krgovich), and Jason Zumpano (Zumpano). Wake the town and tell the people, Fleeced at Golden Hour, is all buffed up, polished and ready to meet the world.

Mastered by Joshua Stevenson at Otic Sound, the vinyl includes a download card for 24bit / 96KHz uncompressed audio, an 11x11 insert, an OBI strip (featuring images of out-of-print Triple Crown Audio Recordings releases you can’t buy anymore). All this comes packaged in a reverse printed matte side up heavyweight Gatefold jacket, printed and designed by the artist.