Winnipeg's Fold Paper Take Aim With Fiery Single "Idle Idle" Off New EP '4TO'

Winnipeg post-punk band Fold Paper’s song “Idle Idle” crackles and simmers with intensity, a roaring bass line and a nod to classic post-punk tracks by heroes like Fugazi.

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Stream: “Idle Idle” – Fold Paper

Curious and intriguing doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to Fold Paper, a buzzed-about Winnipeg post-punk band upending the genre, blazing their own trail while nodding to the past. Even frontman Chell Osuntade’s own path is unconventional: Osuntade was born in Nigeria and raised in Michigan before settling in Winnipeg of all places.

They’ve found a home on Canadian label Royal Mountain Records, a past home to guitar-driven favorites like Wild Pink, but Fold Paper deliver a deeper, darker, more brooding and intense take on the genre.

As Royal Mountain Records says, the four-piece “crafts sprawling yet wiry post-punk that seethes with tension and animosity,” a descriptor that’s reflected across the band’s new EP, entitled 4TO.

Friend
Idle
People
Idle
Support
Idle
Keep on
Idle

But outside, it’s just you waiting on me.

Brave the stormy weather
Palter!
I’ve seen you try it’s never enough
Palter!
I can do you one better
Palter!
Give some to get some
Palter!

Grounded by a sturdy, almost menacing bass line, the band’s compact single “Idle Idle” swoops, yelps and howls, as if it’s prowling over and through sound waves.

The track has a razor-sharp focus from the onset, and the record label says that it pulls no punches, “taking aim at support systems who fail you right when they should be there to catch you.”

Idle Idle - Fold Paper — Idle Idle – Fold Paper

No warning, no cues
Instead we end up stabbed in the back
Oh oh!
You’re marked as the unsub!
Then you take it as a joke
Then you take it as a joke
Then you take it!

“Idle Idle” crackles with intensity and a richness and depth, and it’s a track that Ostuntade hopes will resonate with listeners in its own way.

“It wasn’t from a place of anger, just really matter-of-fact,” Ostuntade says in an interview with Flood Magazine. “Maybe it’ll be a you-know-who-you-are type of situation for people that’ll make them feel bad; but hey, take the songs as you see fit.”

Friend
Idle
People
Idle
Support
Idle
Keep on
Idle

But outside, betrayal rears its ugly head

The daring mission of “Idle Idle” carries forward across the new EP, as its tracks set their sights on “everything from hypocrites, yuppies and support systems that don’t show up,” in classic and ultimately fitting post-punk fashion.

No one is spared from the gaze of Fold Paper, an admirable approach that calls to mind post-punk legends of decades past.

I can do you one better
Palter!
Give some to get some
Palter!

Fold Paper have the chops, the outlook, and the creative vision to blaze a new trail for modern post-punk, and if tracks like “Idle Idle” are any indication, there’s plenty more in store where that came from.

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