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Artist
ex~po
12+ albums
psychedelicrockshoegazeindie popwilco
about
EX~PO (now renamed PAPERMAPS) is the musical vision of Dean Marino, a Toronto-based songwriter, guitarist and record producer. Dean describes EX~PO as: “well-crafted indie pop, filtered through sunny vocal arrangements, fuzz-guitar, punchy rhythms with psychedelic ‘studio-head’ tendencies.” Like most kids, Dean grew up listening to his parent’s record collection. These stacks of vinyl and 8-tracks contained typical British invasion and West-Coast pop but his folks also had a penchant for oddities, like the VU, obscure soul and jazz. Also, unlike most kids, music completely saturated Dean’s life. His father played in several Brit influenced garage bands with names like “the NYC Teens” and “the Spiders,” while his grandfather was a prominent jazz bassist. Inevitably, Dean started his first band (Lucid Dream, which became Smile) in high school with his brother Pete and current collaborator Jay Sad. Influenced by the local indie and punk scene, Pete and Dean went on to form Knacker, a pop-via-punk outfit, which after a string of minor successes and two albums went on hiatus in 2004. In that same year, Dean recorded Harsh Lenses Point Homeward under the EX~PO moniker. This limited-run release garnered critical acclaim, with wide-ranging comparisons to Belle and Sebastian, Mark Bolan, Sonic Youth, Wilco, Elliot Smith and Sloan. After a few life-disasters, the purchase of a recording studio (Chemical Sound) and months spent experimenting with sounds, Dean recorded a full-length fo
