Young Galaxy is a Canadian indie pop/dream pop band formed in 2005 in Vancouver, whose members are husband and wife, Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandless.
History
Young Galaxy formed in Vancouver as a duo including Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandless. Through that summer of 2005 and the spring of 2006 they recorded with appearances and contributions of friends at Jace Lasek's Breakglass Studio. Their sound has been described as similar to the bands Slowdive, Galaxie 500 and Luna as well as Pink Floyd and Spiritualized. The band has toured in Canada, The United States and Europe, opening for Arcade Fire, Peter, Bjorn and John, Stars and Death Cab For Cutie. They later moved to Montreal, where they recorded their self-titled debut. The album was released April 24, 2007 on Arts & Crafts. They recorded their second album, Invisible Republic, in Montreal at Hotel2Tango studio with Radwan Moumneh engineering and at Breakglass Studios with Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes engineering. Invisible Republic was released independently on August 25, 2009. It was mixed by Tony Doogan in Glasgow, Scotland. It was subsequently released in July 2010 in the US by Paper Bag Records, and received a long list nomination for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize. The band followed up in fall 2010 with YG No Art EP, an EP comprising unreleased tracks and remixes from the Invisible Republic sessions. Their third album, Shapeshifting, was produced by Dan Lissvik of the bandStudio in Gothenburg, Sweden. The album was released in February 2011 on Paper Bag Records and April 2011 in Europe through the Norwegian label, Smalltown Supersound. The album was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize in 2011 and made it to many year-end lists. Shortly after the release of Shapeshifting, two remix EPs for the singles from that album, 'Cover Your Tracks' and 'We Have Everything', were released and featured remixes from bands and producers who are friends with Young Galaxy. Following that, 'Versus', another free remix EP was released, which featured Young Galaxy remixing songs of their friends in other bands. Young Galaxy's fourth album, Ultramarine, was released on April 23, 2013. In June 2013, the album was shortlisted for the 2013 Polaris Music Prize. This was their first album in which all lead vocals were performed solely by McCandless. Their fifth album, Falsework, was released on October 30, 2015, produced by Dan Lissvik. In 2017, the band released two one-off singles, "Stay For Real", and "Elusive Dream". On January 10, 2018, Young Galaxy announced a new album, Down Time, along with the first single, "Under My Wing". It was released on April 6, 2018 and is their first album released as a fully independent band. In September of the same year they released their Snow Leopard EP, and announced an indefinite hiatus.
