About

The Fragments perform an eclectic range of indie pop, including diversions into jazz and folk music, with lyrical tangles that will keep you scratching your head while you tap your feet.

Their debut CD, which was played by college radio stations across Canada, was praised by the Calgary Herald as being “an unabashedly odd and joyously weird, slightly askew pop record.”

The Fragments have headlined at a number of venues across Calgary, including The Ironwood, Broken City, Wine-Oh’s, The Ship & Anchor Pub, Gravity, and The Hub at Mount Royal University. They were also pleased to be a featured performer at a So Far Sounds: Calgary event.

The fall of 2014 saw the release of their follow-up CD, which was reviewed by BeatRoute magazine: “most of the tracks on Stone Boat will creep their way into your daily humming routine at some point or another. These melodies beg to be hummed.”

The Fragments recorded their third album, Night Gardening, on a vintage reel-to-reel machine, called the Stephens 821B. It was a record packed with delicious pop weirdness, tied together with the rich, warm sound of analog tape.

Their next album, Erratics, found intriguing and strange inspiration from the field of geology. Songs about mountain formations, early geologists, and glacial erratics give the album a focussed feel. But things are never quite what they seem with The Fragments: mountains complain about the horror of erosion, a geologist disco-dances with a shark, and the erratic might just be waking up from a blackout after a night of hard drinking.

The followup release from the Fragments, Winter Wasp, continued their exploration of musical styles and eclectic subject matter. The Calgary Herald noted that the album contains “wonderfully eccentric tunes,” including Stop the Presses, which is a “smoky duet,” and Reservoir Light, which is a “sly, slow-burning drum-and-bass tune.” The Fragments teamed up with a group of local artists who created paintings inspired by the songs on Winter Wasp. The artworks were displayed at a special exhibition at Calgary’s Loft 112.

The Fragments were finalists for the Ship & Anchor’s songwriting competition in 2019 (Jameson Upstart category).

The Calgary-based band recorded a new album, Get Lost, in 2020 shortly before the pandemic forced music venues across the world to close their doors. With a typical wide-range of styles, all melded into the Fragments’ pop weirdness, the band takes a journey to the coast for a yacht-rock-esque title track, rocks out about concrete cutting in “Breathless Constellations,” and even lets in a little humour with the funny-but-true “54-40 Blues.”

As well, for the first time, this Fragments album has been released on vinyl. The band was excited to hear themselves on wax, and they hope their fans will enjoy spinning their newest release.