SUGARFUNGUS is an indie pop/indietronica band from Vancouver, Canada that was formed remotely in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. The 5-piece collective describes themselves as “introverts making dance music” and their songs, like debut single “Ghosts”, evoke a certain dream-pop meets Pacific Northwest electronica sound. But SUGARFUNGUS are more than just bedroom pop, the group’s influences range from classic rock to nu-jazz.
The members of SUGARFUNGUS are lead singer Tess Meckling, bassist Alex Marr, lead guitarist Bradan Decicco, keyboardist Jackson Moore, and drummer Ivan Barbou. The name SUGARFUNGUS comes from a literal translation of Saccharomyces yeast, used in wine, beer, and bread. It is a fitting name as lab partners turned bandmates, Marr and Moore met while attending graduate school at the University of British Columbia in a wine yeast genetics lab. Friends and Capilano University jazz students/alumni, Decicco, Meckling, and Barbou were soon asked to join the group that would ultimately form SUGARFUNGUS. The band is intending to release their first EP entitled “Letting Go, Moving Still” in Winter of 2021/2022. The EP presents a set of warm and fuzzy tracks that blend bright guitar lines and atmospheric synths, all the while punctuated by pop-driven hooks that capture the feeling of drifting in and out of a state of sweet, mushroomy bliss. Each song of the EP was written and recorded at the homes of each of the band members, who would produce their parts, share for notes, and feedback, and then send the parts to drummer and producer Ivan Barbou. “Good music presents a story and people feel it through their interpretation,” Barbou says of the band’s intentions. “We have the same vision to entertain people and get them to dance.”
For a band inspired by science, nature, and dance music, the idea of stitching pieces of different organisms together to evolve into something infinitely funkier, more brilliantly alive is an apt metaphor. With restrictions easing, SUGARFUNGUS are hopeful that their underground tendrils will soon be able to rise to the surface and break out into the light, a unique and talented bunch – now a fully formed organism ready for its arrival.
