Chris Reimer - Hello People (2018)

Chris Reimer was an adventurous and curious musician and composer whose talent was buttressed by generosity, compassion, empathy, gentleness and modesty. Reimer picked up the guitar at the age of eight and drums at the age of twelve. While in high school he formed a band with his closest friends, a group that would later evolve into the critically acclaimed Women. Women released two vital albums under Calgary’s boutique Flemish Eye label, self-titled (2008) and Public Strain (2010). After the dissolution of the band at the end of a tumultuous tour in October 2010, Reimer would go on to join San Francisco based act The Dodos as a touring guitarist.
Throughout his time collaborating with other musicians, Reimer was also a solitary creator with a passion for ambient, noise, and drone sounds. He would spend countless hours spinning together listless guitar notes, subtle waves of washing sounds, or loops of glitches and distortion. Reimer also had an excitement for electronics and their manipulation of sound, frequently constructing his own effects pedals and synthesizer circuits. Noise making was his driving force and he longed to eventually compile a full album from his plethora of material.
Chris Reimer passed away unexpectedly and peacefully in his sleep at his home on the morning of February 21, 2012 of a possible heart condition. His close friends and family, knowing of his desire to release his ambient work as well as the perfectionism which had prevented him from doing so in his lifetime, began to listen to his extensive archive of solo works.
Over the past five years, Reimer’s family and close friends have been filtering through his extensive catalogue of recorded work spanning nearly a decade and are thrilled to finally present this double LP collection to the public. ‘Hello People’ is a sometimes confrontational, at others warm and intimate, and always deeply personal document from a multi-faceted artist, compiled from a huge range of recordings spanning lush four-track projects to raw phone memos. Veering from ambient guitar-pedal soundscapes, to delicate acoustic melody and all the way to drone noise experimentation, ‘Hello People’ takes the listener through an experience of composition and creation from the mind of a deeply talented spirit whose vision was cut short all too soon.