Braids

About

The artist

Braids is a Montreal-based trio featuring Raphaelle Standell-Preston, Austin Tufts, and Taylor Smith. The musicians first formed in Alberta under the name The Neighbourhood Council, then relocated to Montreal and adopted the Braids name while developing their debut album. Native Speaker appeared in 2011 and established the group through long-form arrangements, vocal layering, live processing, and a meeting of organic and electronic sound. The album was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. Flourish // Perish followed in 2013, while Deep in the Iris expanded the group's rhythmic and lyrical directness in 2015 and received the Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year. Companion collected related material in 2016. Shadow Offering arrived in 2020, and Euphoric Recall followed in April 2023. Braids wrote, recorded, and mixed Euphoric Recall at Studio Toute Garnie in Montreal, combining strings, piano, synthesizers, percussion, and Standell-Preston's intimate vocal writing. The current official Bandcamp continues to describe Braids as a Montreal-based three-piece, and the official site presents the latest album and active project channels. Across five albums, the group has maintained a self-produced approach that treats performance, composition, and studio manipulation as parts of the same process.