Bedouin Soundclash In Concert

Though they formed in the Canadian college town of Kingston, Ontario, Bedouin Soundclash have always felt more spiritually in tune with another Kingston — the one located about 1,800 miles south in Jamaica. The band’s love of reggae sounds is embedded right into their name, which was taken from a 1996 album by experimental dub artist Badawi. 

On their scrappy 2001 debut Root Fire, Bedouin Soundclash picked up right where The Clash left off nearly two decades prior, finding the common musical language between reggae’s clipped guitar riffs and punk’s streetwise grit. The band’s 2004 follow-up, Sounding a Mosaic, saw them collaborating with a bona fide rasta-punk legend — producer Darryl Jenifer of D.C. hardcore pioneers Bad Brains. 

The album proved to be the group’s pop breakthrough, with singer/guitarist Jay Malinowski smoothing out his natural rasp to showcase the gentler, more congenial qualities of his voice. The album’s opening track — “When the Night Feels My Song” — was a sweet, acoustic sing-along that sounded like it could’ve been pulled from Bob Marley’s unplugged repertoire. Despite (or maybe because of) it being completely out of step with everything else in heavy rotation on modern-rock radio at the time, the song became a massive crossover hit across Canada and the U.K. 

Continuing their fruitful partnership with Jenifer, the band released Street Gospels in 2007. It yielded a two more hit singles in the breezy, island-tinged “Walls Fall Down” and the jangly, busker-ready “St. Andrews” (featuring guest growls from Alexisonfire/Gallows member Wade MacNeil), earning a Pop Album of the Year nomination at the Juno Awards. 

The band’s success spurred the establishment of their own record label, Pirates Blend. It launched with the 2010 release of Malinowski’s solo debut, Bright Lights & Bruises, a more piano-oriented singer/songwriter affair. 

Later that year, Bedouin Soundclash released its eclectic fourth album, Light the Horizon, which featured “Brutal Hearts,” a smoldering duet with indie-pop phenom Coeur de pirate that led to her and Malinowski collaborating on the short-lived project Armistice. After sitting out most of the ‘10s — during which Malinowski unveiled his ambitious art-rock band, The Deadcoast — Bedouin Soundclash resurfaced in 2017 with the single “Clock Work,” an anthemic hit of piano-driven soul that sees the band continue to stretch their elastic sound.