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Toronto's breezy synth-pop outfit
DIANA began as a collaboration between drummer
Kieran Adams and saxophonist
Joseph Shabason, fixtures of the city's music scene who met while studying jazz at the University of Toronto (later, they played with acts including Warm Myth and
Destroyer, respectively). Having written an album's worth of demos during a working holiday in the Canadian countryside, the pair recruited singer
Carmen Elle, formerly of
Spiral Beach and Army Girls, to lend some sweeter vocals to the project. The group finished recording in July 2012, and after posting some songs to SoundCloud, signed to Jagjaguwar Records.
DIANA added another of
Adams and
Shabason's U of T classmates (and
Hidden Cameras alumnus), Paul Mathew, to the fold before their debut,
Perpetual Surrender, arrived in August 2013. Three years later, the group (minus Mathew) returned with second album
Familiar Touch, which included singles "Confession" and "Slipping Away." ~ Heather Phares