summer shows + RIP treehouse.

it's been a quiet year for us so far. we've been busy dealing with boring things like school, work, poverty, and other things like that. life is long and short and difficult. in spite of it all, we have some shows coming up.

2023, outside the casbah.

of particular note: our best friends in treehouse of horror are calling it quits early next month. we'll miss this band very, very much, and we can't overstate how important they've been to our lives these past few years. they're ripping one last time with many of our dearest friends and some very cool surprise guests. jazz is out of town so we're moving as a 3-piece once again for this (as well as our gig at saint stephen's later this month) and planning to play mostly old stuff. we'd love to see you there.

as well, we'd like to thank everybody that attended stand & stare back in march; it was an beautiful night, and kai is aiming to put it together again next year. thank you especially to life & heaven through violence for making the trek up from the states, computer science & eric spinelli for driving all the way from montréal, alex & sonia for doing an amazing job on sound, and saint stephen's for having us. the more screamo we have in this cruel, cruel city, the better.

upcoming shows:

• june 27th @ church of saint stephen-in-the-fields (tkaronto) w/ real friend (AB), farron keep, no purpose & kahraba (doors @ 7:30 p.m./music @ 8 p.m./all ages/$20/p.w.y.c.)—buy tickets here
• july 3rd @ tranzac (tkaronto) w/ secret band, treehouse of horror (LAST SHOW), underwater basket weaving & body nest (doors @ 7 p.m./music @ 7:30 p.m./all ages/$25/p.w.y.c.)—buy tickets here
• august 2nd @ lithuanian house (tkaronto) for new friends fest, night 3/3 w/ portraits of past, tomb mold, joliette, clay birds, commitment, quiet fear, poetry of torch, gros enfant mort, underwater basket weaving & coup d'état (5 p.m./all ages)—buy tickets here
• september 17th @ bovine sex club (tkaronto) w/ the hirs collective & dear evangeline (19+/$20 adv./n.o.t.a.f.l.o.f.)—buy tickets here

flyer by kai.

flyer by ryan & kai.

flyer by asep yasin abdulah & kai.

flyer by hirs.

that's all for now—talk to you soon.

love,
boxxy

halloweekend 2 + ZBR distro.

hi! we've got a weekender to montréal with our dear friends in and always & tachyon coming up. these are gonna be our last shows of the year while we gear up to hibernate & write more.

flyer by kai.

flyer by kim.

flyer by willa coward.

• october 31st @ kolors (tkaronto) w/ underwater basket weaving & and always (8 p.m./19+/$15/p.w.y.c.)—buy tickets here
• november 1st @ barfly (tiohtià:ke) w/ and always & tachyon ($15/p.w.y.c.)
• november 2nd @ last shop on king (kitchener) w/ tachyon, and always & songs for listening (7 p.m./all ages/$20/p.w.y.c.) 

it would be lovely to see y'all there. <3

for any american friends that might end up reading this for some reason: the daves of zegema beach records have kindly put some copies of last year's 7" up for distro via their u.s. store. you can grab those here if you so desire.

photo by zbr.

finally—we camped out in hamilton for the weekend... more on that later.

talk to you soon,

boxxy 

remaining summer shows.

flyer by no funeral.

next show: boxxy returns to the study room this tuesday for the first time since 2022 with emma goldman (vancouver), searing & sostre! (buffalo). this one's gonna be ridiculous: be there if you can.

alternate flyer by kai.

as well, we've got some photos our dear friend matty (of iwan, bloom dream & epyon fame) took at the nff pre-show last month:

edit: it's also toast's birthday today. <3 <3 <3

photo by laura quinn.

next tkaronto show: september 11th at saint stephen's, flyer soon.

spring + summer show schedule (so far).

thanks to everyone who came to our last pair of shows—gear still exploded but we pressed on as usual. i believe we raised around $400 at lowther for palestinian youth movement's toronto chapter, and saoirse dream ruled. this world is cursed, but life ain't so bad sometimes.

excerpt from the march 2025 issue of shapeshifter.

boxxy @ 84 lowther avenue by prim.

boxxy @ 84 lowther avenue by prim.

boxxy @ 84 lowther avenue by prim.

no real information or flyers yet, but here's a look at our next 4 months or so:

• may 17th @ t.b.a. (tkaronto) w/ treehouse of horror & underwater basket weaving (details t.b.a.)
• may 21st @ t.b.a. (tkaronto) w/ imy3 (details t.b.a.)
• june 7th @ the arcade (tkaronto) w/ paperhats & computer (details t.b.a.)
• june 28th @ t.b.a. (kitchener) (details t.b.a.)
• july 19th @ the baby g (tkaronto) (details t.b.a.)
• july 31st @ t.b.a. (tkaronto) (details t.b.a.) 

most of these aren't set in stone yet, but hopefully everything works out. kai will be gone on vacation for most of april & may so we're on ice until the trees have leaves again. still writing, still recording—we'll keep you posted.

 

love,

boxxy

farewell to ryan + last show of 2024.

ya know, i thought blogging was gonna be easier than this, but i've made it much more difficult than it needs to be. lots happened over the last month. let's talk about it!

emissions with bloom dream.

our 7" as a staff pick at emissions!

some of our releases spotlighted at emissions!

new ho king with bloom dream.

new neon.

post-gig dinner at owl! <3

thee WEEKEND OF VALOUR with bloom dream was real sweet—you better pray they come back again soon. we love our new best pals! 305 x 416 forever. <3

we played the respire release show the other night at the church and it was (predictably) tremendous. thanks to everyone who came through, we'll post photos if/when we get them. we played a couple of new songs that we have saved for something longer next year and we're very excited about them. as well, it was our last show for the foreseeable future with our beloved cellist, banjo ryan! ;_; they're moving out to ottawa at the end of the month, but not before one last dionaea spouse gig:

ryan's playing a farewell set of sorts alongside parallel play at st. luke's united church this friday to raise funds for the international coalition for human rights in the philippines. please consider attending if you can.

flyer by kai.

aaaaand finally—we've got one last gig for the year coming up in a few weeks. we return to everyone's favourite worst nightmare prison on the 7th with a frankly absurd roster of bands—body nest's proper debut (members of please don't crash & blood wraith), mauling (london powerviolence), heavenscoldhands (montréal metalcore), lice (brampton bully music) & the almighty REALITY DENIED (niagara's finest). hardcore! thanks to gonz for putting this together; we better see ya there.

that's all for now. 'til next time...

love,

boxxy

~

p.s.

 

soybomb is getting evicted at the end of november—there will be one last show on the 30th. animal faces, big brave (drone set), they grieve & piper maru will be playing. $25/p.w.y.c., all ages, doors at 7. you need to be there: don't fuck it up.

post-fest.

now that we've had a little over a week to take it in, everything's finally hitting us now: that was the best weekend ever.

our sincere thanks goes out to everyone who came to see us at fest. it was beautiful playing to so many familiar faces, and even better to show the new ones how we do it in tkaronto. thanks to banjo ryan as always for the cello (<3 <3 <3) + jazz & willa for the much-needed vocal support. shouts to treehouse, terry & basque for helping us prove why our scene is worth paying attention to, we love y'all more than we can express. thank you to all the far-away friends that took time to catch us at 4:30 on a saturday. thanks to the merch buyers for dignifying our continued efforts to be a "real band". many, many thanks to the new friends staff, volunteers, sound techs, harm reduction team & bartenders for making the whole thing such a frictionless experience. molte grazie to radura, not only for being the sweetest people, but also for playing what was very arguably the best set of a weekend brimming with amazing bands. furthermore, getting to see/play the same night as raein was legitimately life-changing for us as a band and as people—truly a performance we'll forever hold dear to our hearts.

our deepest gratitudes are reserved for all those who help make what we do in this city so special. there's a reason tom schlatter told us that he thinks tkaronto is "the screamo capital of the world", and it's not just about the music itself. for 3 days it felt like we were at the centre of the universe, and that wouldn't have been possible without the love, drive & passion that we all put into this community year-round. thank you, thank you, thank you. we are indebted.

you can read about how much fun we all had in this handy exclaim! article. you should definitely read the whole thing, but here's what they had to say about us:

"Boxcutter started day two by playing a noisy, energetic and politically charged set that saw lead vocalist and guitarist Toast Wong step off the stage and play amongst the crowd. The inclusive pit saw bodies of all shapes, sizes and proclivities slamming and headbanging. When members of the thrashing attendees fell to the ground, they were instantly helped back up and checked in on, a punktastic practice that should be present at every show (I'm looking at you, meathead hardcore bros… you know who you are). Their set was raw and passionate, a group of young, talented musicians making some truly harrowing noise that whipped the crowd into an early frenzy. Near the end of their set, they were joined on stage by Jazz Cook of Keening and Willa Coward, who added a chaotic, confrontational energy to the proceedings. But it wasn't all crashing, tremolo'd guitars and pounding rhythms (although there was plenty of that, courtesy of drummer Kai Lumbang and bassist Starlight): a cello, courtesy of Ryan Greenlaw, added a droning, pulsating element, one that is often missing from screamo."

thanks marko! <3

the ruthless criticism of all that exists has been out for exactly 1 month & we finally have our 7"s in hand! locals can grab copies at emissions or sonic boom in addition to gigs; international folks, go here or here (sorry about the shipping prices, we're gonna try and work on some distro options). kai handles all the mail order by themselves, so please be patient.

here's some photos of us from the weekend taken by aidan & dove (<3):

photo by aidan.

photo by aidan.

photo by aidan.

photo by aidan.

photo by aidan.

photo by aidan.

photo by aidan.

photo by dove.

photo by dove.

photo by dove.

now, on to housekeeping... we're gonna be taking the rest of the summer pretty easy. most of us are still recovering from COVID and everyone needed the break anyway; please keep masking, testing & taking as much precaution as possible, utilize resources like donatemask.ca if you need to, and remember that we keep us safe when no one else will.

all that being said, we have recording dates coming up pretty quick & 2 gigs on the horizon before the season's out. those are as follows:

• august 18th @ doors pub (hamilton) w/ klunk, pavel stroke (NS) & bubble gun powder (7 p.m./$10 or p.w.y.c./19+)
• september 22nd @ church of saint stephen-in-the-fields w/ respire & sunnsetter ($20 or p.w.y.c./all ages)
  

flyer by luther.

flyer by egin.

finally, a nice memory: we started our first day of recording for it's more like embracing 2 years ago today. visiting hours turns 10 on thursday, LP turns 7 on the 25th. time just gets away from us.

feels like that's everything for now. stay safe, take care of each other, tell your friends you love them.

FREE PALESTINE.

FROM THE RIVER TO THE FUCKING SEA.

love,

boxxy <3