ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT
ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT is the recently minted duo of Ariel Engle (La Force, Patrick Watson, Broken Social Scene) and Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion). Longtime friends, collaborators, and stalwarts of the Montréal post-punk community, this is their first full-fledged project together. The duo released a cassette EP in 2021, with their debut full-length forthcoming on Constellation in April 2023.
Ariel Engle is a Canadian singer, musician and composer who records and performs under the name La Force. She is also a member of Broken Social Scene and Patrick Watson’s band.
Engle first became noted as a guest vocalist on Montag's 2005 album Alone, Not Alone. She has subsequently appeared as a guest or backing vocalist on recordings by Melissa Auf der Maur, Sam Shalabi, Plants and Animals, Stars, Big Red Machine, Patrick Watson, Broken Social Scene, Safia Nolin, Morrissey, Adam Cohen and Martha Wainwright, to name just a few. Engle has performed live with Feist, Big Red Machine, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush Orchestra, Safia Nolin, Jerusalem In My Heart, and The Besnard Lakes, among others.
Engle co-founded AroarA in 2010 with Andrew Whiteman of Broken Social Scene and Apostle of Hustle. The band's 2013 EP In the Pines, based on the poetry of Alice Notley, was longlisted for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize. She became a full-time member of Broken Social Scene, with 2017’s Hug of Thunder marking her first recorded appearance, and has toured extensively in the group since, also contributing as a songwriter to the latest EP Let's Try The After released in 2019.
Engle has sung and performed in Patrick Watson’s band on and off since 2013, joining as a full-time member in 2021 and co-writing “Height of the Feeling” on Watson’s 2022 album Better In The Shade.
In 2016, Engle launched her solo project La Force. Her self-titled debut album was released in 2018 by Arts & Crafts and longlisted for the 2019 Polaris Music Prize. Her second album, entitled XO SKELETON, was released by Secret City in Fall 2023.
Efrim Manuel Menuck is co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GY!BE), one of post-rock’s most influential and celebrated groups, and of the Hotel2Tango, which evolved through the mid-1990s from a collective rehearsal, performance, and living space into one of Montréal’s leading indie recording studios. Menuck formed agit-prop punk ensemble Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra in 1999, and by the mid-2000s his two primary bands had released 10 albums between them.
Alongside ongoing GY!BE recording and touring, Menuck has made a series of acclaimed solo and collaborative albums, starting with Plays High Gospel (2011) and Pissing Stars (2018) under his own name, followed by are SING SINCK, SING (2019) with Kevin Doria (Growing, Hiss Tracts).
As a sound engineer, Menuck has recorded various artists since the early 2000s, including Vic Chesnutt, Carla Bozulich, Eric Chenaux, Colin Stetson, British Sea Power, Wolf Parade, and BIG|BRAVE.
Podcast & Interviews
Kreative Kontrol • Vish Khanna interviews Ariel Engle and Efrim Manuel Menuck
Artist Photos
For high-resolution downloads, click here
Contacts & Links
ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT Bandcamp
ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT Instagram
Press enquiries UK & North America:
Lauren Barley at Rarely Unable
Press enquiries EU:
Ed Benndorf at Dense Promotion