Calgary Art-Pop Auteur Dominic Demierre Transforms Personal Crisis Into Vivacious Sonic Statement; Three Singles Explore Chemical Warfare, Cyclical Cruelty, and Eventual Escape

Celogen, the solo project of Calgary art-pop tinkerer Dominic Demierre, releases 'Fire Alarm Himitsu!' today, an album born from choosing life over ruin. Following a breakdown shortly after his 27th birthday, a year filled with grief, and a failed move, Demierre found himself at a creative and existential crossroads. Yet rather than succumb, he assembled a musical live wire, putting a spotlight on the darkness to see if it can't ultimately make us laugh. The album represents a warped take on Sondheim-style showtunes filtered through the abstract electronic lens of acts like Justice and Mr. Oizo, featuring a host of friends who bring gutsy interpretations to resoundingly intimate material.

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/album/2a5BDpPJmWBN6w5vHHtn6a

Some albums whisper, others wail. Answer Me Smartass, the seventh full-length from Calgary’s Dominic Demierre under his solo art-pop moniker Celogen, doesn’t choose. It’s a liminal howl, equal parts lullaby and exorcism, tethered by the cracked but defiant voice of someone who’s barely holding on—and somehow building symphonies anyway.

Demierre—Celogen’s sole member, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist—emerges from a period of intense personal crisis. “To be frank,” he writes, “Answer Me Smartass comes out of trying to figure out why you’d carry on. Why you’d bother to choose life.” It’s a record forged in hospitals, real and metaphorical: his father’s near-fatal heart infection, a friend’s psychiatric admission, and his own time in crisis stabilization. Instead of yielding silence, he made music—a dense, mercurial, genre-elusive work that tackles trauma, hope, and human absurdity with unflinching precision.

Laced with delicately placed melodies shrouded in what appears to be chaos, Canadian experimental pop artist Celogen creates an entirely unique listening experience with his new single, “The Red Lips Called Snowfinch” – check it out YouTube here:

The brainchild of Calgary-based musician Dominic Demierre, the song is the latest to land from Celogen’s most recent LP, Wastebasin Lake — an unleashing of industrial electronics combined with guitars, keyboards, strings, and horns… All of which make their heady debut in “The Red Lips Called Snowfinch.”

Certain melodic elements tempt to lure the listener into a final resting place while counter melodies and dissonance remind you that this is a journey that is just beginning — for both the main character of the story and the listener.

Canadian art pop auteur Celogen challenges convention and focuses on invention with this, his new release “(Give Yourself) Ropeburns”.

Check out “(Give Yourself) Ropeburns” on YouTube here:

A bold exploration of the dark side of the mind, “(Give Yourself) Ropeburns” turns a spotlight on unreality with an urgent shuffle, propelling Celogen’s dramatic MorrisSey-esque vocals. Often ascending into a playful falsetto, Celogen is the blithe but observant narrator of a desperate character’s fatalistic story that begins and ends with the stark declaration:

‘She knows she’s gonna die’

‘And you say go on, give yourself rope burns / For what you choose to believe’