Montreal post-punk band Ribbon Skirt have released their latest EP, PENSACOLA, today through Mint Records. The four-track record arrives as a follow-up to their debut album Bite Down, which earned the group an Album of the Week nod from Stereogum and a Polaris Music Prize shortlist nomination earlier this year.
Led by Anishinaabe musician Tashiina Buswa and guitarist Billy Riley, Ribbon Skirt have spent the past year building a sound that feels both raw and carefully considered. Angular guitars meet urgent rhythms, while Buswa’s lyrics pull from personal history and her Indigenous heritage. The new EP keeps that foundation but strips away some of the intensity that defined their debut.
There’s a video for the title track, filmed at St. Joseph’s Oratory here in Montreal. The footage looks deliberately rough, like something shot on an old camcorder in the early 2000s. Director Ani Harroch places the band against the basilica’s imposing architecture, cutting between those scenes and hazier, dreamlike sequences filled with religious imagery. Lyrics appear in Oji-Cree syllabics throughout, linking the song’s spiritual reckoning to Indigenous language and lived experience.
Watch the video below:
PENSACOLA moves between shoegaze density and quieter, more exposed moments. “LUCKY8” and “COMMA” push forward with momentum, while “BRAIDS” and the title track pull back into something more contemplative. Buswa has called the record an epilogue to Bite Down, a way of working through what remained unresolved after that album landed.
Ribbon Skirt are on the road now, opening for Wombo across the United States. The tour runs through late October, with stops in Denver, Portland, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Austin before closing out in Kansas City on 24 October.
Their debut single “Wrong Planet” also received a Polaris Prize nomination, making them one of the few acts to be recognized for both an album and an individual track in the same cycle. It’s another marker of their place in Montreal’s thriving post-punk scene.
Photo by Ani Harroch
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