Strangers on a Plane’s Wings

Strangers on a Plane is musically traveled and gifted Canadian couple, Evren Oz and Courteney Brookes-Buxton.

The home recording studio – Photo from SOAP

Evren has enjoyed a successful, decades-long hip hop and beats career, as a solo artist, with live funk Rhymestone, or alongside CB-B as Strangers on a Plane.

Beyond several well-received solo albums, Evren’s professional production credits include a 2nd place Eurovision song, plus Superbowl and Toyota ads. Canadians may also recognise Evren as the onetime voice of Captain Morgan.

Brooks-Buxton is a sensational singer, sharing deep sentimentality across layers of levels. As a child she featured in four choirs, honing her craft and versatility from an early age. You can hear her heart in what she sings.

Their synergy and cohesion came naturally together in the musically collaborative form of Strangers on a Plane.

Lovers on a Plane

Strangers on a Plane – photo from SOAP Instagram

Just before Evren and Courteney met, over a decade ago, they were, literally, strangers on a plane. Randomly sitting beside each other on a jet from Amsterdam to Toronto, Evren, always the charismatic conversationalist, couldn’t believe his good fortune.

After their initial rapport, linked through a mutual passion for music, they bonded quickly, nearly inseparable.

Years later, Evren proposed to Courteney on a Westjet flight, coming full circle.

On a musical front, Evren’s beat production and songwriting were an ideal complement for Courteney’s approach to singing and lyricism.

They are parents to two precociously talented, home schooled children, each with musical and creative skills of their own. It makes for an inspiring, relaxed home environment.

The fruits of labour of their lives together can be heard on every song in Wings.

Review of Wings by Strangers on a Plane

Strangers on a Plane dazzle and delight, with shades of trip hop, some funk fused in, and kaleidoscopic melodies scattered across pleasant basslines.

There is some comfort emanating through the beauty of sadness, and through the motivational joy of hope.

All My Life – Ambient, reverberating. Super start. I admit I have an emotional attachment to this song. The day after my break up in Jan, Evren called me in Cambodia to lift me up. He played me the raw versions, and still, today, I hear the pain, the love, in every note.

Of course, we regularly fall back into Complacency (see video below). The same old mistakes and habits.

Forevermore is a very nice song. Inspired, inspiring, assured. Lovely bass lick. Life is coming back.

In its polished demeanor, Look at Me sounds like a next-gen Toyota ad, driving through the grid of T.O.

Lonely – A timeless classic. I first heard the original in Evren’s studio in a warehouse in Toronto, over fifteen years ago. A simply melody and a voice. It has been waiting for the right time to come to light, and it scrubs up magnificently with SOAP.

Be Still is a hit in the making. It has a real confidence about it.

Everything lands softly with Someday, a rousing, piano and voice piece. The other song Evren sent me back in the dungeon in Cambodia, helping instill hope in the universe, in the process. We know, Someday, it’s all going to be okay again.

A spiritual journey and learning about love later, life is the happiest it’s ever been. Strangers on a Plane have been making a life this for years.

Strangers on a Plane have excelled with their debut release, and their long history of live greatness suggests the best is yet to come.

Music Videos from Strangers on a Plane

Complacency is the first official music video from Wings, and you can check it here.

Complacency – Strangers on a Plane

Strangers on a Plane – Forevermore

For more from Strangers on a Plane

Strangers on a Plane – Official Website

Bandcamp page for Strangers on a Plane

Strangers on a Plane – Facebook

Instagram – Strangers on a Plane

Live world tour dates TBA! Album launch party Friday October 19 in Toronto.

Last week we featured the latest album release of Thumpermonkey – another band we first discovered in the UMFM era of the early 2000s. It was a golden era, and a new one is here.