In the 19th century, Vienna was not only the capital of serious classical musicbut also of waltz and other popular expressions. This Friday at the Maison Symphonique, the ArtChoral Ensemble reminds us of this in a Viennese evening of “songs, waltzes and romances”.
The “pop” romantic music of Johann Strauss II, a master of the waltz as we know it, and, more surprisingly, Johannes Brahms and his Liebeslieder or even Franz Schubert “who embodies the very essence of romantic vocal expression”, will be on the program of this Viennese evening offered by the ArtChoral Ensemble.
Long known as Ensemble Vocal Arts-Québec, ArtChoral was directed for almost 40 years by its founder Yves Courville. For 2019, the choir has appointed flutist and conductor Matthias Maute, also at the helm of Ensemble Caprice, as musical director.
PAN M 360: From the outset, Johann Strauss II and Brahms don’t seem compatible in the same program. How is this possible?
Matthias Maute: Well, it’s a rather special repertoire. It has to be said that the Brahms Liebeslieder are pieces written to appeal to the general public. For me, they were so different from the other Brahms pieces we know that it took me a while to figure out exactly what they were all about. And I find that he knows how to condense all that in these works. It’s just magnificent.
PAN M 360: It’s hard to imagine Brahms composing pop music!
Matthias Maute: It’s really quite special because Brahms was very fond of Johann Strauss II’s waltzes. And the two composers got on very well!
So Brahms composed operas and songs that included waltzes. This music was very popular, so much so that Brahms was a wealthy man by the end of his life, unlike Johann Strauss II’s father, whose Blue Danube was to be made. He was extremely poor when he died. His son, however, had done better and was still very successful.
PAN M 360: Very interesting. We’d have thought of Brahms as a modest man and Strauss as a rich man!
Matthias Maute: No, Brahms was on the rich side. He was very successful financially, and very generous to his colleagues and compatriots. The image of the poor artist, by the way, comes from the 19th century because there were no longer the outposts of earlier periods – with royal courts, churches and so on. The artist was then neglected by the upper echelons of society, he had to feed himself… it was often very difficult.
PAN M 360: So, serious and popular repertoires could coexist in the 19th century, as demonstrated by this Viennese evening.
Matthias Maute: We tend to put serious composers in one drawer and non-serious composers in another. But in real life in the 19th century, everything blended together, just as it does today. In fact, there’s a photo of Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms posing together in 1894. Brahms looks like an old man, with his beard and unkempt attire. Next to him, Johann Strauss II looks very elegant. He looked 20 years younger than Brahms, but in fact, he was eight years older! In general, Brahms was not interested in social conventions. He was known to be socially awkward, but there was nothing of the sort in his more popular music. It was very elegant, and highly inspired.
It may seem surprising, but the Liebeslieder are really part of his oeuvre, as he once played piano four hands with Clara Schumann, one of the great loves of his life. That said, he wrote the second collection of these pieces while in love with one of Clara Schumann’s daughters. It was complicated for him… (laughs)
PAN M 360: OMG, the Woody Allen of the time?!
Matthias Maute: A bit of that, yes!
PAN M 360: You also play 5 works by Franz Schubert in this program!
Matthias Maute: A Viennese evening without Schubert is unthinkable. So, in particular, three pieces for choir and piano. Before the interval, we’ll perform the famous Ständchen, an incredible piece for mezzo and male voices. A serenade to hopeless love, expressed with delightful music, truly one of the great vocal pieces of the 19th century.
PAN M 360: Let’s talk briefly about your two directions. We’ve already observed ArtChoral and Caprice working together, and this “natural” connection will continue this year. What will it be like?
Matthias Maute: ArtChoral will give two a cappella concerts at the Maison Symphonique, andCaprice will do three with ArtChoral. The following season, things will be moving up a gear. At ATMA Classique, moreover, there will soon be 15 ArtChoral albums that should constitute a digital library of the a cappella repertoire from the XVIᵉ to the XXIᵉ century. We’ve just released a romantic ArtChoral disc. And right now I’m talking to you in the middle of a rehearsal with thirteen Canadian composers that we’ll be recording next week.
The ArtChoral ensemble covers the entire choral repertoire. Choirs generally cover the whole repertoire. I love it because as a musician, conductor and instrumentalist, I’ve always covered every century of musical history. ArtChoral is the only choir to have a regular series at La Maison Symphonique, precisely because we want to promote a cappella singing. We’re working really hard to give choral music a more prominent place in the musical landscape here in Montreal.
PAN M 360: And it all kicks off with a Viennese evening at the Maison Symphonique.
Matthias Maute: There will be 1300 people coming to Vienna with us!
PAN M 360: Big charter trip!
Matthias Maute: Yes, it’s a big boat leaving.
ARTISTS
Choir: Ensemble ArtChoral
Conductor: Matthias Maute
Piano: Meagan Milatz & Suren Barry
PROGRAMME
· Johann STRAUSS II, The Blue Danube
· Johann STRAUSS II, Champagne Chorus
· Johannes BRAHMS, Liebeslieder op.52 (excerpts)
· Johannes BRAHMS, Liebeslieder op.65 (excerpts)
· Franz SCHUBERT, Ständchen, Der Tanz, Gott im Ungewitter, Coronach, Der Tanz
This Friday, the Molinari Quartet kicks off its 5-program season as part of the Ensemble in Residence series at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal. The next four programs will be preceded by Dialogues sur le Plateau, cultural mediation sessions at the Maison de la Culture Plateau Mont-Royal, designed to explain the ins and outs of the works performed this year by the Montreal quartet. Olga Ranzenhofer, concertmaster and artistic director of the Molinari Quartet, which she founded in the 90s, provides us with all the information we need for this kick-off event on the theme of Music and Nature.
PAN M 360: So, Olga, activities resume this Friday at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal!
Olga Ranzenhofer: Yes, and it’s our 27ᵉ season. It goes by fast! At the beginning of our existence, our mandate was the 20ᵉ century, today it’s 20ᵉ and the 21ᵉ. And so we can’t be labelled exclusively contemporary music, we can choose from a huge repertoire including modern music. This year, for example, we’ll be playing Debussy, Bartok, Shostakovich and also more recent composers including premieres such as a work by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, a composer from Azerbaijan that we’ve already played.
We will also be playing works by Montreal composer John Rea, who will be celebrating his 80th birthday with the premiere of a work entitled Objets perchés, in reference to another string quartet he composed in 1992, entitled Objets perdus.
These two quartets will be performed in February in a program also involving Shostakovich’s Quartets no. 10 and no. 13. In 2025, by the way, we’ll be doing the complete quartets a 2nd time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death, since Antoine Bareil (the second violin) wasn’t with us when we first performed them. It’s one of our trademarks to play complete works by composers for string quartet. It’s one of our trademarks to play the complete works of composers for string quartet. I really enjoy doing it! It’s such a formative experience to delve into a composer’s universe and discover the characteristics of his or her work.
PAN M 360: For most of your programs at the Conservatoire, you also do cultural mediation to explain the subject matter.
Olga Ranzenhofer: Yes, a 27th year of cultural mediation! In our Dialogues sur le Plateau, there’s something for everyone. We’re very inclusive, and anyone who comes along can find something to their liking, whatever their level of musical understanding. No question is out of place. Composers can also be invited to talk about their work, and others can speak from the audience. It really is for everyone, and we make sure that people don’t come away from our Dialogues saying “This music is too complicated”. Our first dialogue is scheduled for November 26 at the Maison de la culture Plateau-Mont-Royal, followed by a concert on December 1 at the Conservatoire.
PAN M 360: Outside the Conservatoire and the Maison de la culture, you have other concerts planned for your upcoming season. Can you give us some examples?
Olga Ranzenhofer: Thanks to a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, we’ll be in New York in October, then in Toronto in November to take part in the performance of a multimedia work by Canadian composer and saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff, whose string quartet we’ll be playing this week. We also have other concerts lined up, including one at Salle Bourgie next January.
PAN M 360: What about Quinsin Nachoff’s Quartet, which you’ll be performing on Friday?
Olga Ranzenhofer: This work was written in 2018. And since the composer is also a jazz saxophonist, there are contemporary jazz influences in this work. It’s a work that could be described as atonal, full of energy, very rhythmic, andvery intense. The work is in four movements, each of which features one of the Quatuor Molinari’s performers. It’s a very complex work that’s a lot of fun to play: it swings, it’s intense and it lasts a good twenty minutes. And it raises a number of questions: is it really jazz, or is it downright contemporary music? There are clear jazz influences in this quartet, such as the little glides that start under the note in the manner of a jazz saxophonist. Our relationship with Quinsin Nachoff began when we took part in one of his projects through violinist Nathalie Bonin. Then he decided to make a string quartet for us. In fact, he has just obtained a grant to write a 2nd quartet for us, which we will perform next year. We’re very happy about that.
PAN M 360: And then, this season, the Molinari Quartet returns to Shostakovich, starting again on Friday!
Olga Ranzenhofer: Absolutely, we’ll start with her Quartet No. 11, the first of four quartets dedicated to Soviet musicians from the Beethoven Quartet (1922-1980), which had premiered the vast majority of her works for string quartet. Composed in 1966, this 11th quartet was dedicated to violinist Vassili Chirinsky, who had died the previous year. Written in seven movements, it is very introspective, very spare, delicate, elegant, and not flamboyant like many of Shostakovich’s other quartets. At the very end of the first movement, the second violin arrives; given the death of his colleague, the composer wanted to show the emptiness engendered by his passing. There’s sadness here, but also a touch of humour, because it seems that the Beethoven Quartet’s second violinist had a certain sense of humour.
PAN M 360: Another of your favourite composers appears on this first program of your season: the late Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer.
Olga Ranzenhofer: Yes, we’ll be doing Waves, Schafer’s 2nd quartet, a work based on the rhythm of ocean waves on the Canadian coast. Through his Soundscape Project research, he observed that there was a wave rhythm lasting between 6 and 11 seconds. So the whole structure of the work is based on this wave rhythm, and so we don’t work with measures but rather sequences of 6 to 11 seconds. It’s a wonderful quartet, really impressionistic. Really, at the beginning, it starts with nothing, it’s very gentle, you just hear the rustling of water, and then you gradually move into the middle of a storm, almost a tsunami! It then calms down… A truly beautiful piece!
PAN M 360: And Shostakovich again to conclude this first program, this time Quartet No. 12.
Olga Ranzenhofer: Very different from No. 11, very orchestral, very intense and conceived in two movements. The first movement is quite short, beginning with a cello bar that spreads out the 12 intervals (of the scale), a bit like a dodecaphonic series, but interpreted as a leitmotif through which the composer plays with tonality. Unlike the first movement, the 2nd is very long, lasting some twenty minutes, and can be divided into different sections. It’s very orchestral, with long solos, a magnificent chorale and more. So here’s a flamboyant work by Shostakovich, dedicated to the Beethoven Quartet’s first violinist, Dmitri Tsiganov.
So it’s a big program. We’re starting the year off with a bang!
Zal Sissokho is very active on the Montreal music scene. Heir to the Mandingo musical tradition, the singer-songwriter has been working with various Québec musicians since 1999 to promote this music. With his kora, Sissokho travels between tradition and modernity, questioning the history of music and human nature. His songs, sung in the Mandiko language, deal with a wide variety of themes, but always have one thing in common: they tell a story.
In the early 2000s, Sissokho founded the group Buntalo, with whom he recorded several albums. The band’s latest, La Source, will be launched on September 9 at Club Balattou. In anticipation of this event, PAN M 360 had the chance to speak with Zal Sissokho about the creation of the album and his music, which brings together several musical traditions.
PAN M 360: Hello! Your new album, La Source, will be out very soon. On September 9th. How are you feeling?
ZAL SISSOKHO: I feel great! I can’t wait for it to come out. After all the work that went into making this album, me and my little gang are really looking forward to it.
PAN M 360: In 2020, you released the album Kora Flamenca, then in the meantime, there was the pandemic. And now there’s La Source. What was your creative path between these two albums?
ZAL SISSOKHO:La Source is a very different album from Kora Flamenca. Kora Flamenca was an encounter with another milieu, another culture. Then, La Source is a return home, where I wanted to play a little more of the music of the Mandinka Empire and the music of the kora. The music of my roots, where I come from, the music of the griots. That’s what makes the difference between Kora Flamenca and La Source.
PAN M 360: Listening to the album, you can hear this return to the traditions of the kora repertoire. But there’s also something modern and contemporary about it…
ZAL SISSOKHO: Absolutely! But Zal Sissokho and Buntalo, which is my own band, is really what we’re doing. It’s Afro-Mandingo, “tradimodern”. The instrument I play, the kora, is a typically traditional instrument, but it’s also very well suited to all styles of music.
PAN M 360: Speaking of Buntalo… It’s been a while since you recorded with them, hasn’t it?
ZAL SISSOKHO: Yes, indeed. We’ve recorded three albums already, and La Source is our fourth. The last one was in 2018, La Palabre. I’m very lucky because I formed this group in 2003-2004, and to this day, it’s always the same musicians who are with me. When I need them, they’re here, they’re present. It’s a real honour for me.
PAN M 360: What inspires you when you compose for Buntalo?
ZAL SISSOKHO: For the few albums I’ve done with Buntalo, they’ve been compositions linked to what surrounds me, my human relationships, the encounters I’ve made during my travels and my shows, here and elsewhere. That’s what inspires me, and that’s why the music is inspired by culture, tradition and modernity. That’s why, in my compositions, there’s piano, drums, bass and everything… Every time I think of making an album with Zal Sissokho and Buntalo, that’s how I want it because I want two cultures to come together. I come from Senegal, but now I live here. So I’m trying to make it 50-50, a bit for home and a bit for where I live, which is here.
PAN M 360: And what inspires you in the local music ecosystem?
ZAL SISSOKHO: It’s very rich. We’re very lucky in Quebec, we find a variety of professional artists who come from all over the world, and who live here. So it makes it easier to meet people. Because if you want to touch something, there’s someone who knows it. Especially in this album, La Source, with the collaboration of my Senegalese brother, Élage Diouf, who took part in co-producing it, we put together the ideas to be able to give something great to our friends! Our friends who follow us, the public who follow us.
PAN M 360: You’ve described your music as “tradimodern”. Is this a term that has stuck with you since the start of your career?
ZAL SISSOKHO: I’d say so because I’ve always wanted to go a bit further with my instrument. The kora, in other circumstances, is a bit more limited. You can’t change tonality as you please. But I’ve always wanted to reach out to other cultures with my instrument, to make other encounters. These exchanges are shared with other artistic milieus, other cultures, and other styles of music. Because with every encounter, you learn a lot. You contribute, but at the same time, you also learn and receive a lot. I’ve always wanted that to be my label.
“Tradimodern” and tradition are very sacred to me because that’s where I come from. The repertoire is immense, and you could play it for thousands of years. We’ll never be able to perform the entire repertoire of the Mandingo Empire. But at the same time, to be able to reach a wider audience, I want to mix it with a bit of modern music to go even further. That’s what’s followed me since the start of my career here in Quebec.
PAN M 360: Let’s get back to your new album, La Source. Is there a theme that runs through the whole album? What inspired you to write it?
ZAL SISSOKHO: There’s a lot of variety on this album. There are songs about human dignity. There’s another one about not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow. And La Source is above all a return, a tribute to our great-grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers and mothers. Then there are several tracks that tell a story. The story of an encounter, of the environments I share, of what I see.
When I came here, I was already an adult. There are stories I don’t want to lose, even if I stay here for 100 years. There’s that side of me that will always stay with me. But if you want to integrate into a country, you have to make up your mind, take on certain habits, and accept certain things, so as to be able to settle in and be part of the environment around you. So this is it. It’s an album that I really enjoyed making, because the themes are varied, and I want to make people aware of the role of the griot, a role that still exists, and get people to live in harmony.
PAN M 360: So this would be an album that recognizes where the kora repertoire comes from and honours it, but at the same time looks to others and the future?
ZAL SISSOKHO: Exactly. It’s amazing because human beings have always been nomads. For centuries, people have been travelling to somewhere better. Every time we go somewhere that’s not our home, we come back. And we always continue to settle somewhere else to fight, because life is a fight, every day, anyway. There’s nothing for free in the world.
PAN M 360: Finally, what can you expect when you come to the launch concert?
ZAL SISSOKHO: Only fun! Everyone’s going to be there to present these new songs on stage. It’s a party as if a new baby had just arrived! It’s a way for me to say to people, “Come and join the party! I’m going to take the time to introduce and explain the lyrics because I sing in my native Mandiko language. It’s not easy for some people to understand the messages I’m putting across, but I always take the time to explain. So, on September 9, I’m inviting everyone, music lovers, those who like what I do, and those who want to discover my music. Everyone is welcome!
Zal Sissokho will take to the Club Balattou stage on September 9 at 9pm to launch his new album La Source. The album will be available in digital format from September 8. INFO AND TICKETS HERE!
Do we still need to introduce Misstress Barbara, a true icon of the Montreal techno scene? For over 27 years, she’s been thrilling crowds the world over with her fine selection of groovy, hard-hitting dancefloor beats as a DJ and producer.A woman of many talents, she is also an airplane pilot, boat captain, sailing instructor and entrepreneur – she has set up her own chocolate factory, Chocolats Barbon – yes, nothing less! You can catch her DJ set hat at Piknic Electronik, for the 21st year running (!), on Labor Day, Sunday September 3. Local DJ Manu will be opening the ball. A ritual not to be missed!
Photo credits : Annie Rossano
PAN M 360 : You were born in Italy, where you spent the first years of your childhood. What musical memories do you have from this time?
Misstress Barbara :Yes, I was born in Italy and moved to Montreal when I was 7 and a half. It’s funny because recently, I was in the car listening to Julio Iglesias and my girlfriend said, “What are you doing listening to that? I told her I was feeling a bit nostalgic these days. These are childhood memories, I remember that on Sunday mornings, when I woke up, my parents would play Julio Iglesias vinyl very loudly in the house, while my mother did a bit of housework.
And what else do I remember? The waltz. If I know all the Strauss pieces, it’s because they were played loud in the house, on vinyl, always on vinyl. And yet, that’s not at all why I have a passion for vinyl. It’s just a coincidence!
I also remember Italian music from the 1980s. When I go back to Italy on vacation, whenever there’s a song from the 1980s playing, I sing it. I know all the lyrics because they’re childhood memories.
PAN M 360 : What musical genres accompanied you as a teenager once you arrived in Canada?
Misstress Barbara : I continued to listen to Italian music. My father has passed away now, but my mother still watches RAI on TV and listens to Italian radio, so when I’m at her place, I still listen to Italian music. But when I was a teenager, I had my first Walkman, my first money to buy music, I bought cassettes of The Beatles, The Police, Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden. I was really a rocker. I didn’t like current music when I was young, I didn’t like Madonna and Michael Jackson at all, it had to be rock.
The interesting thing is that I came back to it later. When you produce music, you go and get samples, often of disco. When I started producing music, I went back and got samples of Michael Jackson and other 1980’s music to put into my music.
PAN M 360 : How did electronic music come into your life?
Misstress Barbara : Being a real rocker, I didn’t really know much about underground electronic music. I’d hear what was playing on the radio and think it was disgusting. Back then, it was eurodance like Corona – This is the rythm of the night. Then one night, a friend dragged me to the Octogone, a nightclub on Gouin Boulevard. I didn’t like discos, so I was bored. It’s important to remember that this was the era of good underground house music, which was starting to come out of the underground and into the mainstream. For example, Hardrive – Deep Inside, Robin S. – You Got to Show Me Love or CeCe Rogers.
A guy looks at me and says, “Do you like house music? I say, “What do you mean, house music?” He replies, “I’ve seen you move your knee when house music is playing. You should try going to raves and gay bars, you’ll like the music there”
All that to say, I went to my first gay parties in bars, and I found the music so good! At the time, it was the Squeeze nights at Métropolis, there was the Royal, the Kox. It was really crazy, it was another world. Then I went to my first rave. I fell in love with this underground music. I said I wanted to be a DJ, that’s what I wanted to do, that’s it.
PAN M 360 : What was the scene like in the 1990s, when you began your career in Montreal?
Misstress Barbara : There was a magic to raves, and the parties were no exception. Squeeze nights at Métropolis (MTELUS) on Thursday nights were gay nights that had nothing to do with a show or concert. I had a fake ID to get in because I wasn’t 18 yet. I was hallucinating, there were people in costumes, there were drag queens, it was normal. And above all, I really got into the music.
Then at some point, as I was having so much fun at parties, I realized that someone was putting on the music. As I’m a very curious person, I always want to go further. This has been the case with DJing, production and many other things. For example, I started sailing, but that wasn’t enough. I became a captain, but that wasn’t enough, so I became a sailing instructor. I started making chocolate as an experiment, then finally I have my own company from bean to bar. It’s in my nature.
Once I realized that there were DJs behind the music, I started watching them work, what they were doing with their hands, the vinyl they were putting on. It’s what made me want to become a DJ.
PAN M 360 : How did you get into DJing?
Misstress Barbara : A friend of mine showed me the basics. I was studying film and I was involved in everything, including sound editing, so I didn’t need anyone to explain the wiring to me. Not without difficulty, I found my own turntables, then started practicing 10, 12 hours a day. I lived with my parents, who couldn’t stand listening to all that music. I’d go to school, come back and mix. Sometimes I mixed before going to school, that’s all my life was. No one can show you how to mix, it takes a beat and practice. When you take the record off, it’s all about feeling and musicality. If you’ve got it, you’re a good DJ. If you don’t, you do it mechanically, without any feeling. There are a lot of people like that now, especially because it’s the computer that mixes for you. But I really learned by myself.
PAN M 360: When did you start producing? Was it a natural and logical next step in the development of your DJ career?
Misstress Barbara: It’s worth pointing out that, at the time, if I had bookings as far away as Japan, it wasn’t thanks to Facebook, there weren’t even e-mails, I received faxes! The reason I got as far as Japan was that I quickly realized that if I wanted to tour the world, I had to have records out there, so I started producing.
Although today, I love producing for what it is, making music, aat the beginning of my career I said openly that I only produced music because that’s what it took to make a name for myself and get booked all over the world. But it’s always been a war for me because what I like to create in the studio is not what I like to play as a DJ. So if you create something, it has to be your calling card. If I’m a techno DJ I’d have to produce techno, and then I produce techno, but it takes a more effort compared to producing pop, something melodic. I’ve made 2 pop albums and that’s put a spanner in the works because people buy them, they say, “What’s this? It’s not Misstress Barbara”, because as a DJ, I play big techno. Do I want to change my DJ style? No. It’s always been this big paradox throughout my career, and even today when I have to go into the studio to make techno music I find it difficult, but I know that’s what’s expected of me.
PAN M 360 : A few months ago you posted a video of your performance at I Love techno 2002 on social networks. Is there some kind of nostalgia behind this publication?
Misstress Barbara : Yes, a lot of nostalgia, because first of all, the 2000s were really my greatest years. Then I started to slow down, and that happened at the same time as my pop albums. In fact, I was the one who felt I’d come full circle. I went around the world 43 times, returning to the same festival, not that I didn’t like it, but in the end, it was always the same thing. I earn a good living, but I need to feel that I’m feeding my soul, and I felt that it was getting a bit repetitive. I started writing songs and released albums, my first in 2009, which confirmed that I wanted experiment with other forms of music, without stopping being a DJ. But unfortunately it’s such a purist environment that if you do other things, it hurts your DJ career, and then it slows down on its own.
It’s also a form of nostalgia because I was young and carefree. There’s nostalgia because back then, everything was on vinyl. Now everyone’s a DJ, you don’t need to be talented. The computer finds the next song for you that matches the key, the style and does the beatmatching. Frankly, it discourages me. And then there are people who have a career because they have millions of followers they’ve bought. My own agent said to me, “Barbara, there are promoters who won’t book because you don’t have enough followers”. There’s a nostalgia for an era that’s no longer the same.
PAN M 360 : It’s your 21st participation to Piknic !
Misstress Barbara : Piknic is really special. I can play in front of 40,000 people in Andalusia, no problem. And yet, in Montreal, my hands shake before I play! Because it’s home, because it’s my audience, because it’s where I live and because I never want to disappoint any of my audiences, never, but disappointing at home would be fatal for me. It’s important to please my fans here more than anywhere else. Over the years, I’ve developed something really special with Piknic. I find the audience different, in fact, sometimes I even recognize some of the faces over the years, which makes it really special for me and keeps me going. It’s not just about going back to the event, it’s also about knowing that there’s an audience out there waiting for you.
Usually sighted as the collaborator of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe, Tess Parks has a hazy psych sound that puts her listeners in a trance, and to take a momentary break from recording, she’s bringing that sound to the Festival Musique Emergente in Rouyn-Noranda.The Toronto, often UK-based singer-songwriter, has been busy this summer—working on the follow-up album to her 2022 release, And Those Who Were Seen Dancing. Before her solo show at FME, PAN M 360 had a chance to briefly chat with Tess Parks about her new music, why words are still spells, and channeling emotion into a song.
PAN M 360: And Those Who Were Seen Dancing has been out for a year and a bit now, so are you onto working on the next album or project?
Tess Parks: Yes! I have been in London this summer recording the next album. It’s the best one—I haven’t been this excited about music in ten years.
PAN M 360: Is the idea to “road test” new songs at live shows? Will we hear any new sounds at FME?
Tess Parks: I have really been thinking about this. I will do my best but I find it seriously terrifying to play new songs on my own for the first time. I used to go and play open mics when I was first starting out so I will do everything I can to channel that courage again. The songs on the new album are more of a collaboration than ever. One of my best friends and long-time collaborators, Ruari Meehan, is producing the album and it’s honestly a masterpiece—he’s going to become a household name after this. So he wrote most of the music for these songs and kind of re-taught me how to sing in the most patient and kind way… but anyway, I don’t know how to play these songs on guitar yet. I have a whole album’s worth of songs I wrote alone but I’m still feeling shy about them.
PAN M 360: It seems this album (And Those Who Were Seen Dancing) shifted to more of a piano focus than light guitar psych. Was that an organic change?
Tess Parks: I was living in Los Angeles when the last album was being recorded and I made a point of always wanting to have a piano in the house … we went and picked up a free upright piano from Craigslist that belonged to an old elementary school. I was just drawn to the piano more than the guitar around that time. Plus one of my best friends/bandmates/ collaborators Francesco Perini (Pearz) is the most amazing keys player so that’s him you hear on all of the songs – and then when we were finishing the album in Toronto, I got my dad to record piano on a few of the songs too.
PAN M 360: How do you determine when a song is going to be a bit “heavier” like on “Do You Pray?”
Tess Parks: Honestly, that song didn’t turn out the way I had expected at all. I would do a lot differently now.
PAN M 360: “Words are spells,” is from a quote you said around And Those Who Were See Dancing release. What did you mean by that and do you still believe it to be true?
Tess Parks: Yes 100% the truest thing there is to know! We speak things into existence. We summon experiences with our thoughts and our words. When I changed how I spoke to myself internally and chose to be deliberate about how I spoke out loud, my whole life shifted in the most beautiful way. We create our reality. Literally please try saying only nice things out loud, only words of love and your greatest hopes and dreams, and see what happens.
PAN M 360: You’re often referenced as a “psychedelic” artist, and that term used to mean a specific sound. But would you agree that the genre is such a huge umbrella now?
Tess Parks: Yes. Totally. All music is psychedelic. Like what the heck? Someone is just making that sound with their voice or moving their hands, which is just an extension of what their brain is telling their hands to do — on a weird instrument that someone invented and all these sounds are coming out and it’s making you feel a certain way … it’s the craziest.
PAN M 360: Do you have to be happy to write a happy song or sad to write a sad song?
Tess Parks: I love this question and it reminds me of Almost Famous – I hope that is the reference here. I guess if we are going with the notion that words are spells, then yes, I think these things are intertwined. But you can also write your way from sad songs to happy songs if that’s your intention. In a way, all songs are happy even if they sound sad because someone did the best they could to channel that sadness into something tangible and beautiful and didn’t just keep it inside.
Tess Parks // Katy Newcombe
PAN M 360: What have you been listening to lately that you find really inspiring?
Tess Parks: The new Vacant Lots song “Damaged Goods” has been on repeat for a little bit – but mostly a lot of meditations or silence. And in between recordings, we’ve been listening to a lot of reggae.
PAN M 360: Many people discovered your music through your collaboration with the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe, so going off that, what did you learn from working with him?
Tess Parks: Always meet your heroes.
A pandemic, break-ups, relocations and a multitude of shows later, the members of Montreal band comment debord are back this Friday to recount their experiences of the last three years with monde autour, a second album with a folk, funk and disco feel. At Café Pista in Rosemont, PAN M 360 met with three of the band’s members, Rémi Gauvin, Karolane Carbonneau and Étienne Dextraze-Monast, to discuss their creative process, their second opus and much more!
In 2020, comment debord made a big impression with the release of their namesake album. The soft, intriguing voice of lyricist and lead singer Rémi Gauvin, catchy refrains, a sound proposal largely inspired by the ’70s and a laid-back universe: these are the things that made the septet stand out from the start.
With monde autour, the Quebecers return to the charge with a more assertive and controlled offering. This twelve-track project features dance-inducing tracks such as ”blood pareil”, as well as calmer, more introspective ballads like “c’est quoi l’affaire.” As usual, the lyrics are polished, poetic and punctuated with Quebecois references, much to the delight of listeners. Comment debord has certainly not disappointed with this release, and continues to blaze their trail in a little-explored groove on the Quebec music scene.
PAN M 360: It’s been almost three years (already) since the release of your first album. What has happened in your lives since then?
KAROLANE CARBONNEAU: Like everyone else, there was the pandemic. Technically, we were supposed to release our second opus last year. We had to wait another year because of the pandemic. It took almost a year to record monde autour.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: Apart from the album, there were a lot of other things. I myself had a child. Some members of the group have gone through break-ups, while others are now in a relationship. Let’s just say there have been a lot of changes since the first album. We’ve aged a lot and are now in our thirties. The reality of adult life has arrived faster than we thought. We’re at the age where we can have children and own our own home!
RÉMI GAUVIN: Phew, I’m not going to become one just yet! As Étienne says, there’s a lot going on in our personal lives. As for the band, we’ve been lucky enough to tour a lot together. We’ve been able to get to know each other better on stage and experience how our songs are received by the public. It’s an essential dimension for our band.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: That’s a really good point Rémi makes. We’ve played a lot of venues all over Quebec, and that’s helped us discover our audience. We love talking to people after shows, and we’ve had some great encounters. Knowing that we’re not making music in a vacuum and that there are people out there listening to us, has given us confidence.
PAN M 360: How did the pandemic affect the creation of your new project?
KAROLANE CARBONNEAU: For a long time, we couldn’t meet in person. This made the creation quite different. Rémi would send us different mock-ups by e-mail and we’d all try to add a little something to them. We’d never worked that way before, so it was a big change for us.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: Some of the songs on monde autour were written 100% remotely, while others were created when we were all together. There’s a hybrid side to the creation of this album. We had no choice but to develop new creative tools and do things differently. We were more spontaneous in the development of the project. For example, some tracks were recorded just a few days after Rémi had finished writing them. It’s quite different from the first album because these were songs we’d already been playing live for two years.
KAROLANE CARBONNEAU: It’s true that we were more spontaneous, but it wasn’t because we were lazy. I think we just wanted to give ourselves a certain freedom in the studio. We didn’t want to think too much, and I think that works with our music. When you’re creating, a lot of things come together in the moment, and that’s the beauty of it.
PAN M 360: How do you create music when several people are involved?
RÉMI GAUVIN: It definitely takes good communication. Everyone has to be willing to put water in their wine and have a common vision. It’s also important to put our egos aside and be at the service of the songs. We’re all learning to do that better and better.
KAROLANE CARBONNEAU: There’s an expression that says you have to trust the process, and that’s really what you have to do, especially when you’re creating with several people. You have to trust the skills of the different members.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: Some pieces come together so spontaneously and everything falls into place, while others take longer to come together. You have to talk a lot and agree on the vision of the pieces. Sometimes we don’t all see the songs in the same way, and we have to find common ground to allow us to evolve.
PAN M 360: How do you go about writing your songs?
RÉMI GAUVIN: The lyrics are really up to me. Let’s just say the others have to trust me haha! For our second album, I worked on the lyrics at different times. Sometimes I came up with less complete pieces, with just a verse and a chorus. We’d work a bit on the music, then I’d go back and work on the lyrics, and so on. There was a lot of that going on with the writing around the world. I write quite intuitively.
PAN M 360: As on your eponymous album, monde autour also features little writing gems such as “je sais sweet fuckall pourquoi j’ai l’impression d’avoir trouvé quelle couleur crier après le ‘Omnikin'” in tranquillement pas vite. Where does the inspiration for such lyrics come from?
RÉMI GAUVIN: Honestly, there’s no real secret. As soon as I get an interesting idea or a flash of inspiration, I jot it down somewhere and use it later. I write down a lot of things, both expressions and concepts and put them into songs. As for the line about Kin-Ball, it’s a memory I had when I was a supply teacher in a secondary school. One day when I was a physical education teacher, I saw a Kin-Ball and it reminded me of my youth. I never played the sport, but I remember it fascinated me. Kin-ball players were very much associated with their colour, it was almost part of their identity.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: Rémi uses lots of images and references that speak to people who are currently in their twenties and early thirties. The Kin-Ball line is an excellent example. He also uses a lot of Quebecois expressions and references, and that’s really cool. He uses images that are common to many people, takes them out of context and presents them in a different light. That’s the beauty of his writing, and that’s what makes it poetry.
PAN M 360: Your first opus allowed us to discover you and get to know your universe. What would you say this second project allows us to learn about your background?
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: You’ll learn that we know each other better musically. Our sound is more coherent and confident. We’re also more composed and less angry. We’ve found what we believe to be our identity as a band, as much in the poetry as in the music and arrangements. We’re also definitely more mature than on our first project. We’ve developed a better way of working, and it shows in the world around us. Through our new tracks, people will be able to learn about who we’ve become and what we’ve been through over the last few years.
PAN M 360: The cover of your new project features a magnificent fresco of flowers by Julien Cayla-Irigoyen. Flowers were also present on those of your two recent singles. Tell me more about your floral penchant.
RÉMI GAUVIN: There are folk and Québécois influences on the album. The concept with graphic designer and illustrator Julien was to draw inspiration from the flowers that grow here. We read different Quebec flower books for inspiration. The different flowers and colours represent diversity and cohabitation. In our training, we find different personalities. In a way, that’s what the flowers represent. Julien came up with different suggestions and was very creative. It was always very beautiful, and we decided on this illustration. We’re really happy with the album cover.
PAN M 360: One of my favourite tracks from your project is “tough luck.” What’s the story behind this track?
RÉMI GAUVIN: It’s one of the first songs we wrote for the album. It’s a song that talks indirectly about the attitude we should have in life. Everything can be improvised, and there’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen to us. I say “ça va peut-être tomber en neige, ça va tomber en pluie”, and that’s really the theme of the song, the uncertainty of life. During the pandemic, life was full of uncertainty, on a professional, social and personal level. It also refers to making music. We’re not sure where it’s going to take us, but we know it’s worth doing. I think there’s something really beautiful about it.
PAN M 360: The song “tranquillement pas vite” is sung by a member whose voice we’re not used to hearing. Who is it? Is it a desire to bring the different members to the fore vocally?
RÉMI GAUVIN: It’s Willis Pride. It’s the first time he’s had a song of his own on one of our projects. On our first album, we had different members appearing vocally. It’s something we like to do.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: Indeed, we like to do it when it serves the song. Rémi tries to sing the songs he’s written, and when that doesn’t work, we find solutions like having another member sing them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When Karolane sings Rémi’s lyrics, it takes on a whole new meaning. That’s exactly what happened with Willis for “tranquillement pas vite.” He took Rémi’s song, went to his place and rearranged it. It was really interesting and brought the song to its full potential.
PAN M 360: You’ve already made three videos for around-the-world titles, most recently for “veux pas.” At a time when music videos are being pushed aside by artists, why do you think it’s important to make them?
KAROLANE CARBONNEAU: I think it adds to the image people have of us. It gives another life and another dimension to our songs.
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: During the pandemic, I was a music teacher at an elementary school. When I told the kids I was in a band, they all wanted to see what I was doing. Their first reflex was to go to YouTube and type in the name of our band. It’s pretty anecdotal, but it proves that videos still have their place. Also, it’s extra content and allows us to show more to our audience. It lets people see us and gives our songs an atmosphere. When we make videos, we meet some really great artists. So we broaden our horizons and it’s great to collaborate with artists who aren’t necessarily musicians. It makes our art multidisciplinary.
PAN M 360: You’ll be making your Montreal debut at Club Soda on November 3. What can we expect from this concert?
KAROLANE CARBONNEAU: To a great show. We want to do something unique. We can’t reveal too much, but there might be guests. I think it’s going to be worth it!
ÉTIENNE DEXTRAZE-MONAST: We’ve been working on this show for a few months, and we’re still making changes. This show will open our upcoming tour. It’ll be our biggest venue yet, and a lot of our friends will be there. It’s going to be a lot of fun, that’s for sure.
Meet Jacob Allen, better known by his stage moniker: Puma Blue. London-born and now Atlanta-based, Puma Blue’s initial success was thanks to his dusky, romantically melancholic approach to music, crafting a unique blend of neo-R&B, alternative rock, and jazz for an intimate, cloudy day vibe that you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.
However, with his upcoming album Holy Waters on the cusp of release, we’re now seeing a revived chapter of growth in Allen’s aesthetic sensibilities. Vast and expansive, there’s a distinctly new sensation on the new album that shows us the true possibilities of Puma Blue—not only as a musician, but as a curator of taste and style across multiple visual, written, and sonic mediums.
PAN M 360 recently sat down with Allen for a conversation on the album’s creation, the inspiration behind its themes, the process of writing his notoriously metaphor-laden, poetic lyrics, and the pros and cons of communion with your younger self.
PAN M 360: It’s been a long road as you roll out singles and marketing for Holy Waters. Does that feel different from how you’ve handled the releases for your last album or your earlier work?
Jacob Allen: It does feel different but in a positive way. I feel like last time, we rolled out some singles and everything, but the world was still kind of closed down. And I remember, by the time that album came out, I was feeling very spiritually far away from it. Whereas this time, even though the first single technically came out last year—“Hounds,” we put that out, I think kind of ambitiously, hoping that the next singles could follow quite quickly, and the album could follow that. And it’s ended up being quite a gap.
But this time, I felt really prepared. I’ve had a lot more forethought about the visuals. And every time I’ve sat down for an interview like this, I feel like I know the album really well. And I can sort of answer questions from the heart rather than from the brain. And what’s weird is that, even though there’s been all this time, I still feel really proud of the album and really close to it, which I didn’t really have last time. I remember just feeling like, ‘Okay, it’s time to promote this thing that feels like from forever ago,’ whereas now, for whatever reason, this album still feels very fresh to me.
PAN M 360: Besides the music, what’s been most inspiring for the striking visual direction of Holy Waters?
JA: Lots of films, I suppose. There’s a couple that have been pretty inspired by John Cocteau films. He’s someone that my partner really put me on to—I already knew who he was, but more specifically, I think for his illustrations. Then, during the pandemic, he was kind of a reference point for her. We were watching a lot of his films and I was really drawn to a couple of them, and it’s sort of slowly seeped into my subconscious now, so I’ll have an idea and I’ll realize it’s referencing one of his films. So he was a big inspiration.
For the “O, The Blood!” video, which is the first time I’ve really directed properly, I just wanted to make an old TV show-type thing. So that was inspired by the “In Bloom” video from Nirvana and The Eric Andre Show. I was kind of wanting to show my sillier side. I feel like everyone probably assumes I’m quite a moody person. I’m not at all in real life, I don’t think. But I was looking back at all the videos and I was thinking, ‘Man, all the videos I grew up watching used to make me laugh.’ Like the Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, or the Beastie Boys, there was always that something to make you laugh, and I was thinking it’s a shame I haven’t done that. So that was kind of the inspiration behind that one—what could I do that would be just like silly, like just a good time? And that was what came to mind for some reason.
I guess it’s been an interesting challenge to make everything feel cohesive with this album because it goes to so many different sonic places. But that ended up being a strength I think, just being able to keep it quite loose, and not such a particular aesthetic. I’ve got all these ideas that all feel true to the songs, and so the idea was just to keep them cohesive by using black and white all the way through. And hopefully, they all feel like they’re sort of the same album world. That’s given me a bit of freedom, in terms of how they’re shot or what the story is, or what I’m wearing, or whatever. It’s a bit more reflective of me, rather than being so narrow.
PAN M 360: Has anything surprised you, for better or for worse, about working and composing so much with the band versus the more independent work you were doing prior?
JA: I mean, the biggest thing was how much more proud I am of the music now, compared to before. Because I feel like I’m able to kind of step back from these finished recordings. And man, even when I was producing the stuff at home that we’d recorded in the studio, I was a lot more into it, because it would be the sound of like, Cam [Dawson] on the bass and Ellis [Dupuy] on the drums doing something really cool. So I was less self-conscious and more, almost listening as a fan. Which felt really fresh to me.
There were definitely some things that were hard, like when we’d hit a wall. It was a team hitting a wall as opposed to just, you know, on my own—it’s kind of easier to just call it quits and take a walk. But when you’re all together it feels like sometimes you have to push through a bit harder, and you can get discouraged for a second when it’s not working. But we ended up getting into a good rhythm when that would happen—just going for a swim in the sea and coming back 40 minutes later and feeling adjusted. A cold plunge.
But the other thing that was huge for me was how organically stuff happened. I think, by myself, there’s a limit to how cerebral the process can be. I love making music on my own, but with the band, it wasn’t so straightforward. Because some things would diverge into jams. There are just all these extra heads and hands that are going to make mistakes or come up with a weird idea. And yeah, some of the music that came from jams—how could that have happened on my own?
(Puma Blue) Jacob Allen / Liv Hamilton
PAN M 360: You’ve mentioned that Holy Waters centres a lot around death thematically, did you set out to do that or is it something that just arose as you worked on it?
JA: Definitely the latter. I was actually pretty stuck. I was having about a year-long period of writer’s block in 2021 that started around the end of 2020 and lasted until maybe the autumn of 2021. And I was writing things for sure, it wasn’t textbook writer’s block where I just had a blank page. I was definitely writing a lot of stuff, but I just didn’t like any of it. And I didn’t seem to be making any progress as an artist, and I was getting really stressed about it. Eventually, when I broke through that and started just having fun with music again, which was kind of the key, I think what helped was not having any limit on what I was doing. It was just like, I’m going to make music that feels like me, and feels like fun, and feels like it would be exciting to finish or to play with the guys. So there definitely wasn’t an idea of concept or theme. It was very open and I was just writing about whatever came to me.
And what’s so strange is that I did start to see a pattern. And it’s not on every song by any means—it’s not a concept album. But in a lot of them, I just kept thinking, ‘God, death is coming up a lot for me.’ So once I made that realization, I think it started this feedback loop where I would write about death more, or I’d consider it more when I was finishing lyrics, or later when I was examining the visuals, or even the tracklist and the order of the flow, some of these songs would pair well, just because of the themes. So yeah, it wasn’t an accident, but it definitely wasn’t something I set out to do from the start.
PAN M 360: Did it take a long time to come up with a sequence of songs that felt right?
JA: It did this time, yeah. I remember on the last album, I had such an idea from the beginning of how it would start and which tracks should go near the end. And the EPs, they’re short enough that it’s a pretty easy Rubik’s cube to solve. But this time—in a positive way, because I loved every track so much, and I didn’t feel like there was any point that was filler for me. And not that I think my last records have had such weak points, but there were definitely moments where it’s like, obvious: ‘Okay, this is a slamming song, and this is the more of a cloudy, ambient mood interlude piece.’
This time, there were songs that ended up being like tracks seven or eight, or whatever, where I considered putting them within the first three tracks, and it took a long time. And it wasn’t until I settled on which songs were being used that it started to be a bit easier. Now that I know it’s these 11, maybe it’s obvious that this one has to be the opener and so on. But I think what ended up helping me finish the sequence of it was a lesson I learned from the last project. I kind of get lethargic when I listen to the last album. And I wanted to make it kind of a sleepy headphone listen, but now when I listen back to it, I get a little itchy and I wish that it was like a few songs shorter or whatever.
So this time, I just want people to be pulled in—almost like the holy waters metaphor, you know, like a swirling that you’re sucked into. And I don’t want anyone to feel like they can pause it. I want it to feel like each track just leads into the next one, almost with a sense of urgency. So that was kind of the goal. And I don’t know if other people will feel it, but that’s definitely when I felt like it was done. When it was doing that sensation for me.
PAN M 360: Do you feel like the making of Holy Waters took you out of your comfort zone?
JA: Yeah, yeah it did. Even working with the band is the first thing that comes to mind. Because we’ve done so much together over the years live. But it’s very different from writing together. Even at the start, we weren’t supposed to write together. We just got into the studio to work on my demos and arrange them, and sort of do something with them live. And eventually, it just kind of became this thing where we were writing together. That definitely felt like pretty new territory and I wasn’t sure how that was gonna go. And there were challenges that just came up naturally during the process, where I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve never done this before, or dealt with this problem before, but I’m just gonna, you know, deal with it.’
I think also I’m so used to writing and producing in the box, on my laptop, and then finishing. What I tend to do is make a demo, not thinking that it’s going to end up as the final song. And then I’ll just work on a demo until it feels done. And I’m like, ‘Well, that demo is the song, you know, I wasn’t giving it enough credit before.’ And that’s why my shit I think has been so lo-fi in the past, maybe, because it’s everything is a demo that got finished. Whereas this time, I really was making demos, and then going into the studio and recording them, quote-unquote “properly,” or differently, I suppose is a better way of putting it. And then what I’ve never done before is bring stuff back from the studio and produce that. So that was a new challenge, trying to make this warm, but pretty flat acoustic sound from the studio, trying to bring that back into the sort of sonic world of mine, where it’s a bit more production-heavy and a bit more … dusty and ambient. It was tricky at first to start the process where it became this hybrid thing.
But eventually, I realized it wasn’t that different from what I’ve always done. It was just different ingredients and a slightly different approach. And it ended up being a bit more freeing. Instead of a programmed drum loop that I’ve got to program human feeling into, I’ve just got my friend playing the drums in a very human way. And I’ve got to find a way of making it sound a little bit more as if it’s a loop when I know that it isn’t, and that was a good way to do it. There was so much to work from. But it definitely took me out of my comfort zone once or twice. But I hope I hope that music always does, you know?
Puma Blue (Jacob Allen) / Natalie Hewitt
PAN M 360: Do you do any journaling or other writing that isn’t immediately meant to be lyrics? Do old words ever end up being used when you’re writing a new song?
JA: Absolutely. I write my dreams down. I did get into journaling for like, a month earlier this year or last year, and I kind of let it go, unfortunately. I feel like it’s a really good practice, but I just didn’t follow up on the discipline side of it. But I still write my dreams down. But aside from that, I’m writing poetry a lot. Probably more than I write lyrics—I feel like lyrics are such a specific thing. I usually only write lyrics when a song is already forming. I don’t know if that’s bad, maybe other songwriters write lyrics all the time. But once I know I’m writing for a song, then lyrics start happening. But I write poems all the time, and I’ve been thinking about whether I should publish some of them next year. Because I really, really love it. It’s a nice change of medium for me to only worry about the words. So, when I’m writing songs, I’ll often borrow stuff from my poems, or rehash it.
Sometimes I’ve got a poem that I really like, but it doesn’t lend itself to a song in the way that I’ve written it. So I have to kind of re-edit it. Not always to rhyme, but just the rhythm or whatever. So I find myself doing that a lot. I’ll even sometimes borrow just one line or something, and it will start a song of its own. That can be kind of interesting. “Velvet Leaves,” from the last album, was one of my longest poems ever, but only the chorus of the song is from the poem, and I don’t think the rest of the poem made it into the song at all. It ended up being a bit more realistic and direct in the lyrics and the verses, whereas the poem that the lyrics are from is a lot more abstract. And I think through this process, like you’re asking, a lot of subconscious stuff will come up.
For example, on this album, “Mirage” is a song about my friend who passed away. But she passed away years ago, like 2015 or 2016. So, that feels like a long time, and I’m not sitting around necessarily still grieving every day, at all. But I found myself writing music and singing, and what was coming up was undealt-with feelings around her. And the feeling of this time that I thought I had recognized her at a train station. And obviously, it wasn’t. I find it’s kind of freeing to be able to write about something that maybe you still have emotions attached to. I think the subconscious kind of holds onto a lot unless you deliberately expunge. That’s what therapy is really good for, I suppose. It’s like a cleaning out of the subconscious. There are other practices too, like meditation. But for me, I guess music is one of those practices.
PAN M 360: Do you ever worry about giving too much away to people in your life when you’re writing, like a friend of yours will realize you’ve written a song about them?
JA: Maybe there’s an example I’m forgetting, but honestly, no. I think first of all, I feel like I wear my heart on my sleeve around my close friends—most of the time. I mean, I can definitely be a guarded and sort of bashful person, but for the most part, I think I’m quite emotionally open. And there’s nothing in my songs that I’m embarrassed of, you know? And sometimes a song will feel bold when I write it. And then once I’ve finished it, or maybe once it’s out, it sort of no longer feels bold. I just feel like, ‘Well, I said that thing, and now that it’s out there, I’m not embarrassed.’
But there are times I’ve wondered if this person will clock that this is for them. Particularly with the earliest stuff that I was releasing, you know, there’s a lot of songs about heartbreak or crushes. And I’m not really one to tell people when a song is about them, to be honest. So there were times when I was kind of like, do I want them to know? Or do I not want them to know? So I would just keep it to myself and wonder.
With this album, there’s not so much of that. The songs that are directly about someone are about my partner, and I can talk to her freely about that. And it’s really nice. There are two about my grandparents, and they’re no longer with me. So if anything, I wish I could share with them, and I can’t. There’s one about my friend that passed, as I mentioned—and maybe that’s the one where I’m like, unsure of how it will feel out there in the world. But that was just some personal reflection, so I can’t really worry about it. And for the first time, I feel like the rest of the songs—something I feel like I haven’t really done before—are just singing about ideas, feelings, and concepts that are not centered around a person.
I feel like if I can look back at most of my music, there’s some kind of subject—as in a person as a subject. Someone I’m singing to or about. Songs like “Too Much,” or “Falling Down,” or “Light is Gone,” they feel a little bit more contemplative. And it’s taken me a long time to really get there. I mean, there have been examples before, but I still feel like most of them have some kind of subject involved somehow. It’s been really cool to write stuff that isn’t necessarily always about people. I think another side of that is I try not to say anything in songs that I wouldn’t be comfortable saying in real life. It’s not such a dirty secret thing for me. It’s either things I wish I had said, or could say, or it’s just things that I’m openly feeling. I don’t tend to write anything bitter, where I shouldn’t say that to someone’s face. I don’t know, maybe time will tell. Maybe on the next album, there’ll be songs that feel that way. But for now, I feel pretty comfortable being open with the songs and what they’re about, which is a good feeling.
PAN M 360: If you could go back and talk to Jacob in 2016 and 2017 as he was working on Swum Baby, would you want to tell him anything?
JA: Oh, man. Um… I mean, in a way, no, I don’t want to talk to him. Because everything happened the way it was supposed to, right? That’s the problem with time travel. Well, I guess he probably needed to know things were going to be okay. I wasn’t doing so well back then. I was pretty depressed. I mean, I was excited about making the EP, so that kind of kept me going. But it would have been so nice to have some kind of affirmation from the future, I suppose. But you have to figure that out on your own, and in a way, I’m saying it now. So maybe in the past, I somehow knew it was going to be okay. But I would have just loved to have had a hug or something from my future self. Some kind of comforting knowledge of how things were gonna turn out. I probably would have just taken myself out for a walk and got some fucking sunlight. That would have been really healthy.
I think in a weird way, what I’d love to do is show myself the music from this album. That would be really interesting. Because it feels so much more evolved than my shit from back then and it feels a lot more confident and better reflective of who I am, and that might be really encouraging—because it took a long time to really get here. I guess, in short, my answer is no. [Laughs] You need to figure it out. But of course, if I could give some love to myself back then somehow, that would be really nice. I was kind of on the cusp, during the making of that EP. Things had been up and down, but pretty good before. But once it got to that point in time, I was kind of on the cusp. Like, within about six months, things were gonna really start looking up for me, but they were at their low point in a major way. And so even a message from a year in the future would have probably helped a lot.
It’s such a weird concept because I don’t know that it would have helped. I probably would have just kept worrying. It wouldn’t have cured my depression to hear from my future self. I had to go through that time to evolve and transform at that pace. But I think all in all, my younger me would be really psyched about this record—I think any of my younger selves, but especially the further and further I go back. I think my 12-year-old self would be so into this album, and that’s a really nice feeling.
Photos by Anna Arrobas
Since her album debut in 2019 with Première apparition—which made the Polaris long list—the Kamouraska-Montreal-based artist, Laurence-Anne, has been expanding her musical horizon with every release. She’s dabbled in dream pop, shoegaze, Franophone indie, art rock, and now, with her upcoming album Oniromancie (out Sept. 15 via Bonsound) a bit of dark pop or darkwave.
Oniromancie concerns the thematic glue of dreaming, or the experience of visions and landscapes when asleep, a big inspiration for Laurence-Anne’s songwriting style. She will present some of these new songs during her performance at the Festival Musique Emergente (FME) in Rouyn-Noranda. But before that, we had the opportunity to discuss some of the inspirations behind the upcoming album, her love of experimentation, and some teasers of what to expect at FME.
PAN M 360: The upcoming album is called Oniromancie. Where did the idea to dive into this theme come from? Are you a huge dreamer?
Laurence-Anne: Dreams have always been a big source of inspiration for my songwritting, among other themes such as nature, space, and the body. I just felt that these new songs were going deeper into the subject. I do dream a lot, and I often see a hidden signification through them. Dreams are a door to your subconcious, it really amazes me the way I can see so clearly in them, showing me the causes of my anxieties, my desires, my ideals.
PAN M 360: Do you write down your dreams or hear music in them that you make for your songs?
Laurence-Anne: None of both. It’s more about the feeling that comes from them. I can remember the vibe and the landscapes of a dream for days. It’s there in my mind when it comes to writing music.
PAN M 360:The song “Flores,” where did the Spanish vocals come from? Do you usually write in French or Spanish?
Laurence-Anne: Spanish feels so lyrical to me, with a whole new level of sensuality to it. Singing in another language is like discovering new tones in my vocal instrument. It feels different. “Flores” is my seocnd spanish song, after “Pajaros.” It helps to be able to switch languages when you are stuck on a melody. For both songs, I had previously tried everything in French, but it wasn’t a fit. Spanish was the solution. I’ll probably write more.
PAN M 360:I know you practice automatic writing when writing lyrics sometimes, can you tell me about that process and how it works?
Laurence-Anne: It all happens when you play this new riff in a loop and then you go on trying to find the perfect melody to it. So I start humming, and then sometimes a few words pop. I go on looping it again and the lyrics appear without having to think about it too much, just as you would do some free style in hip-hop. Afterwards, I understand what I just wrote and it makes so much sense. I somehow feel that this content comes from the same connection to your subconcious that you have when you are dreaming.
PAN M 360:Based on the first three singles, it seems you’re going for a darker take on dream pop, maybe even a bit darkwave. Was this an organic shift for you?
Laurence-Anne: From my experience so far with composing albums, I would say that every begining brings you somewhere different. In mean, in my case, I feel like each album is really different from the other, crossing some similar paths, but going in a complete other direction. My approach to music has always been about experimentation. I started playing guitar to compose, I don’t know anything theorical or technical. In the last years, I dived into the synth universe, and it’s infinite. Exploring multiple genres does feel organic to me, because it’s about discovering new things.
PAN M 360:Did you have a completed musical vision when working on the music, or was there some jamming with the other musicians?
Laurence-Anne: The process behind this album is different from what I have done before. There was no big jam. I started alone, producing demos remotely. Then when I had all the songs, I went to my fellow musician friend François Zaidan. We’ve worked on this project as a team for about two years, which is the longest process for me so far. François helped me build this musical vision I had for Oniromancie. We would see each other almost every week, working bit by bit on finding the coolest tones, the perfect synths and bass lines, while keeping the essence and many tracks from the demos. When it felt ready, we went to the Wild Studio at Saint-Zénon with Pete Petelle (drums), David Marchand (guitar/bass), Ariel Comtois (Saxophone) and Rami Reno (Sound engineer) to complete the whole picture.
PAN M 360: What is the live show like with this new album and what can we expect at FME? Some lights, crazy costumes?
Laurence-Anne: The thing is that the album launch is at the end of the month, (on Sept. 28th at La Sala Rossa for POP Montreal) and I don’t want to reveal everything at the FME, and want to keep some surprises for the big day. I see the FME as the occasion to present to new songs for the first time, since the album won’t be out yet, without too much crazy stuff, so you can really focus on the music, even close your eyes, to feel it deeper.
PAN M 360: What is your relationship with the FME? I know you’ve played a few times and are playing a few more times with your project and La Securite?
Laurence-Anne: I’ve been attending the festival for a few years now, it’s always fun. There’s a special vibe at every concert and you always leave Rouyn-Noranda with good stories and anectodes. For some reason, it gets wilder than any other festival. Maybe cause it’s so far away, you got to make a great moment of it, to be worth the hours of drive.
PAN M 360:Do you feel pressure for this album to be “better” or more successful than the last two?
Laurence-Anne: Not really. I would say that the notion of success is getter more blurred in the last years, because of the social medias, the pressure is a more about the exposure. Anyways, success for me is to be proud of what I did in the end. Which I am!
Since 1994 (almost 30 years now!) Montreal’s Innovations en concert has provided a wide range of opportunities for music-lovers to discover some of the best new music available. It has given Montrealers and people from elsewhere visiting a particularly wide range of modern sounds to appreciate, ranging from the most experimental to some staples of Minimalist culture such as Gavin Bryars’ Titanic Sinking or Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.
The organization was founded by guitarist and composer Tim Brady, who directed for 10 years, followed by Michel Frigon as director from 2004 to 2010. Cassandra Miller and Isak Goldschneider directed their first season in 2011, with Isak Goldschneider taking over the position of Artistic and General Director in 2014. Since 1994, more than 300 concerts have been presented in 27 artistic seasons.
This is a remarkable institution, maybe not as well-known in the general public as SMCQ, for example, but deserving to be put in the spotlight, especially Isak Goldschneider, whom I have met to talk about next season, a bit about himself and other things.
Here it is.
Pan M 360 : There are some well-known figures in Montreal representing contemporary music, like Walter Boudreau or Lorraine Vaillancourt. The name Isak Goldschneider should be there also, for what you are doing with Innovations en concert is really important and constructive. Tell us about yourself and what brought you to be that organisation’s director?
Isak Goldschneider :
I’m originally from the United States, but I lived in Amsterdam for about 16 years. That is where I met my partner trumpeter Amy Horvey, she’s Canadian. Then we moved back to Canada, and settled in Montreal, in 2007. At the time I was working on a completely underground level, doing experimental concerts, commercial gigs, busking in the metro, all these kinds of things. I also worked for a music program for a synagogue, Shaar Hashomayim. They have a wonderful program. We later did the background vocals for Leonard Cohen’s, last album.
Then, you know, I started working with composer Cassandra Miller. We co-directed Innovations for a year, taking over Michel Frigon, but then she moved to the UK, where she became very successful as a composer. I took over her job as Director of Innovations en concert. It was a wonderful opportunity, because I got to be in Montreal at a point where things were changing in a very exciting way. Lots of new voices in contemporary music, a lot of representation of artists who hadn’t really had access to the stage until this period around, you know, 2008 2010.
I had the opportunity to do magnificent things with organisations like Suoni per il popolo, SMCQ, and so on. And we explored new possibilities in contemporary art music by stimulating collaborations between American experimental hip hop artist cum poet cum writer cum etc. Saul Williams, and Montreal’s Kaie Kellough, with saxophonist Jason Sharp. That was amazing and very innovative. That is just one example. There are so many opportunities. I think Montreal is just an absolutely amazing city on an artistic front. Already, when I first came to Montreal in 2007, there were New York Times articles about how Montreal was this secret mecca for music. And it’s remained just as interesting! We did a lot of exciting stuff but I’m thinking next season, it’s going to be even more exciting.
Pan M 360 : Ok, let’s talk about next season!
Isak Goldschneider : Right ! It’s gonna be a wild ride. For Opening concert, I’ll be playing Morton Feldman’s mammoth piano work Triadic Memories. It’s a 90-minute piano work, and Feldman called it “the biggest butterfly in captivity”. It combines deep contemplation and rhythmic grace, and it’s a listening experience on an epic scale. That will be at Centre de musique canadienne au Québec on Crescent street, on September 12. They’ve got a really beautiful little concert space that’s getting launched at the same time.
Then, we will have Peruvian-Canadian and Montreal composer Mirko Sablich’s newest work Uno, a dialogue between mathematics and music, on November 7. Then on March 13, 2024: we will have an exciting new collaboration between Afghan-Canadian writer/actor Shaista Latif from Ontario and Montreal’s Egyptian-Canadian well-known composer Osama (Sam) Shalabi that will explore the history of Afghanistan’s cinema and culture in a very original way. It will be followed by an out-of-this-world Montreal premiere of Vincent Ho’s Juno Award-nominated Supervillain Etudes, by pianists Vicky Chow and Megumi Masaki. The concept is amazing : take six famous villains from comic book culture, make a psychological profile of each of them, and compose music that would describe these profiles! So, we’ll have on a metaphorical musical ‘’couch’’ The Riddler, 2-Face, Penguin, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and the Joker. The concert will also be mediated by Quebec science journalist Michel Rochon. It will be a complete artistic/scientific/sociologic experience! That will be on April 27.
Finally, we’re going to close the season on May 28 2023 with the premiere of a brand new work by Nicole Lizée, with Amy (Horvey) as soloist. Nicole and Amy are both from Saskatchewan, originally, one from anglo community, the other from francophone minority there. Saskbient is the title, and it promises to plunge the listeners in a kind of ambient Ode to Saskatchewan, a sonic experience of what it means to these artists.
My dream has always been to facilitate a new kind of music that really transcends these high art and low art categories, and I hope I reach that goal with those projects.
Creation of a concert work by Nicole Lizée in 2022 :
Pan M 360 : This sounds very exciting! You mentioned earlier how Montreal is a good place for arts, and contemporary avant-garde music in particular, whether from the classical, improv-jazz or chamber rock perspective. Can you elaborate why?
Isak Goldschneider : Montreal has first been a divided city, between French en English, and then immigration, lots of it, has made it one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the continent, maybe in the world. For some that could be a source of problems, or social issues. But, especially now in 2023, Montreal has succeeded in making it an extraordinary positive and stimulating aspect of its personality. I don’t know if there’s another city in North America where you’ll find it’s also possible to live as an artist and build practice. And the amazing diversity of practices here (ancient music, pop, rock, avant-garde, improv, world) have led to situations where it’s not really clear what’s high art and what’s low art. This is one of the most creative areas of contemporary art right now in the world, that mix of high and low, ancient and experimental. And Montreal is ‘’genetically’’ just right for this!
I don’t know if there’s other cities in North America that have this kind of diversity of approach, you know, groups that are blurring the lines between contemporary music and so called World Music, for example (that is what Sam Shalabi does). And then, of course, there’s the entire theater and dance scene, circus, all kinds of things. It’s amazing considering Montreal is not as big as, say, LA, Chicago or New York.
Pan M 360 : Is that what you want to base the personality of Innovations en concert on? I mean compared to other important organisations ike the SMCQ (Société de musique contemporaine du Québec) or the NEM (Nouvel Ensemble Moderne) ?
Isak Goldschneider : I don’t want to do that kind of comparison. I mean, we do our stuff and they do theirs. Sometimes we cross paths, and this is good also! I cannot overestimate, for example, the importance of what the NEM does. Contemporary music isn’t always about what’s new. There’s been a century of the kind of discourse of the classical avant garde, and it’s very important that some ensembles address historical models of ‘’experimental’’ and ‘’innovative’’ endeavours. When you look at the riches of what was produced in European art music from the 1960s 1970s, works like Berio’s Sinfonia, works that are not played by North American orchestras, when you think about that, you know we absolutely need guys like the NEM. What we do at Innovations en concert is different but, I think, complementary. And that complementarity is good, and essential.
Pan M 360 : Are you optimistic about the future of avant-garde music in general?
Isak Goldschneider : I’m very optimistic about the creativity that’s here in Montreal and the potential for it to incubate. I hope that the powers that be in our environment will create conditions that foster and sustain this kind of bubbling creativity, because it’s really those basic things that make it possible. For example, the fact that Montreal has been a more affordable place for artists to live has been really, really important and I think we shouldn’t understate the importance of material conditions in creating fantastic art. I’m hoping that kind of support will continue to be there and maintain Montreal on the map as an important hub for culture worldwide.
Pan M 360 : Thank you so much Isak, for being a part of this bubbling of creativity in our city. We hope the message will be heard, because there are certainly issues right now about affordability. Have a wonderful 2023-2024 season, it sounds exciting. I will be there, and our readers as well, I hope! Especially if they fancy creativity, originality and purpose in arts.
Isak Goldschneider : Thank you for this opportunity, it means a lot.
Hailing from Berlin, Cinthie is a prominent figure in the house music scene. Her story is striking demonstration of her passion for music and her dedication to the craft. While she is a local favorite, having played at venues like Panorama Bar or Robert Johnson, Cinthie is no stranger to the international stage. As she graced the MUTEK festival twice (one live during Metropolis 2 and one DJ set at Experience 6), we sat down with her to discuss her musical journey, her approach to curation and her exciting venture into live performances.
Crédits photo : Nina Gibelin Souchon
PAN M 360: What can you tell us about the relationship you have with house music and electronic music in general?
Cinthie: I have a long history with house music or electronic music in general. I think I was into all kinds of music until I was 14 and then I got a tape from my cousin from a DJ who’s name was Sven (Väth). It totally blew my mind cause he played stuff I never heard before. I was obviously more into pop music or well at least that’s what the radio told me I was into. But honestly I didn’t even like it that much, it was too cheesy, too generic and too annoying for me. After receiving that tape from my cousin, I dug deeper into electronic music and discovered all kinds of stuff but US house music resonated the most with me. That must have been around 1995 when I just turned 15 and when it was the heydays of house music. One year later I got a job at a record store called Humpty Records and the rest is history.
PAN M 360 : And you became a DJ…
Cinthie: I just loved music and I collected the tracks I liked most and recorded tapes for my friend, not mixed though cause that was so far away from me. But when I worked in the record store and met other like minded people from the scene, I discovered the fun of blending two records together and it quickly turned into a fascinating hobby and passion. But I never ever planned to be a DJ. That all came naturally to me as well as the producing which I started around 1999 after I played in clubs for a few years and thought: “huh, would it be great if I had a record that goes like this or that”. Because this record did not exist yet, I tried to make it myself.
PAN M 360: What are the hot spots to listen to house music in Germany, where you come from?
Cinthie: We have a lot of good house music spots in Germany. The most famous is probably Panorama Bar, the upstairs floor of well known club Berghain. In Berlin I also love Heideglühen. That club is a vibe. Unfortunately I’m mostly out of town, so I haven’t been for ages. Other than that I can recommend Offenbach’s Robert Johnson, Darmstadt Galerie Kurzweil or Munich’s Blitz Club.
PAN M 360: You opened a record store a few years back in Berlin, what decided you to take this path?
Cinthie: Like everything in my life, it just came to me naturally. I worked in a record store in the 1990’s but never ever planned to open one myself. I just had the idea to combine forces with other friend’s labels when I had my Best Modus label. I wanted to create a big platform where we all support each other. When I looked for a storage room, I got offered to now well known rooms of Elevate.
PAN M 360: How do you envision the work of curation in the context of a record store?
Cinthie: Curating the store is easy. I simply order more of the records I also order for myself. That’s why it’s also called “Elevate Berlin – Selected Records“. It means we don’t have everything in and it’s very pre-selected. I always loved the personal taste of a record store owner when I bought records in other stores. Getting a good recommendation of a secret weapon is class.
PAN M 360: How is curation in the context of DJing different (or not)?
Cinthie: It’s pretty much the same as I would order records for the store. Everything that moves my hips goes straight into my bag.
PAN M 360: How big of a digger and collector are you? Which pieces from your records collections are the ones you cherish the most?
Cinthie: On a scale from 1 to 10, I would say I’m an 8. I love digging but I’m not desperate about it. For example, I don’t have lists of items I wanna get, but I love discovering record stores when I’m traveling and usually try to pay them a visit. It is always great to find new treasures. My most loved records are the ones I bought back in the 1990’s. Some good old Dance Mania, Nu Groove, Downtown to name a few.
PAN M 360: We know you well as a DJ and as a producer. You are now experimenting with live, was it a natural route to follow for you and how do you feel about taking this leap?
Cinthie: Yes, as I said before, everything came absolutely natural to me. Playing live is just like bringing my studio on tour with me. I’m there almost every day, jamming and making new tracks. I thought why not doing it live? To be honest, the first three shows were mostly about getting the sound right and getting familiar with the new situation in general but I love the journey so far ! From starting it a bit basic and more on the save side, I am now more confident and I am always trying to add more gear to be able to edit and tweak sounds more and make it more “live” and interesting. It’s still a long way to go but the journey is fun.
PAN M 360: Can you remember live music shows or artists that profoundly touched you as a listener? And maybe inspired you for the creation of your live?
Cinthie: Yes absolutely. I am a big fan of Octave One, Aux 88, Cosmic Baby, 3. Raum, Kink, Leo Pol, Orbital… there were so many. Everyone has his own approach of doing a live show but it is so interesting to see how they convert their studio work to the stage.
PAN M 360: For the ones who won’t be able to attend your live, can you describe how you approach it ?
Cinthie : It is a mixture of everything. Some new material, some remixes I recently did, some old classics. I’m adding more and more gear to the live and for MUTEK I bring a little bass synth to be able to tweak the bass sounds a bit more. A drum machine was my latest addition. Unfortunately I have to travel light in planes so I can’t bring too much. I think my next addition will be a midi keyboard. I’m taking piano lessons since the beginning of the year and I guess it would be nice to play a few “riffs” live.
Tiana McLaughlan has been immersed in Montreal’s musical ecosystem for several years now, and her Honeydrip project was selected for a dub/dancehall/jungle/drum’n’bass-influenced evening presented Saturday at the SAT as part of the Nocturne series. And since a Honeydrip album is due in October, PAN M 360 caught up with Tiana (for a second time since her emergence) to talk about her live set and the forthcoming recording, Psychotropical.
PAN M 360: How long has the Honeydrip project been in existence?
Tiana McLaughlan: About 8 years. It was originally my aka as a radio host at Concordia University. My show was called Waves of Honey, hence the Honeydrip moniker.
PAN M 360: What were your musical tastes then?
Tiana McLaughlan: I’ve always loved music. In high school, I listened to a lot of psychedelic rock – Warpaint, Tame Impala and so on. At university, I also listened to a lot of ’90s lo-fi hip-hop and chill electronic music, so I wanted to get myself an SP-404 sampler. I then thought that choosing this kind of music would be a wiser choice for making electronic music. And it was in this direction that I made my radio show.
PAN M 360: And then you became a producer. Obviously, it wasn’t a plan, but what were the steps?
Tiana McLaughlan: Before I became a producer, I used to DJ all kinds of music. I was very eclectic then, and I still consider myself so today. So that perspective remained: mixing and linking genres in a context of electroacoustic studies. Right from the start, I had a chill, ethereal music side in me, and that always stayed with me when I started producing. I’ve also always worked with percussion, and I love rhythmic sequences. Having danced as a teenager, I designed my music around movement and dance.
PAN M 360: You have Caribbean origins, hasn’t that also influenced your work?
Tiana McLaughlan: Yes, my father is from Barbados, so it’s somewhere in the sound of my work.
PAN M 360: That justifies the invitations you make in some of your sets, notably the one at MUTEK with King Shadrock, which also delves into dub and dancehall.
Tiana McLaughlan: Yes, this music is at the origin of so much of today’s electronic music. So King Shadrock, whom I knew when I worked at Blizzarts (now Barbossa), can sing dub and dancehall very well. While my beats and electronic music can also navigate dub and dancehall, but also other genres. It’s hard to put a label on it all!
PAN M 360: We don’t have to!
Tiana McLaughlan: Exactly. To create new sounds and push back musical boundaries, we don’t have to aim for just one style.
PAN M 360: The show is just as important to you.
Tiana McLaughlan: Yes of course, movement and stage clothing are linked to images and music. With visual artist Emma Forgues, we made sure that sound and projected images were connected in real time.
PAN M 360: A permanent trio could emerge from this experiment!
Tiana McLaughlan: I hope so! I like the idea of not being alone in this project, and I’ve got some good allies right now. It’s heartwarming, and I hope to tour the world with a team.
PAN M 360: All this work is also leading up to a new recording scheduled for October. How did that go?
Tiana McLaughlan: We go into the studio, have a chat, record the vocals, mostly freestyle, after which I create an arrangement and come back with the singers to finalize the whole thing. In fact, we’ve been rehearsing several songs for some time now, in order to finish the album.
PAN M 360: Like you, more and more artists on the electronic scene are educated in electroacoustics. What do you learn from your upbringing?
Tiana McLaughlan: I really benefited from the program at Concordia. Not only for the training, but also for the contact with other student producers and access to electroacoustic equipment.
Torino composer and sound designer Sara Berts is using Buchla synthesizer to complement and process field recordings done in the natural landscape. After having studied sound engineering at SAE Institute in Milan, she has been involved in multiple artistic projects, organizations and festivals, Club2Club Festival, Primavera Sound and Elementi to name a few. Sara Berts combines field recordings and synthesis, looking for a sonic in-between space between naturally generated sounds and the famous Buchla semi-modular synthesizer.
PAN M 360 : Is it your first time at MUTEK?
Sara Berts : Yes, it’s my first time at MUTEK and my second in Montreal – I just came as a tourist to visit to visit friends.
PAN M 360 : Your creative process is quite interesting. It starts from electroacoustic studies and it leads to field recordings. Can you explain?
Sara Berts : My creative process is strongly influenced by nature. I spent time in isolation in nature, somehow it’s a practice to me, similar to meditation or yoga. This happened the first time when I was in Peru, in the Amazonian rainforest. And that experience led to the composition of my first EP, which was released in 2021, which is composition of field recordings coming from the Amazon and Buchla semi-modular synthesizer, which is the main instrument I use.
And the second EP, that was released last September 2022, was also influenced by a long period spent in isolation in the surrounding forest, next to my house in Torino, in northern Italy. It happened because it was during the pandemic when the city lost all its attractive power (no concerts, no theater, no cinema, no restaurants. So I spent a lot of time in the woods near my house in Torino. And every time that I spent time in, in nature, it’s like, the quality of my presence gets better. And I feel like plants, insects and birds are somehow inviting me to join in with my music. So it’s a kind of an invitation coming from the sound of nature but not only from the sound also from the animals but also the movements of the animals and vegetation. I love to transpose this into sound.
PAN M 360 : There are a few electronic producers or electroacoustic composers that are recording sounds in the nature. So do you feel being part of a community?
Sara Berts : Of course, there is a community of creative people embracing this same inspiration. So many musicians believe in that beauty and in its musicality. For example I heard this Korean artist called Kohui. So yes, there is definitely a huge movement for recording the natural soundscape.
PAN M 360 : Can you tell us why you use Buchla synthesizer?
Sara Berts : It’s a unique synthesizer and quite iconic because was designed by this physician Don Buchla who was the master of the West Coast sound synthesis. It’s a very unpredictable instrument, it has a range of random voltages. Somehow you need to spend time with the instrument and connect with it, I feel sometimes that it has its own will! So during the pandemic, I spent a lot of time on this instrument, it helped me very much coping the stress of isolation.
PAN M 360 : And what do you craft with your field recordings? What is the process after finding sounds in nature? How do you filter those sounds?
Sara Berts : I don’t really edit those sounds. I don’t filter very much those field recordings, I just equalize them, so I can take away the frequencies that are problematic or not aesthetically interesting. But mostly I leave the field recordings as they are. So I don’t modify it so much.
PAN M 360 : Those sounds are quotes from nature in a way.
Sara Berts : Yeah. When I hear a natural soundscape, I can already feel the musicality in the sound. Then I come back home, I start to listen to the field recordings, and I start to equalize it. Somehow it is an invitation from the soundscape and also after another invitation from the Buchla synthesizer. It’s like having a jam session with a natural soundscape !
PAN M 360 : And what do you add yourself with the synthesizer ?
Sara Berts : I can add the layers from the Buchla synth, I also can mix and play with with the volume or the field recordings. Sometimes it’s louder, sometimes the synth becomes the main character or the main voice. So it’s more of a mixing process than an editing process.
PAN M 360 : And then when you perform this music, is your live set a sort of reproduction of what you’ve recorded?
Sara Berts : There are some clips that I will launch with Ableton Live, and then I will play live some layers from the Buchla synth on those field recordings.
PAN M 360 : So what is the next soundscape you’re going to explore?
Sara Berts : For the next project, for sure there will be some natural elements in the next record, which I am working on right now. But I will experiment and this time I find it very interesting to work with voice and with my singing. I started to explore singing one year ago, this will be a new element that wasn’t present before in the previous EPS. And I will also be experimenting with some rhythmics. So it won’t be just melodic and downtempo, I will also have some drums and more rhythmic tracks.
PAN M 360 : Will you use human voice and new beats in the Montreal concert ?
Sara Berts : No, I will perform my previous projects.
PAN M 360 : And then you will come back with the now material !
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