Great Cuban pianist, composer and improviser Omar Sosa, and Senegalese kora master and singer Seckou Keita are coming together for a first time in Montreal with their Suba Trio, including Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles. They will perform on May 6 and 7 at Le National.
They actually have a strong repertoire of two albums: Transparent Water (2017) and Suba (2021). Through this music, they share their specific cultures: West African mandika music, Afro-Cuban music and Afro-Venezuelan music.
Joined in Europe before their tour, they talk generously about their artistic relationship based on a highly creative fusion of heritages between African and Afro-descendent virtuosos.
PAN M 360: Hello Omar, it’s great to have one more conversation with you. Are you still based in Barcelona?
OMAR SOSA: Well, it’s a good question. I have a studio here in Barcelona because when I am in Europe I basically stay here. Also, I have my two kids here in Barcelona so I must have a place to welcome them.
PAN M 360: This time, with this Suba project, you’re working with you know the Great West African tradition, the great mandingo tradition. So, how come have you been there after all those experiments you’ve done before?
OMAR SOSA: It is important for a creative person to go with the flow of the river. God put you in places you never expect but these places are always amazing, when the love is mutual, and this is basically what I think happened with Seckou. We’ve been working together for 12 years, we’ve recorded 2 albums, Transparent Water and the recent Suba. Basically, it’s a hymn to people who are looking for love for peace, for unity, from this idea of being together in one in one world, when everything is in one way or another going in the same direction.
PAN M 360: And what is that direction?
OMAR SOSA: We are so glad to be celebrating together our roots, and our tradition in a contemporary way, but at the same time, respect what the elders already paid to us and for us. And we are here because somebody was before us. And this is basically in one way, while we like to get present in these two points. Afro-Cuban tradition, Mandinka tradition, and South American, African tradition, because we also have in this project a percussion player from Venezuela, Gustavo Vyas who plays Afro-Venezuelan percussion. And some of this information, a lot of people don’t know. Quitiplás is a bamboo drum ensemble that is used to perform music. So for a lot of people, this is a new form. For other people, it’s continuity. Then we put different instruments together around the kora. Seckou plays it in the traditional style of 22 strings kora, but he also plays with a two necks kora, so 44 strings.
PAN M 360: And what brings you together?
OMAR SOSA : Reason number one is respect. We respect each other, so we listen carefully to each other. Reason number two is that we try to be free to express what goes through us. And this is something I really like. We have a structure with our sounds, but we have a moment when we fly because why I consider myself a jazz musician is because of the philosophy, and I try to keep this philosophy inside every piece of music I play. Freedom. I must feel free to even change the structure at some point if I feel this is the way for me to be free, so If I take Mandinka expression, I must feel free to change what I want.
PAN M 360: Seckou Keita joins us at the moment, then let’s ask him about the importance of freedom in the improvisation.
SECKOU KEITA: Indeed, it is open in most cases. There are of course arrangements in our music. But of course, there is also the freedom to express our musical conversation. Since my first meeting with Oma, we haven’t talked. We didn’t know each other at first but our music was speaking for us. So therefore we carry on the same journey. So we keep that open because it is important for us to come together and chat musically with an open spirit. So what we do together it’s beyond our specific tradition.
PAN M 360: Since your first recording, the music language between you guys has probably changed through your performances. So it’s an ongoing process of renewal, isn’t it?
OMAR SOSA: Indeed it changes, it evolves. We already hear each other before we play and we reach the same place sometimes without rehearsing. This is also because we are in a team with no pressure, where artists think that this life is too short to complain. Life is to short to say “Oh, you did this. I did this. Okay, my God, this C minor is not the right C minor.” So it is better for us to say let’s play what the spirits inspire us to play.
PAN M 360: Seckou, from what West African area are you from?
SECKOU KEITA: I am from Sénégal, more precisely from the Casamance area. My culture is Mandinka.
PAN M 360: So you moved to the UK where you recorded wonderful music with harpist Catrin Finch, among other projects. This is not usual to musicians that come from Sénégal, Guinée, Mali, or Ivory Coast, who mostly emigrate to France, the United States, Spain, or even Québec.
SECKOU KEITA : True. So I always say that England chose me. And I met Omar Sosa in England through a mutual friend, Mark Gilmour, an American artist based in the UK. So sometimes different mixes happen. I know some Gambian musicians who live in France, for example. Anyways, those colonial differences are not what Africa was. My own culture can be found in many west African countries so we can meet somewhere else than only French countries in Europe. History is not always what we think. I like when Omar says that Cuba is a province of Africa!
OMAR SOSA: But now the real thing is to bring our cultures together while we feel free to express what we like to say musically. So Suba, our most recent project, is about this.
SECKOU KEITA: In Mandinka, Suba means sunrise, early morning when the sun comes up. So basically, our recent album is about a new morning, about a new world, a new amazing journey, and a new beginning. We thought about it during the pandemic so we imagined this new beginning involving different cultures.
PAN M 360: This trio is evolving. So do you want to maintain this same format or maybe make it different in the near future? Or think about other projects? For example, chamber music could fit very well with this trio.
SECKOU KEITA : You’re right. I mean, this trio music can become relevant for a chamber orchestra or even a symphonic one. I recorded my music with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of 62 people. It’s called Africa Rhapsody and it will be released on May 26th. So yeah! Because we actually have experienced this super trio with Gustavo, it would be another element really interesting for the diversity of our music. We could take it somewhere else!
Kanse is a Japanese electronic music producer based in Tokyo. He signed his first project on Montreal’s Liquid Love Records. An Attidude is a solid six-track album infused with the original techno of the 1980s, the one we would call “proto-techno”. Kanse explores electro-funk roots to which he adds his touch by working on textures and bass in a more contemporary way. PAN M 360 met him to discuss his assumed reminiscences, his relationship with nature, his creative process and the underground techno scene in the Japanese metropolis.
PAN M 360 : An Attitude is your first album. What did you find difficult and how did you overcome those difficulties?
KANSE : I had been making tracks without thinking about having people listen to them, but this is the first time I have made tracks with releasing in mind. I felt that I had not put enough effort into my tracks before. I would get stuck if I faced music alone all the time, so I intentionally made time to distance myself from music or talked with friends to refresh myself. I think that taking some time off allows me to look at my own tracks objectively, and I feel more motivated to create, and ideas seem to come to me naturally.
PAN M 360 : What is the last book you read/or a book you read while working on An Attitude that particularly nourished your creativity?
KANSE : To be honest, I haven’t been reading much lately. My creativity comes mainly from music and club events. Also, movies, traveling, and meeting new people are sources of my creativity.
PAN M 360 : When I listen to An Attitude, I kind of feel the Detroit “proto techno” vibe, represented by artists like Cybotron. Was it part of your inspirations and more generally, what were your inspirations?
KANSE : I think there is a strong influence by classic techno in my music. I like 80s Electro, such as Cybotron’s Clear. It has a unique atmosphere, is danceable and interesting. Not only 80s but also 90s techno releases are also inspiring. I especially listen to Drexciya and DopplerEffekt a lot and I am quite influenced by their drum patterns and bass lines. Also, there are many artists in the world who are still making these Electro-inspired tracks, so their music is also a motivation for me.
PAN M 360 : What is the link between your work as a music producer and the relationship you have with nature? (Your Bandcamp profile picture, and the description of the album makes a lot of references to nature as well, the 4th elements, etc.)
KANSE : I like nature. When I am stuck on making music, I often take a walk along the river near my apartment. I feel that getting in touch with nature is the most refreshing and brings my mind back to neutral. I am not directly influenced by nature in my music, but I would like to try my hand at that someday.
PAN M 360 : What kind of gear do you use to produce music?
KANSE : I mainly use Minilogue, MS-101, and ESX. I also use MakeNoise’s 0-coast occasionally. I use Ableton Live as my DAW. Basically, I use hardware, but sometimes I make music with DAW only. Recently, I bought a new Elektron Syntakt, so I’ve been working on a few tracks with it.
PAN M 360 : What can you tell us about the electronic music scene in Tokyo? Is it more a club scene, an underground scene?
KANSE : The events are mainly held in clubs and live houses. I have not been to any events overseas, but I think the music scene in Tokyo is more underground than Europe and North america. I have the impression that the music scene in Tokyo is particularly strong in experimental and avant-garde genres. And also there seems to be a strong connection with indie rock. There are many events that mix various genres in Tokyo. I enjoy that.
PAN M 360 : Who are the main actors of electronic music scene in Tokyo (crews, artists, promoters…) and can you tell us about few places that are helping grow the electronic music community?
KANSE : It’s hard to answer this question because Tokyo has various scenes dividedly. The events I often go to these days are HYDROSY, Discipline, and 無政府 Dystopia (Museifu Dystopia). Organizers, DJs and artists at each event are a great inspiration to me. My favorite club venues are VENT in Omotesando, BUSHBASH in Koiwa, and SPREAD in Shimokitazawa. I think the record store Naminohana also plays an important role in supporting the Japanese club scene.
PAN M 360 : What are your plans next ?
KANSE : I have a lot of ideas I want to make into music, so I just want to make more tracks. I think this album is a big step forward for me as an artist. I would like to continue releasing more in the future. Also, I have been making music without much awareness of the Japanese music scene, but I would like to approach that and do live performances, etc.
Meet Mac Wetha, a quickly rising producer, DJ, instrumentalist, and vocalist from London, UK. Releasing his debut album Mac Wetha & Friends in 2019, his initial success was largely restrained to the underground. Listeners praised his laid-back, meticulously crafted lo-fi takes that took on elements of grime, bedroom pop, and contemporary British R&B, all laid out against jazzy drums, interesting guitar riffs courtesy of Wetha himself, and the distinctly fuzzy overtones shrouding the project as a whole. In 2023 though, the artist has completely transcended this initial offering—and proven he’s ready for the big time—with a direct sequel: Mac Wetha & Friends 2.
Throughout its 20-odd minutes, Mac Wetha & Friends 2 completely delivers on its title’s promise—friends getting together and simply having fun making music. Each track is imbued with youthful joy and energy that could never be replicated artificially, and a streak of camaraderie and passion runs through the entire album.
We spoke with Mac Wetha to discuss reflections on the new album, aspirations for the future, and his fun, collaborative approach to creating music with his friends.
PAN M 360: I expected you to be chilling now that the album is out, but I heard you were already back into sessions this week. Did you take much of a break?
MAC WETHA: Yeah, I haven’t really stopped the whole time. I’ve kind of just kept running. The way the Mac Wetha & Friends stuff came about, the first one was very much just working with people and then the song just appeared—stuff the artist wouldn’t put out because it’s too left or not the kind of thing they want to put out under their name just yet. Or maybe I pushed the idea for the beat and they were going along with my thing, as opposed to me producing what they were seeing.
It’s kind of similar with Mac Wetha & Friends 2, where it kind of just happened as I went. It didn’t feel like I was locked away like, mad, fucking pulling my hair out. It was a lot of fun to make, which I think is ideally how music should be made. The whole time, I’ve also been in the space on my own and writing for the next thing.
PAN M 360: How does it feel to have this project out in the world? How’s the reception been from people in your life?
MW: It’s been really good. I think it’s my best work to date and I love all the songs. My family loves it, my friends love it, I know the features love it. And we did a really good release show and it was just a great night. I guess, most importantly, I’m very, very critical of the stuff that I make, and I listen to it so much that I lose perspective. But I always think when I truly put it out there, and let it run for a couple of days, and then listen to it on Spotify or whatever, that’s the true reflection. Because now it’s sitting out there and now it’s done. That’s when I’m always the most nervous to listen to it. That’s the scary thing, but I do like the album. I love it. When I had that listen, I was having a really bad day actually, and I was listening to it walking around the city and I was like ‘Well, at least I made a good project.’
PAN M 360: Has anything surprised you about this album since its release?
MW: There’s always been a running joke between my dad and me—we used to live in Spain when I was a kid. We used to joke about how you’d hear Pitbull on the radio, or you know that U2 song where they’re like “Uno, dos, tres, catorze,” and then the rest of the song is in English? Our joke was that if you put in even any bit of Spanish, Spanish people will be like ‘Oh fuck yeah.’ And I did a bit of Spanish on the start of the song with Feux (“Fall Again”) and I looked at the playlist it was in and immediately, it was ‘Musica por trabajar concentrado.’ I was just writing this new stuff and I was like, let’s do some more Spanish. Trying to keep it up.
PAN M 360: What would you say are the biggest lessons learned between making Friends 1 and Friends 2?
MW: Couple of things—first of all, with the collaboration side of it, now that I’m singing more, I’m really glad that I brought in my friends to help with production and engineering and stuff. In the first one, my mind wasn’t on melodies or lyrics, or what I’m trying to say, it was more like trying to make the coolest sound and get the textures right, therefore leaving all the other stuff to the artist. But since I was singing on it this time, it felt right to include my friend Kurisu, Chris, who’s a good friend of mine who did a bunch of co-prod. As well as Dan Holloway, Max Wolfgang, and other guys I worked with.
I’m really glad I did that because there was a second where I was like “Nah, I should produce all of it.” And then I was like, “Literally, why?” That goes against the whole point of Mac Wetha & Friends: trying not to be too fucking egocentric about it. And then also, there’s this thing I’ve been thinking about lately: how when you first start making music there’s a certain naivety that gives way to this pure, inspired thing. You don’t overthink stuff and whatever sounds good, you do. And the more you do music, and maybe even the more success you have in whatever way you define that, the more you’re like, ‘Oh, people like this. I need to be doing this, or that guy’s doing that. So no one else is gonna find this cool.’ There’s that mindset.
So in the journey from Friends 1 and 2, I’ve been kind of unlearning stuff that I’ve learned along the way to almost get back to the same spot I was at in Friends 1. It was very rough around the edges. I mixed it, so the mixing isn’t amazing. There are a lot of things I would change about it now, but I didn’t make it now, I made it then. So I’m very happy with how it was, but there’s something about the way I made it. The lack of overthinking stuff, or even thinking about stuff at all—just purely making it. It’s a mixture of that mindset and the stuff you learn along the way.
PAN M 360: Your more recent work has a bit of both Mac stuff and Mac Wetha & Friends stuff. Do you feel like you’re totally switching modes when you work with other artists versus working solo?
MW: Yeah, I think there is a switch. When I’m working with other people I’m a lot more confident with writing, because I think there’s pressure taken off. I put a lot of pressure on myself when I’m making solo stuff. And I think a lot of that is bad news, and that’s stuff I’m trying to get better with.
Just signing with Dirty Hit was like a childhood dream. And then you’re like, “Fuck, I’m signed to a label, I got to make something good.” Whereas before, I could make whatever the fuck I wanted. It took me a while to realize, that they signed me because they want me to make whatever I want. Dirty Hit isn’t the kind of label that’s gonna be like, now that you’re signed you’ve got to make this shit. It needs to be between these BPMs. Shave your head.
That pressure doesn’t come across so much when it’s collaborative, purely because you’re bouncing off of someone. Through doing Friends 2 and how fun it was, and how much better I was writing and performing with my pals, it reminded me that this is literally what I’ve been doing for my whole musical life. And yet for some reason, when I signed to Dirty Hit I was like ‘Alright, it’s just me now. I’m signed, I need to make this. I need to do that.’ But no, that’s not how it works fucking at all!
There is a kind of switching of modes that I want to change and just make it all one mode. It’s probably something to do with the fact that when I’m doing it myself I feel like I have to be producing and on the laptop, whereas in some of these Mac Wetha & Friends sessions, for example, my boy Chris was engineering, and making things sound good, and he just knows how I want stuff to sound. That part had just gone out of my mind, and now it’s just me and whoever I’m working with, and we’re just doing it.
PAN M 360: Did you find that doing a bit of everything on this album helped the producer and artist brains work in harmony a bit better?
MW: Yeah, I reckon so. Every work that I do and put out brings me closer and closer to what I’m really, really trying to do, as a solo artist even. The Mac Wetha & Friends stuff sits in this fun world where anything goes and everything’s fun. And that’s kind of what I want my solo stuff to be. But like I said, I dropped the first solo thing in 2020, “Culver,” I was so new to it then. I still feel like I’m just figuring it out with every project I do and getting a little bit closer. And the Mac Wetha & Friends stuff speeds that up a lot.
PAN M 360: What are some of the similarities and differences between being a frontman for a band like Scoundrel or Death Pigs versus being the end-to-end producer of your whole vision?
MW: I guess you just doubt yourself a lot more doing it on your own. Just bouncing ideas off people is really beneficial. Hence why I’m trying to work with more friends lately. Being a frontman in a band where you’re screaming, shouting, belting stuff, going a bit nuts—once you do it loads it becomes really easy and you don’t feel scared of an audience, because you’re just doing this crazy shit. And if someone doesn’t like it, you kind of stop caring, I guess.
But when it’s more introspective and you’ve written it on your own, you’re way more vulnerable. Some of the relationships I have with friends who I make music with are so close because I’ve seen them be very vulnerable. We’ve talked and tried to get all that out into the music. But I’d never been in that chair really, or if I had, it was with the band and I was just screaming. It’s just more vulnerable this way when you’re singing.
Criticism of my new work and bad reviews have hit me so much harder than I thought they would, and that’s probably why. Because it’s the first time I’ve really truly been vulnerable like that and this stuff is representing me. Mac Wetha is me. The band is four of us, but this is just me. So if someone hates Wetha music (which they’re more than welcome to do) that, at first, was like ‘Oh, well they fucking hate me as well.’ But obviously, it’s not personal.
PAN M 360: Do you think it also has something to do with the vibe and the subject matter? With the band it’s heavy and emotional, you’ve got your guard up. But with your new stuff, a lot of it is super optimistic and happy. Do you think that also adds vulnerability?
MW: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s quite easy to write sad shit. I’m definitely trying to step out of that a little bit, even though there are definitely some emo sad vibes on this project. I’ve been trying for a long time to write happier stuff and make it not cringy or not insincere. It’s so much harder. I think people can relate so much easier to sad stuff and it kind of just pours out of you. But writing a track that’s happy and uplifting, for me anyway, that’s harder. “Don’t You Go Falling in Love” and “Fairytale” sound quite happy but they’re quite bittersweet or melancholic still. It’s like a reflective kind of sadness, less immediate.
I think since making Mac Wetha and Friends is fun and you’re fucking around and having a great time with your pals, that probably comes across a bit more. Not that I’m not having fun when I’m making music on my own, it’s just that when you’re on your own or with just a couple of guys it’s just a bit different, a different energy. But I was travelling when I made some of the songs on Mac Wetha & Friends 2. In LA, it was like, fucking 40 degrees. I fucking love LA, and I’m excited to be there, so I’m not gonna suddenly sit down and be like “[singing] My girlfriend left meeee/I feel so bad/I hate myseeeeelf.”
PAN M 360: Your EPs and now this album have all felt super edited and refined in terms of length, but they’re always a bit of a tease since they’re done so quickly. Why do you think you’re drawn to briefer statements?
MW: In the band, I used to be able to make these fucking seven-minute-long math rock songs. And I have no problem with that, but like you say, I make a song over four minutes I’m like “Oooh, I don’t know about that.” I think it’s maybe coming from the band background and now working on a computer and being able to speed stuff up, slow stuff down, chop stuff, sample stuff, and manipulate samples, it’s probably a mixture of all that. And also I think simplicity, especially in Mac Wetha & Friends, is very important. I come from a background of making beats and sampling.
In fact, the whole idea of sampling is what made me want to make music on the computer in the first place. Hearing SpaceGhostPurrp and the way he used samples is what got me into it. I think the reason I love sampling is you listen to a beautiful piece of music that’s already got this spirit, and then one bit hits you in particular and you just loop the shit out of that so people can hear that, keep experiencing that.
PAN M 360: Do you remember the first sample you ever flipped?
MW: I don’t think I can remember the first, but the earliest I can remember is maybe a Barney Kessel sample, the jazz guitarist. But the first beat I made which someone used (which was Bone Slim who’s in the nine8collective with me) was a piano and drums, and then at the end, I did a whole minute-and-a-half long sample of a conversation, a la MF DOOM. It was so meticulous. I spent weeks on it, all these mad conversations. I was really on it, fucking all about sampling at this point. I remember sampling the original Planet of the Apes soundtrack as well, that was pretty cool.
PAN M 360: Any plans for touring outside of the UK in the future?
MW: To be honest, it’s kind of confusing what I’m gonna even do live at this point. Because Mac Wetha & Friends 2 is what’s just come out, and I suppose is what people are listening to the most, and I can’t really play that live. I’ve got quite a lot of stuff planned in the UK this year, and if the solo stuff goes well after this, which hopefully it will, I’ll hopefully be in the States and in Canada. I’d fucking love to, it’s like my dream to do that.
Actually, with my band Scoundrel, we played a gig in Quebec City because we won a battle of the bands. No one knew us, I met the mayor of Quebec City, and shit, it was crazy. It was weird. We were there for three nights, it felt like a weird fever dream. All of the Quebec City guys were like, “Man, fuck Montreal.”
PAN M 360: Besides incense, is there anything you need to have nearby to do your best work in the studio?
MW: I’ve got sage burning right now. I also always have a couple of these bad boys. Books. I’ve got the Rick Rubin book. I know, I know. What I’m also really into is having a paper around and doing the crossword, and then writing lyrics on the paper. Because there are just so many words, and I love busy-looking stuff. So if I’d take the train to the studio, I’d always pick up a paper and try to do the crossword on the way. Then I’d get there I’d just put this next to me and any of the ideas I have, I’d just jot down in here. And there’s something about all the manic words fucking everywhere that’s quite inspiring lyrically. But other than that, nothing really.
PAN M 360: Has much changed in terms of your process or workflow since signing with Dirty Hit? Or is it just an opportunity to keep on keeping on?
MW: The negative side of it, which was a small, self-inflicted side was the pressure of being on a label. It could’ve been anyone and the pressure would have gotten to me because it was the first time my music and my thing have been recognized in that way. And for it to be me as a solo artist which was very new to me at the time was quite a lot of pressure that I put on myself. That was the bad change which I think I’ve worked on and gotten better with now. And the good change is being able to live off of making music, I’ve never really been financially stable in my life before signing to Dirty Hit, or if I have, I’ve been working a lot.
I’ve got to the point now where I’ve gotten over the confusion and I just feel very blessed to be able to do it. I do a lot of exercise and stuff that keeps me active, so I’m not always just sitting there and losing my fucking mind. Also, supporting Beabadoobee on their tour. I met them in the studio and we became mates, and then we supported them on tour, which was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was insane. In a roundabout way, that was because of Dirty Hit. A lot of things have changed for the better after signing.
PAN M 360: You’ve got a knack for bringing in an artist and letting the collaboration flow both ways, making something really cool that neither of you could come up with on your own. With that in mind, which two or three artists would you call up for your dream collab?
MW: I’d love to make a song with SpaceGhostPurrp. I know, controversial opinion, he’s got a lot of controversial opinions himself. But I would just love to be a fly on the wall or make something with him and understand, and see how his mind works. Because I think he just makes such insane stuff. And then TisaKorean, he’s so sick. So fun. I’d love to just make a beat for Tisa and work with him and do something fun with him, and Spaceghostpurp I’d just like to see how he works. In terms of making a song together and coming out with a product like something on Mac Wetha and Friends or something, maybe Yung Lean. Corbin, maybe. Let’s do both.
PAN M 360: Have you found it tough to be such a genre-rejecter in this brand-focused landscape of music?
MW: I don’t struggle with it, but I do think sometimes about how I’m perceived and stuff. But at the end of the day, I’m just making whatever comes to me and feels right, and trying not to think too much further than that. I think with Cloud Paint, as much as I love the project, I was very much like, ‘Alright, let’s do this kind of more rocky shit now.’ I think I was just putting myself in a box a bit too much. I think it can be beneficial to give yourself limitations so you have a set of rules you can bend and play with, but you’ve still got this focus. But I think I’ve come to realize that what’s best for me right now is just to come to the studio and make whatever I want, and then have loads of songs and see which ones feel right to put out. Hopefully, there’s something that unites all the sounds and comes through it and keeps it all in the same universe.
All the artists I have the most love for, and respect for, musicians that I idolize—specifically people like Lava La Rue, Biig Piig, tendai, Dora Jar, and Bone Slim—I see them not give a single fuck about whatever’s going on, and just make whatever they want. And they have inspirations obviously, and things they draw from, but that’s kind of far removed from the trend of the day on TikTok or whatever. That’s the stuff that lasts the longest, even if it doesn’t blow up in a day and make enough money to buy a fucking house. That would be sick, but also, the point of making music isn’t making money; it’s making sick music.
Hailed for the disturbing and beautiful expressiveness of her sound language, but also for the diversity of her tools, processes and stylistic references beyond the contemporary (serious) music from which she comes, from electroacoustic to metal to noise to video game music, the music of composer Bekah Simms is highlighted here.
More precisely, his sound universe unfolds in the context of a carte blanche suggested by the Paramirabo ensemble and presented in concert with the Groupe le Vivier, this Saturday, April 22, 7:30 pm, at the Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines.
A native of Newfoundland & Labrador, Bekah Simms has lived in Toronto and worked in the contemporary composition scene in Montreal. She now teaches in Glasgow at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland, but is in Montreal this week to refine the program in question.
PAN M 360 : When did you leave Canada to settle in Scotland?
BEKAH SIMMS : Since last summer so it’s quite recent. I am teaching three days a week and doing research and composition the rest of the time. So it’s a really good balance. I love it. Yeah, it’s really wonderful. Like, because it’s a Conservatoire, rather than university. Most of what I do is just one to one teaching. So I’m just like, sort of talking about composition, all the time listening to lots of my students’ music, and it’s very fulfilling.
PAN M 360 : When did your creative relationship has started with Paramirabo and flutist Jeffrey Stonehouse, its artistic director ?
BEKAH SIMMS: It started in 2017. I worked with Jeff, now six years ago, I was doing my PhD at the University of Toronto at the time. During a summer session, Paramirabo was the ensemble in residence and commissioned a work from me, as I was composer-in-residence there during that same period culminating in the context of a contemporary music festival.We’ve stayed in touch ever since. For the first time three years ago, he asked me if I was interested in a carte blanche, so this concert has been in the works for a long time. It was conceptualized three years ago, and we’ve been working on it since then through other projects of course. Five of my pieces are on the program for this concert, two of which were written for Paramirabo. The others were written for different ensembles.
PAN M 360 : More specifically, what about those 2 pieces written for Paramirabo?
BEKAH SIMMS: The pieces are very different from one another. The first one is called With Dawn in Our Lungs for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano, it’s from 2017. And the premiere is from January, so it’s very recent. And in a way, this concert must be seen as a whole. It kind of traces my own development as a composer and how I’ve changed. So you can hear hints of some of the things that I’m interested in, and what I would evolve into in the 2017 piece, and then this piece, the premiere, is just sort of a more mature and realized voice. And as they are similar in length, with similar instrumentation, but the music has, I think, progressed quite a bit. And so, in a way, it shows that through a relationship with musicians of an ensemble, you learn to trust them, and so you can gradually do more difficult and experimental things with that ensemble that can bring them to life.
PAN M 360 : I see. So if we see your progression through this program, how could you describe it with words before the concert?
BEKAH SIMMS :Yeah, well, I mean, you can definitely see that it’s progressively more and more technologically inspired, more and more like sort of electronic sounds kind of enter the fray. And it gets more and more technologically involved as well. So a lot of my music has sort of these audio cues that are lined up and have to be triggered live. So the first piece on the program, it’s just a piece where you press play, and then it sort of plays through all these electronics. The second piece of electronics has like seven times that you press play, and then the most recent one has 16. So you’ll see that it’s just like gotten more and more involved and more and more precise. And that’s me also is getting more comfortable with the medium of working this sort of electronic sounds and synthesizers and things that are out of tune. And I would also say that the most recent pieces are kind of the most fun and most groovy, especially when you go through academia, as a composer, you kind of think, Okay, I have to be very serious, I need to be serious with my art. And then after sort of graduating and getting away from it, it’s almost like I’m more comfortable doing the things that I just really liked to do, whether they’re serious or not. And so I think that there’s a little bit of fun, then in the more recent one, whereas the piece that I wrote for them in 2017, is quite delicate.
PAN M 360 : Also, between instrumental music and electronic music, it is always very to find a good balance. It’s very hard to find, you know, the fluidity between instruments, and textural approaches of electronics, and very few people start to be very comfortable joining those 2 different paths.
BEKAH SIMMS : It can be really challenging because very few people start doing electronics and instrumental writing at the same time. Usually, either you are like a producer who has to learn how to compose or you’re a composer who has to learn how to produce. So you’re always kind of trying to play catch up. For me, I actually did this mentorship, when I was 26, with Martin Bédard here in Montreal at the Conservatory. And a lot of my approach is kind of modeled after his, which is for the electronics to largely use the sounds of instruments. And so if I have a certain group of instruments on the stage, and then the electronics are sort of built from sound recordings of those instruments, there’s an automatic connection between what you hear on stage and what you hear in the speakers. And so it’s a little bit of a shortcut into making them sound like they belong together. And it’s not two different worlds at the same time.
PAN M 360 : You’re from a more recent regeneration generation, less afraid to mix things like you do.
BEKAH SIMMS : Yeah, of course, of course, like, I think that in general millennials, that are in this genre of composing, there’s a much more like, multifaceted approach. And people are influenced by a lot of different genres, even though they’re writing concert music. So you know, your concert music is influenced by folk music or by drone music or by electronic dance music. I’m very influenced actually, by video game music, especially for indie games, it is very, like, sort of low fi, throwback, electronic music. And so in my creation, I kind of use some synthesizer patches that kind of evoke that 8 bit kind of sound. And I just, I feel empowered to do that. Because the listening environment is just so eclectic. For myself and for most people.
PAN M 360 : So it became more and more welded.
BEKAH SIMMS : Yeah, and the way it also became, like, the first ones are all electronics are very instrumental sounding, that actually, as I developed, I got more and more comfortable having the electronic sound more and more distance from the elements on stage, because I wasn’t afraid so much about, I know how difficult it is to make sure that they sound like they belong together. So for example, like the creation has a synthesizer sound, that’s almost kind of like a video game soundy and sort of Lo Fi sound, which I wouldn’t have been comfortable enough to do or whether or not confident enough. You know, I’d be worried that it stands out too much, you know, how do I make it sound? Like it’s all one piece. But now, you know, you hit your 30s? And you’re like, it doesn’t matter I’m gonna make this interesting.
PAN M 360 : Yeah, that sounds very good. Because you did, you’re developing some skills as a producer that you didn’t have first, when you were trained. First, you’re trained as an instrumental composer. And after you discovered the electronic.So then, to really have the electronic aspect very well suited in your own craft, it takes some time to understand all the textural possibilities that instrumental don’t have.
BEKAH SIMMS : Exactly. Yeah, it took a really long time. And like when you start as a composer, you know, I was sort of developing that since I was like, you know, late teenager, early 20s. And then the electronics came much after but you’re also trying to learn a new skill while composing a piece. So the development feels a little slower, because you’re focusing on so many different things. And I would say it’s only in the last like, maybe a couple of years. And yeah, I’m quite happy with how the electronic elements sound in my music.
PAN M 360 : Obviously, there are more producers and composers referencing popular and serious forms of music in the same corpus.
BEKAH SIMMS : Yeah, I feel like there was I think, even if you look back in the 20th century, there was a ton of popular music artists that were influenced by people like Stockhausen and stuff. And I think it just took a really long time for composers to allow the influence from popular music to become a little bit more obvious in what we do. I don’t know why we were so as a group, reluctant or hesitant to do that, but I think that all of that has blown out of the water now people my age have no no issue. So just like referencing all sorts of popular music, certainly for me, like I released an album back in October, one piece is based around metal music from three different bands. And one other piece of mine is totally based around the music of Joanna Newsom. So my music is really rooted in this idea of referencing other genres.
PAN M 360 : So it’s going to be a diverse program on Saturday !
BEKAH SIMMS : Yeah, so it It’s actually a, there’s a lot of variety within my pieces, there’s a lot of variety from piece to piece, because like, four of the five are for the Paramirabo instrumentation but one of them is for flute solo. Two of them are acoustic, three of them are electroacoustic. One of them is 4 minutes long. One of them is 11 minutes long. So yeah there’s like a ton of variety in a bunch of different factors.
This Friday, April 21, the Montreal group Hippie Hourrah unveils its second album entitled Exposition Individual, inspired and created by the work of the late Quebec painter, Jacques Hurtubise. A few days before the publication of the project, Pan M 360 met the three members of the group, Miles Dupire-Gagnon, Gabriel Lambert, and Cédric Marinelli at the latter’s painting studio in order to learn more about this new chapter of their artistic history.
Under the Simone Records label, the trio rose to prominence in 2021 with the opus Hippie Hourrah!, a proposal with psychedelic sounds, also tinged with pop and even folk. This time, the three men return to the charge with a concept album around the art of the artist Jacques Hurtubise, a member of the family of the group’s percussionist when they perform on stage. Recently, the group’s voice, Cédric Marinelli, was charmed by the painter’s work and offered to make it the guideline of their second long format. Moreover, the Onibaba painting d’Hurtubise adorns the cover of the book and gives a good image of the project, making it as coherent as it is eclectic. Also, the titles of the pieces are all those of paintings by Jacques Hurtubise and served as a starting point for the development of the songs.
With the help of the writer Ralph Elawani, Hippie Hourrah drew its inspiration from the impressive artistic catalog of Jacques Hurtubise. On the album, Elawani plays the role of a journalist and appears several times in narrative tracks, providing additional depth to the concept. Composed of 14 titles, this project offers pieces with atypical structures infused with synths, all crafted around the singular and bewitching voice of Marinelli. The creative casualness of Hippie Hourrah shines on ExhibitionIndividual and gives life to excellent titles such as “Unfathomable Nights,” and “Brush in the Tomb,” which are undoubtedly two favourites for the author of these lines.
PAN M 360: Why were you inspired by the art of Jacques Hurtubise?
CEDRIC MARINELLI: At a certain point, I completely fell into discovering Jacques Hurtubise and his art. Jacques is in the family of our percussionist and I have always seen his works, without really knowing who he was. Recently, I went to the workshop where his family takes care of his paintings. I found the experience very inspiring and thought it would make a great guideline for our project. Naturally, I discussed with members of Jacques Hurtubise’s family and I was sent his catalogs with all his paintings. It is precisely from there that we took the names of each of the songs of our project. His family liked our vision and thought it would introduce his art to younger generations. Almost all the texts on the album have as their starting point an element of the life of Jacques Hurtubise, and they are as much works as moments of his life. That being said, the titles of Individual Exhibition do not exclusively deal with Jacques and we approach several other different subjects. The narrative pieces also reinforce the concept of the album and bring a little something extra musical to the project.
PAN M 360: Let’s talk about the Onibaba canvas that adorns the album cover. Why did you make this choice?
HIPPIE HOURRAH: We chose this canvas because of the effect it had on us. We love the aesthetics and the feeling that the work gives off. Jacques Hurtubise’s family offered us several canvases for the cover and we looked at them all carefully. When we saw Onibaba, we all agreed that it was the one that best represented the project.
PAN M 360: How did you choose the paintings that would become the titles of your songs?
HIPPIE HOURRAH: We chose the paintings that made us trip and inspired us to create. For example, Jacques made “Rorschach” style canvases. Rorschach was a psychologist who developed a therapy tool that is still used today. The principle is simple, it is to show an abstract painting to a patient and ask him to describe what he sees. Jacques has already made canvases in the style of those presented for this test. For the song from our album called “Rorschach,” we played along and wrote about what we saw on works of this style that we found on the internet. The song is squarely about what a patient would say to a doctor, it’s quite interesting.
PAN M 360: Is there a parallel to be drawn between what the painting gives you and your music?
CÉDRIC MARINELLI: Clearly. And I think that’s why we wanted to be inspired by a visual artist and the title of the album is ExhibitionIndividual. For us, each song is a painting. I really like lots of different art forms, I especially love abstract painting. In the composition of our music, we always have this desire for expansion and research that goes beyond what is known. It really is like painting. In our new project, we go further than what we know musically through research, improvisation, and imagination.
PAN M 360: You say that you go beyond certain musical limits in this new work. How would you describe this proposal?
HIPPIE HORRAH: It sure is psychedelic. It is musically, but also in the general attitude of the project. Sometimes, in this project, we explore more pop and rock avenues. There is a bit of everything in this project and our influences are very vague. It’s a happy mix of musical styles wrapped in a psychedelic universe.
PAN M 360: By its rhythm and its color, the title “Nuits insondables” stands out from the rest of the album. Tell me a bit about the history of this song.
HIPPIE HOURRAH: This is probably the rawest track on the album. When we worked on this track, it was super easy compared to other tracks that we worked on for a long time. There is a certain simplicity in “Nuits insondables,” which goes well with Cédric’s very personal lyrics. It is at this level that this piece differs from the others in the project. This title gives you time to catch your breath before setting off again. We’ve been hanging out at Esco for years and Cédric works there. He wanted to make a song about this area which is well-known to musicians here.
PAN M 360: Your writing is neat and poetic. What does your creative process look like in terms of writing?
CÉDRIC MARINELLI: I have always written with Ralph Elawani, a good friend of mine. He is the one who speaks on the narrative frameworks of the album. Generally, I don’t have any particular technique. We start with an idea and we build from that. For this project, we wanted each song to have the name of a painting by Jacques Hurtubise. As I said earlier, each song bears the name of a canvas, and we started from that as a source of inspiration to create.
PAN M 360: Which Exposition Individualpiece are you most looking forward to performing on stage?
HIPPIE HOURRAH: We’re definitely looking forward to “Unfathomable Nights” and “Pur Sang Rouge.” We had a lot of fun doing “Time of the Dead” on Exposition Individual, it’s really trippy. It will be good to have new material to do during our shows. Our performances could take a different turn, we can’t wait. Before, we didn’t have so many tunes, so we threw ourselves into endless instrumental sequences. We really don’t hate it, but it’s hard to do an hour show like that. More concise pieces, it’s not a refusal.
Rising from an agitated state of sleep, just before her metamorphosis into her adult self, the young Quebec singer and composer N NAO (named Naomie De Lorimier) creates, with her new album, L’eau et les rêves the imprint of an invisible illusion, a marvellous phenomenon, a mysterious encounter. Through an artistic and symbolic ritual that has been occurring naturally for millions of years, this prodigious second album of experimental dream pop, released via Mothland, is part of an ambitious transdisciplinary and collaborative work, whose theme gradually unfolds with the help of a documentary research project on the world of freshwater. Combining free jazz spontaneity, acoustic tenderness, soaring lyricism, psychedelic folk improvisation, krautrock rhythms, dream pop effect chains, and outdoor recordings taken on the run, the whole album, written with a rare sense of authenticity, invites us to get lost at the top of a mountain, to give birth to ourselves during a dream, next to a source of fresh water which makes life more porous to unconscious changes.
Done in a meditative and trance-like state, her research brings to life the magic of a heavenly angel, sometimes gentle, sometimes stormy, like a deity personifying the forces of nature that make the pure sensation of living shine within. Safe in her room or in the studio, the spontaneous and intuitive urge of her unconscious is no longer afraid to say what needs to be said in order to lighten the burden of shadows. This silent, mystical, and caring communication allows one to look deep into the depths of matters: decay, loss, life, death, reconstruction, and care. The supernatural whisper of a long-distance connection encourages her to take risks on the edge of the abyss, as the sky now catches her in her fall.
The eclipse of colours is indeed a victory, it smashes the boundary between reality and imagination and allows life to be renewed with the future. A survivor’s right to exist hides a mystery, a gift, a mighty tool. The power of the numinous gives hope to survive the “Fin du monde.” Simplicity creates miracles. N NAO agreed to meet with PAN M 360 to tell us about her secret.
PAN M 360: While we are only discovering you now, with your second album L’eau et les rêves we can notice that you already have a long background in the underground scene, notably alongside Klô Pelgag, Marie-Pierre Arthur, Crabe, zouz, Safia Nolin, Jonathan Personne, and Lumière. How did you get involved in this community of artists?
N NAO: Being born in Montreal, I was able to meet a lot of artists very early on in my career. In CÉGEP, I already had contacts with people active on the music scene. I met Etienne Dupré (bassist for Klô Pelgag, Mon Doux Saigneur, zouz) who is currently in my band, as well as Charles, with whom I have been playing for a long time. I started doing sets in Montreal in DIY places like La Plante. The experimental music label Jeunesse cosmique also gave me my first chance. After my jazz studies, I moved to Berlin for four months with my effects pedals, to sort of conquer my fears. One night, I managed to play a set in a full venue, and that’s how I realised that there was actually an audience for what I was doing and that I could become confident. When I came back to Montreal, I started supporting Laurence-Anne, which helped me meet new people. One thing led to another and I began to support more and more artists. It all happened very naturally over time.
PAN M 360: During your CEGEP, you did a program in jazz singing, composition and arrangement. Was music present very early in your life?
N NAO: Yes, my parents noticed very early that I had a good ear. When I couldn’t even speak yet, I could imitate the sound of the vacuum cleaner perfectly, I had the right note (laughs). As a child I studied classical music at Le Plateau school, my grandfather always listened to classical music and my father was a singer.
PAN M 360: Charles was the first member to join you in your N NAO project. This meeting seems important to you, can you tell us more about it?
N NAO: I started writing, composing, singing, and experimenting on my own between high school and CEGEP and Charles was the very first person who heard my songs. We feel connected through the way we see music, the way we listen to it, and the way we appreciate art in general. When we played together, it was as if we were exchanging our thoughts through music, like a kind of correspondence about our worldview. Charles has a master’s degree in art history and we really enjoy sharing our theories.
PAN M 360: How did the rest of the group come about?
N NAO: The process was very natural. Lysandre Ménard (Lysandre, Helena Deland) was already on my first album A jamais pour toujours in 2018. Just before her trip to London, I came to her house to sample her piano improvisations. I was sad about her departure and I wanted to keep a piece of her with me. This became her first contribution to the project. Etienne and I had already played together in the past in our studio, and we kept running into each other at the same shows. We met again in zouz, Klô Pelgag and then on my first record. Samuel Gougoux (TDA, Corridor, Kee Avil, VICTIME) had seen Charles and me opening for Jonathan Personne in 2019. He fell in love with our duo and we started playing as a trio from then on. These are all great encounters, it’s really magical when we’re together.
PAN M 360: You recorded the album at Green Room Studios and in your bedroom. Was it important for you to feel surrounded, in an intimate and personal setting?
N NAO: Yes, really. I’ve always worked in an intimate setting, I find that’s where the creative process can flow in a much purer way when you feel confident in your interactions. I am someone who likes to get to the bottom of things and to feel a certain depth with my team members. I needed to be with people I could trust to be able to create this sense of exposure.
PAN M 360: Your album is illustrated with videos that show documentary research on freshwater. How did you conceive the idea?
N NAO: Actually, the idea came to me after filming the videos. I did a short movie in a pond for the EP “La plus belle chose”. I saw it more as a performance, grounded in a moment. I then got an 8mm camera, which I kept with me during two cycles of seasons during my meditative getaways in nature. Four tapes came out of these experiences. I realized spontaneously that there were many themes around water, its shimmer, its various states, and its mysterious, sensual, sensorial qualities. It was as if I had discovered it afterward. So I started to concentrate on this substance, on its light and its refraction. All of this became clearer in terms of the music, the texts, and the visuals. With my camera, I wanted to try to see through and inside the matter.
PAN M 360: The cover was made during one of these nature excursions. Can you tell us more about it?
N NAO: I wanted to collaborate with Laurence Veri, who is a ceramist I really like. We met at the Jean-Talon market when we were both florists. We decided to create a ceramic together. From there came the idea of an angel, which she had already explored in ceramic and which I also saw in the texts of the album. She drew the figure of the angel in sandstone with grains of sand and rocks. I took the ceramics with me to document it around a waterfall, seven hours from here. Laurence had produced three different ceramics, and it turned out that my favourite had a crack in it. In the end, I found this imperfection so beautiful. It was so fragile, we had to be careful with it during our trip. We stayed a whole weekend near this waterfall Charles and I. We read, swam, and took pictures. It was a great documentary experience. I chose this particular waterfall because I knew I could be quiet.
PAN M 360: The title of the album is inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book “L’eau et les rêves,” What link do you make between this book and your album?
N NAO: Through our artistic and correspondence relationship, Charles gifted me this book. It sort of filled in the themes that were already addressed in the album. I like its philosophical aspect, but also how the author approaches the poetry of matter. He says that “water is the matter of dreams.” This sentence means a lot to me. To write the songs, I used my dream memories. I used to practice in the morning when I came out of my dreams, to write and compose on the guitar. Water is also a very sensual material that can be associated with femininity, with the nymph, and with the mermaid. Gaston Bachelard published this book in the 1940s, I find it interesting to have a more contemporary perspective, coming from a woman.
PAN M 360: You describe the footage in the video “Tout va bien” as haptic. How did you achieve this?
N NAO: I read a text by Laura U. Marks during my studies at Concordia that really resonated with me. She brings up the idea that this is actually a strategy used by women throughout history, which can be found in tapestry and its caressing textures for example. She talks about haptic videos as being very distorted, so textured that they will caress the eye. Today, everything happens through screens, we live in an age where everything is visual, so I find it interesting to create imagery that speaks to the body, to the skin, to the sensation. I did it naturally with the camera, I capture what I see as if I were touching them. There is a form of sensuality in my exploration that is in line with my eco-feminist values. I try to offer an equal-to-equal approach to nature.
PAN M 360: What is “La plus belle chose” for you?
N NAO: In a day, I often say “this is the most beautiful thing”. But it’s never the same thing. What crosses all these moments are these bursts of life, authenticity, of sincerity. It’s the meeting. We accept to meet others, to meet ourselves, that things affect us. If I am in front of a magnificent landscape, I accept that it strikes me and I accept to be present in these things. The most beautiful thing is to take the risk of meeting oneself. Behind this lies a way of thinking that is constantly in motion, like a form of presence.
Crédit photo : Naomie de Lorimier & Cléo Sjölander
Affiche ci-dessous: Juliette Dupont-Duchesne
Without helmet and without safety net, the co-founder of Daft Punk has just launched his first large-scale composition for large orchestra, intended for a ballet at the initiative of choreographer Angelin Preljocaj. Mythologies is a work of 23 tableaux performed by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine under the direction of Romain Dumas.
His fans should be aware that Thomas Bangalter is far, far from doing Daft Punk. Without any advanced technology except perhaps a composition software, and especially in an orchestral spirit very close to European romanticism in the second half of the 19th century, the French artist revisits in depth his relationship to composition.
This is certainly an excellent subject for an interview… given to us by Thomas Bangalter in a video conference.
PAN M 360 : What brought you to symphonic music? You must have had a good musical upbringing, as is the case in most good families.
THOMAS BANGALTER : It’s not exactly a story of a “good family” in fact, it’s rather a family of artists and classical music came to me through dance: my mother (Thérèse Thoreux) was a classical dancer, my aunt was a dancer, my uncle was a choreographer, my father is an author, composer and producer, so I was born into a family of artists. But my relationship with orchestral music and symphonic music came about through dance, and then, I would even say, through the discovery of symphonic music in the cinema. I did indeed take piano lessons when I was a child, but my piano teacher was a coach for the Paris Opera, but he came from the dance world. But my music wasn’t a sideline, it was quite central. Art was the centre of it all.
PAN M 360 : PAN M 360: In classical dance, anyway, there is necessarily a rather intimate relationship with classical music. Not necessarily. There’s a lot of contemporary music or modern music that are different forms.
THOMAS BANGALTER : Yes, my mother was initially a dancer in a classical company with Roland Petit’s Ballets from the end of the 1950s, for about ten years. Then she joined the first contemporary dance company in France, which had been set up by the Ministry of Culture, called the Ballet Théâtre Contemporain. There, she did contemporary dance and then created music by composers such as Xenakis. There is both this double filiation with classical lyrical music on the one hand and contemporary music on the other.
PAN M 360 : So it’s kind of natural that you would come to this point at some point in your creative career. How did you go about creating this music? The first time you do a cursory listen to this album, it feels like you are in the XIXᵉ century. It is romantic music from Europe, well mostly.
THOMAS BANGALTER : It’s funny because I feel like I didn’t think that much about it. It’s quite a spontaneous approach to this idea of elegance, lyricism or romanticism, which are things that I don’t necessarily see in society today. I often have the impression that I’m thinking by reaction and that I want to bring out things that I miss at a given moment. In 2005, with my partner in Daft Punk (Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo), we had this idea: “Let’s make a pyramid of light and LEDs like this”. It was something we had in our heads, but it didn’t really exist. A few years later, I remember being in Times Square and there were LED walls everywhere – it used to be neon. Now we’re in a world that’s completely covered in LEDs with increasingly huge systems at all levels of scale. So I wouldn’t have the idea today, the idea of saying to myself “Here, I’d like to create a geometric structure in LEDs”. So there is this idea of counterpoint or interaction with one’s environment.
PAN M 360: So what is the motivation for this new “counterpoint”?
THOMAS BANGALTER : A lot of reasons aligned to do this project. At the same time, this dance world that I knew well and from which I had distanced myself a bit, although… it was dance music that I was creating at the time. But then, there was a certain timelessness in the idea of tackling myths. I also like to do things that are a bit old-fashioned. Because in the end, when it’s old-fashioned, it doesn’t really go out of fashion any more! You don’t have a relationship with modernity by trying to create something that, five years later, may sound a bit out of date. I like the idea of tackling forms, making them exercises in style with a certain interest in temporality. It’s true that this idea of romanticism sprang up without being an intellectual thing.
PAN M 360 : Of course, it was not the result of any planning. It wouldn’t be art.
THOMAS BANGALTER : It was much more spontaneous actually. When we were working on Random Access Memories ten years ago, we were in the middle of the EDM boom and this hyper energetic, hyper electronic music. And at that time we had a slightly romantic vision of the dancefloor, a bit of a disco. So there was this idea of having fun with these retro-futuristic codes. Except that this time, I found it funny to arrive in a retro-futurism not from the 70s or 80s, but from a century before, even two centuries for some colours because we could be at the end of the 18th century for some moments even if it’s the end of the 19th century for most of the pieces.
PAN M 360 : When you’re an authentic artist, you don’t say to yourself “I’m going to make music from 1855 to 1890. It’s something that comes out of the subconscious, but you can see that several so-called neo-classical composers are familiar with this romantic period (and also with early modern French music).
THOMAS BANGALTER : What I find interesting is that I don’t find myself in an axis that could oppose, as it has been for contemporary music towards classical music for example. It’s a bit the same thing in pop music today, where many of its barriers have fallen. I worked with samples but also with studio musicians where we wrote the music, the scores or the arrangements completely. So it’s not one method against another. That’s perhaps what’s changing the most at the moment, because before there were chapels that hated each other. Today, the perspectives are really very different. It can be related to certain lyrical or neo-classical colours, but at the same time it can use cells of repetition and get closer to contemporary minimalist trends. So I don’t feel that it’s so contradictory now, whereas there used to be a certain purism in the vision of symphonic music.
PAN M 360 : How did you adapt to symphonic composition?
THOMAS BANGALTER : I had some experience with symphonic music on film scores and other music, but I had worked with orchestrators and arrangers at that time. My main motivation was to take on this project to write for the orchestra and to do all the arrangements and orchestrations myself. I usually compose on the piano, but my lack of virtuosity on the piano would limit the composition a bit. That’s why it was really a music that was written directly on the score with a notation software. At that point, I worked on different sketches that I sent to the choreographer. From there, the concept of mythology became clearer. After that I went to my corner to write most of the music. A few months later I came back with the written ballet. There was a bit of cutting, editing and structural planning with the choreographer, and then, the dancing started.
PAN M 360 : So, no one other than the choreographer was involved in the editing, in the editing of the original score
THOMAS BANGALTER : No, except for the conductor who was also in the process from the beginning. He was able to help me with certain questions. I myself was immersed in symphonic music, in the direction of works. For many months, I really studied the orchestration treatises but… I still had questions that only a conductor’s experience could answer, especially about managing the effort, about the feasibility of certain parts. The conductor was therefore able to guide me on certain questions. I asked him not to give me the solution but rather to tell me more if it was viable. It was really a work with the choreographer and the conductor.
PAN M 360 : So you are free of all the preliminary stages, i.e. without an orchestrator or arranger. This time you were alone, without a net – and without (Daft Punk) helmet needless to say.
THOMAS BANGALTER : That’s it. That was the reason why I accepted this project. I’ve always liked reinventing the circumstances of the creative process. At each stage of Daft Punk, we had the opportunity to approach the work in a different way. When I worked on a Japanese cartoon, it was the same, a bit like an internship; I had been back and forth to Japan 15 times when I got into cartoon production. The opportunity of such a project was a bit like starting from scratch, learning new things, making mistakes and starting over, succeeding in certain things and realising once again that in a state of mind, when you are a beginner, you don’t do the same things in the same way as someone who is really experienced. But this innocence and this sincerity or this clumsiness interests me as a rule. That’s also why I decided to take the time to accomplish this work spread over two and a half years and which must have mobilised me about a year and a half full time.
PAN M 360 : Now if we talk about the concept of Mythologies, how did it finally come about?
THOMAS BANGALTER : The choreographer had the idea. After I gave him some sketches and had a few meetings on those sketches, about twenty minutes at that point, he came back to me and said “I feel like these colours and this direction work with the idea of working on mythologies. That’s when he came back with a list, a kind of compact booklet of different myths. I then started to propose to him the attribution of these different myths to my different sketches. When he validated that, I went back to work on my own.
PAN M 360 : And is there any connection with your background as an electronic composer and producer and what happened in that context?
THOMAS BANGALTER : Not really. If I go back to the last Daft Punk record that we did in Random Access Memory, I don’t really feel like it’s an electronic music record. So I find it hard to answer that question. It’s true that I worked more strictly with machines at the beginning (of my career), but soon enough I made compositions and songs with these machines. And then added (non-electronic) instruments as I went along. I’ve done instrumental music with machines too.
PAN M 360 : This time, not at all.
THOMAS BANGALTER : There was definitely a certain form of radicalism in me saying “I’m going to compose music without a machine, just for the orchestra, for the musicians and to accompany the dancers.” From that point on, it’s true that in this process, there was perhaps not a futuristic determination, but I have the impression that there wasn’t necessarily one in the others either. Where I make the connection is in the idea of trying different forms with each record, which is what I was saying earlier. I’m interested in how the records respond to each other or how the tracks respond to each other. If you take techno tracks and then put in more abstract sounds or even extracts from mythology which can be very lyrical. What amuses me is the contrast.
PAN M 360 :n fact, you are a generalist who wants to get to the bottom of things in each of your projects.
THOMAS BANGALTER : In fact, I don’t feel like I’m saying to myself, “that’s it, now I’m a composer of symphonic music”. These are attempts, explorations, experiments, but what motivates me is to keep on experimenting. The idea of being a bit of a stickler for something, but exploring different forms. Sometimes we try to do… Sometimes we might have the pretension of trying to do things that have never been done by anyone. Sometimes, we can become much more humble, that is to say, we can just have the ambition to do something that we have never done ourselves. For me, it was more like that. So I didn’t really have this idea of saying to myself “I’m going to invent symphonic forms”. It was more like asking myself “If I write with an orchestra, what do I want to express? What will be expressed through this?” Afterwards, there was a functional aspect too. We come back to the idea of making dance music or dance music. It was a music to accompany the dance and to accompany this theme too.
PAN M 360 : This music was written for a ballet, but is it also meant to be independent from the dance?
THOMAS BANGALTER : In the end, I realised that it could be. At the beginning, I wasn’t sure it would be made into a record. I was really trying to do a live show at the time. I was interested in writing and composing for 50 musicians and 20 dancers in a theatre like the Bordeaux Opera or the Théâtre du Châtelet. I liked this slightly local aspect at a time when everything is hyper-connected and hyper-globalised. In the end, when I listened to the music again, I said to myself that it was appropriate to be able to release it as a record, even if it wasn’t the original idea. Getting there was already a big challenge.
ILLUSTRATION COPYRIGHT: STÉPHANE MANEL
Have no fear, firmly embrace the audacity that lies within you to enter the Mind Maze. To achieve this, Trees Speak invites you to imagine the desperate, passionate, yet peaceful act of a random cerebral gunshot fired into a crowd: a call to murder. Of whom?! But … has DADA never spoken to you? This is only an optical illusion, just put the photographic plate of the figure in the acid bath first.
To fully understand this new album, create in your mind a misty labyrinth of distorting mirrors filled with the excitement of a film noir in which the victim, the murderer and the detective are one and the same but do not know each other. If each one says the exact opposite, it is because they are right. You might say that this is a paradox. That is DADA speaking to you. DADA always expresses itself in violent acts that reason could not fill with words or conventions. Where the yes and the no meet to witness the birth of the renewed human being in pain.
Let’s prepare for the great spectacle of catastrophe, the fire, the decay! Publishing a critique about technology has now become a matter of civic courage. Not for Trees Speak. We are not naive enough to believe in the sterile need of the illiterate bourgeois to make old progress. After all, there is no more classical achievement of surrealism than the ensemble of a machine and the human being standing before it. If the world were to plunge into a state of collective pathology, then anti-Dadaism would be a disease.
Let us prepare for the suppression of grief! I know you expect some explanation about Trees Speak. I won’t give any. Explain to me why you exist. You don’t know. Pure psychic automatism will simply prevent man from becoming a mechanical automaton. The uncertainty principle, antimatter, relativity, Hitler, relativity, cybernetics, DNA, game theory, etc. There is something in the air. Science describes the world but does not explain it. Our feelings are behind our actions. We live in a particularly curious time. We are astonished to discover that moldy progress has once again made a pact with barbarism. All this was an attempt to render impotent the absurd and its mad game of nothingness. It has failed.
DADA has therapeutic properties.
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DADA DECIDES.
☞No one should ignore D∀ᗡA.
Trees Speak :…..(Geistermaschine)……………..…………………………………………………………..…………D…………D……………D……………………D……………D…………D…………De…..………Des………Desert…..is……a……safe…space……for……creativity……It……………It…………It……….……It……takes…….time…….to……appreciate……it……it……it……it..………………It..grows…..out…of……us……in….a….…way……..we…can’t……comprehend……end………end………end………….d…..d………d…….…….DaDa……………………………………………………………………………………………………….…V…………V………V…Vertigo…of…Flaws…was……written…without…………thought…………………but…with…our……emotions………(drums)……(drums)……(drums)………A…lot…of…it…was…..done…..…separately,…one……part…..in…New…York…and…..…one…part.…in…Tucson…..….during…COVID……..……We…wanted..…to……make….……something………….…ImPeRFeCt……It……was…..difficult……to…….make………But…..it…….also…….felt…..…like…….………something…..…we…had………to……do…………It…was…….…CHAOS……to…..…put…….…that…out……of……our…chest…………………………..………∞+1=∞……1=0……………………..……………01010111……..01001111……..01010010……….01001100………..01000100………01010111……………………………(BIP)…………………(BIP)……………………(BIP)………Mind….Maze…nimmt…..die….Zuhörer…mit….auf…eine….Klangreise….durch….verschiedene….Stimmungen…..und….Dynamiken,…die….sowohl….Schönheit….als….auch….Dunkelheit….umfassen…..Wir…hoffen,….dass….das….Album….die….angeborene….Neugier….des….menschlichen….Geistes…und….unseren….angeborenen….Wunsch….einfängt,…sich….in….die…unerforschten….Bereiche…unserer…Existenz….zu…wagen………(BIP)…………………(BIP)……………………(BIP)………….01000001…….01010010………01010111………….01000101………….01000010…………………………………………….…………………(uuuuuuuuu)……………..……(uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu)……..…………………(uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu).…………We……speak…in…………very…….……abstract…ways……about….a…..spiritual…………connection……….…We…are……trying…to………convey……something…….that……is……not…….tangible,………an……emotion…It…is…..very…..special……It……is……something…..we…..have…..done…….for……years………We……don’t…even…need…….words……..to……..communicate……It…….is……so……OOOOOORRRRRRGAAAAAAANICCCCCCC……It….is……..like……an….exploration…There…..is…..a….lot….of…..driving…….In…..some…..songs….there….is….a…..detour……It…..is….easy….to…..FALL…out….IN…..THE…..same….direct…..path…..……A………movie………would……be………the………next………fulfilling………step……for……us………We………bring………ideas……from………classic……films………But……if………people……can………create……a……movie……for……a…minute…in…their…minds,……that…is……the……most…beautiful…thing…we…can…ever…achieve…….Songs….are….about…..things….that…..exist…..and….they…..are…..waiting….for…..somebody…….to…….find…..them..…This……year,……a……machine……said…that……it……could……feel……emotions……This…is…it……We…are…already…in…the…future…We…are…already…in…a…SIMULATION………The…way……we…approach……music……is……very……specific……to…what…we…are…trying…to……do…….Music……creates…..shapes….…Even…if……it……sounds……abstract,…we…are…both…looking……for…something…Even…though…we…don’t…know…what…it…is……We…both…know…it…together…When…we…are……recording,…we…know…what…we…are…telling…each…other…The…thread…between…the…records…is…the…relationship…between…us…It…is……constantly………evolving…It……..is….always….changing……It…is…an…evolving……being……It…is…not…a…band…It…is…a…LIFE…FORCE……………………………………………BA……BOOM………………………………………………………………………
Personne ne peut échapper au sort. Personne ne peut échapper au labyrinthe. Il n’y a que le labyrinthe qui puisse vous faire échapper au sort. Der Minotaurus hat einen Zauber in das Labyrinth unseres Geistes gelegt.
Trees Speak is the brainchild of Damian Diaz and Daniel Martin Diaz.
Mind Maze is the band’s sixth studio album, released on the British label Soul Jazz Records. The cover art is a collaboration between artist Charlie Elms, painter Genevieve Zacconi and graphic designer Eric Adrian Lee.
Photo credit: Jacob D Gonzalez (from left to right: Gabriel Sullivan, Damian Diaz, Craig Dreyer, Alex Pope, Daniel Martin Diaz) at the Mighty Toad studio in Brooklyn in June 2022.
The name Murray A. Lightburn is probably best known as the lead vocalist and main songwriter for The Dears here in Montreal. But his newest solo album, Once Upon A Time In Montreal, deserves it’s own recognition. Inspired by the life of his past father, a jazz musician from Belize who moved to Montreal via New York to reconnect with his teenage sweetheart, Once Upon A Time In Montreal was written by Murray to really put himself in the shoes of his father. His father was married to Murray’s mother for 56 years, until he passed in April 2020 in a Quebec nursing home where he’d been living with Alzheimer’s. Reflecting on the secenario, Murray eventually discovered he didn’t want to make a record about someone dying, but a record that imagined what his father felt, being a working Black man who moved his whole life to be with the love of his life. Murray had to play detective to piece together his father’s story, talking with his mother, and diving deep into his own memories about his experiences with the reserved man.
PAN M 360 spoke to Murray on the patio of Café Olimpico about Once Upon A Time In Montreal, and moving into a newer composing direction, as he did with the film score of the new coming of age cinephile romp, I Like Movies.
“Everything I do, I want it to have a relatability,” Murray tells me while sipping on an espresso. “I was thinking about the whole premise for this album on the way over here and it was that my dad moved here, for a woman, not entirely wanting to be here. He just wanted to be with her. And so I think about how many millions of people get together in that way. They move because somebody has an opportunity. And they’re willing to support that. And be with that. They don’t want to let go of the idea of that. That’s the part that I hope people get.”
PAN M 360: Right. So more of his story living in Montreal, through your words?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: Yeah. You know, part of the story is OK, my dad died. People die. That’s no big deal. He was old and vulnerable. There was no other way this was gonna go right? At the start of the pandemic, it was like ‘OK, he’s gone.’ So I didn’t want to make a record that was about somebody dying, or worse, my grief over that person dying. I wanted to make something that was true to his story and his story, while unique, is also very common. I remember realizing that when we went to the cemetery when the stone was finally up. I hadn’t been to a cemetery is ages. So we went to the stone to say some things, ’cause we didn’t get to go to the funeral.
PAN M 360: Yes, the pandemic wouldn’t allow that.
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: Yeah, just my mom was allowed to go while the rest of the family, about 30 to 40 of us, were on a conference call listening to the play by play. It was brutal. Me and my family and sitting in the living room on speakerphone just listening to ‘Okay, they’re putting him in the ground now.’ And then somebody prayed. It was like listening to a funeral on the radio and that’s not that’s not what I wanted to write or sing about. It’s part of the story but I wanted a bit more of a eulogy y’know?
PAN M 360: And writing this story for the album, learning these stories about your father, would you say it brought you closer to him? You’re singing from his perspective in a few songs?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: Yes. That being said, the perspective is imagined. I’m imagining that if he could find it in himself, to reveal himself, in some way, on his way out, this is what he would have to say. You do what you can you do. I’m not in therapy (laughs). Like he sculpted his entire life around being with my mom, right? It informed everything. And that’s the only thing that actually makes sense about him. And it’s the only thing that I can, aside from the music because he was a musician and all that, really relate to him. I wish we could have had that conversation. Instead, you know, I had to do my own detective work.
PAN M 360: Music is kind of its own form of cathartic therapy though? You write a song to get a feeling out that maybe you didn’t know was there?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: True, but it didn’t intentionally start out that way. I wasn’t really given a chance to get into it, let’s just say. Waiting for him to go, even before the pandemic, whenever he got a cold or the flu, it was just touch and go. Then he would come back and we would laugh, like ‘Nothing can take this guy down.’ Then when it happened, it was so fast. Like when you have a car accident, there’s this whole protocol, and this whole mechanism goes into place. Replacing the car, the police report, this that … I hate to make the comparison, but that’s the only other comparison I can come up with is like there are a whole bunch of things you got to do.
When somebody dies, and is close to you, and everything falls on your lap. Calling the government, getting the death certificate, dealing with the funeral home. There’s a song on the album called “No New Deaths Today.” That actually came from a headline I read months after he died. The sun was shining and I read that and was like ‘This is how we’re being optimistic now?’ I started to see the comedic aspects of it all.
PAN M 360: Of death in general you mean?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: Yeah just the situation, or at least mine. There was a point where I had a situation where the casket that they had picked out you know, in classic Montreal fashion was in on backorder or something like that. They didn’t have his casket at the time of his passing. So I had to negotiate this situation. And his casket originally had prayer hands on it. Well, they were all out of prayer hands caskets. Like this is on the the eve of them putting him in the ground. This was weird to have to deal with. Like you’re in the fog of him being dead and they’re out of the casket that was chosen. So we got stuck with the Virgin Mary on the casket. There’s a line in the song [No New Deaths Today] “no praying hands will wipe our tears away,” which is a sad line, but for me, it’s from my super dry sense of dark comedy.
PAN M 360: The first time I listened to the album, it really reminded me of the old 50s and 60s jazz crooner records. Like Nat King Cole or something. And I thought, there aren’t many records made like this anymore; that have a story from beginning to end, that traditional way of making a record.
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: I think I hear what you’re saying. And I think that’s also something that is still important to me, and I hope that will other artists will challenge themselves to create or to stick with certain traditions of songwriting. I think there’s still lots of real estate to create things that tell stories in a meaningful way. Because there’s a million stories, man, a million fucking stories. And I think that every story has unique twists and turns. But, you know, battling the sort of machine of how the business is evolving, it’s really focused on the shortest gains, the shortest short term gains. The right volume of business, that’s what all it’s about. It’s kind of like the dollar store where you can just walk into the dollar store and get as much rubbish as you can for 20 bucks. And then, none of it lasts. It’s all going either in the recycling or just in the garbage or in the ocean one day—it’s just total disposable nonsense.
PAN M 360: That’s the streaming age for sure.
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: Yes, but I think there’s still an audience for people who hunt for something a bit more meaningful. And dare I say, artisan, boutique-y. I think there’s an appetite for it. Unfortunately, it gets completely tsunamied the fuck out by the sort of dollar store of the current music biz.
PAN M 360:Did your dad play music around the house at all? Did you guys listen to music as a family?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: I mean, I have so many memories of music being played in the basement. My dad had a stereo system that he really loved and put a lot of time into and had everything from eight tracks to reel to reel tapes to records, cassettes. I remember hearing lots of music all the time. You know?
PAN M 360: Did you ever talk about music together? He was a saxophonist and you were learning to play music?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: He never wanted any of us to go into music. He discouraged music. But at the same time, when we showed interest, he did step up and be like, ‘Okay, you want to play drums? Alright, I’m gonna send you to Jimmy Charles.’ He’s a drummer. Jimmy Charles was a guy he played with, a jazz guy, so I went to see Jimmy Charles, when I was like, 12, or 13 got lessons from Jimmy Charles. I kind of was just finding my way through music, and every once in awhile he would step in a be like ‘It’s more like this’ you got to do it like this. I guess I do have memories of my dad teaching me, you know, the melody for “Round Midnight,” which I can’t remember now. I was playing guitar and he would play a line and I would play it back on the guitar.
PAN M 360: And you were writing music too as a kid?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: Yeah. We had this old sequencing keyboard in the living room and nobody played it ever, except me. I would just sit there with my headphones, and just spent the entire day sitting there and I would compose on that. It had so limited memory. I mean, this is like the ’80s. So every time I made something, I had to record it onto a cassette before I could wipe it and do something new. I had just a bunch of cassettes of pieces of music that I was working on. From when I was like, 14 or 15, or something like that. My dad heard some of it. And, you know, some of the pieces were pretty complicated, and very thought out and had all the parts and everything. Like when I hear music it’s usually everything, all the melodies and parts, like this nightmare cloud of music. Now I’ve learned to weed through the noise and focus on the important bits and sculpt form there. But my dad, he was funny because in the face of all that, he knew I was also not a very good musician. Like, I’m actually a terrible musician. I’m not a good pianist, the worst piano player you’ll ever come across, mostly just out of not practicing, right? I have all the ideas in my head, I can make some chords, I can play some, but I’m a terrible piano player. I’m a terrible guitar player. I used to be okay, when I was really playing a lot. And now I don’t have any skills at all. I’m just not a strong musician. My old man, his favourite musician of all time was John Coltrane. So he knew I would never hit that level. And he would say, ‘Well, you’re not much of a player, but you’re definitely a composer.’ And that really stuck in there.
PAN M 360: That wasn’t discouraging to hear as a kid?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: No it wasn’t a negative thing. I was just like, ‘He’s right. I’m gonna focus on that.’ And that’s what I did. That’s what I spent my life’s work doing—focusing way more on the composition of work. You can always find a million ringers to play whatever you want. There’s tons of guys that can just play anything. And people spend their lives practicing and playing. So it’s like, man, there’s already somebody that can play it. Why do I want to play it? I’m focused on telling everybody what to play (laughs). I mean, if I could just compose music, get people to play it. That’s like my dream. And so I’m moving heavily in that direction.
PAN M 360: Composing. Like with doing the score for I Like Movies. So you want to do more of that?
MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN: I do, I do because I find that it’s the biggest part of me in the pie chart of me. It’s the biggest part. Being a performer is not something that I really ever liked (laughs). I’ve never had the desire to be like in the spotlight in that way. I do appreciate being recognized for my work, and not being completely ignored for my work, but only as it pertains to being included in consideration for other work. I don’t want to be excluded.
Montreal’s LaF will release Chrome, their second album on Disques 7ième Ciel, next Friday.
Since the release of their last EP Soin Entreprise in 2020, the three rappers of the collective have been blossoming their flow and their pen by taking the solo road. Jamaz started the ball with Les Ennuis (2020), followed by Bkay with Midi-Pile (2022) and Mantisse with Colin-Maillard (2022). This time, they come back to the charge with the most assertive and diversified bouquet of sounds of their career.
As usual, Montreal producer Bnjmn.lloyd is omnipresent, setting the table with complex and atmospheric sounds. LaF called on other artists to create this project: Blaise Borboën-Léonard plays violin, rapper SeinsSucrer has a blast on Le Champ des possibles and Pops & Poolboy from Clay and Friends as well as Hologramme gave a hand to the production. Also, the winning band of the Francouvertes 2022, Rau Ze, joins LaF on Blue Cheez, one of the best tracks of the album.Chrome is a project with a rather dark visual and sonic identity.
In the album’s first track, the three men lay down some very busy, heavily UK Garage-inspired instrusions. LaF’s frantic pace in sounds such as Terrain Supérieur and Pièges echoes the rocky pace of life of the three musketeers of keb rap over the past few years. However, there is a glimmer of hope throughout the project, demonstrating the personal journey the three emcees have taken.
PAN M 360: How did the creation process of Chrome take place?
LAF : At the early beginning of the pandemic, we had the idea to go solo. In parallel, we started the creation of Chrome in July 2020. We rented a cottage for two weeks and brought our entire studio to compose there. That’s how we usually operate for albums. We weren’t quite sure where we were headed, but as time went on we accumulated demos and the project came to life. All of our other projects have been created over a period of about a year, usually. For Chrome, it took us almost three years. It was important for us to let ourselves breathe, and it shows in the album, in the lyrics and in the production. We did several sessions at the cottage and refined our songs in Montreal. The two collaborations were done in the last year. We think that this project is a true mirror of ourselves. It is the result of many hours of questioning and introspection. It’s an album that is heavy with meaning for us. It’s pretty intense to say, “Okay, we’ve finished the project for real.” The last few months have been super rock’n’roll for us, in a lot of different facets and it feels really good.
PAN M 360: Where did the name Chrome and the visual identity of the project come from?
LAF : When we were on tour, Mantisse came up with the idea of having one color for our album. We all agreed that we wanted to have something very unified and absolute. That’s when we came up with the idea of using chrome and molten metal as an aesthetic. At that point, we were still in the early stages of creation and we got hooked on the concept right away. Then, the more we created, the more we realized that the album was going to be not only visually dark, but also lyrically dark. We still talk about our individual angst and as a band. We’ve gotten older in the last few years and we definitely see life differently. Want, don’t want, it clashes with our former projects which were more luminous. There are still some brighter tracks in the second half of the album, but in general it’s pretty dark. The two music videos that have already been released are in the same vein, but the next one will have more light.
PAN M 360: What is Chrome about?
LAF: Chrome is a bit of a logical extension of the pandemic and our arrival in our mid-twenties. This project reflects a certain awareness that has come to each of us and the changes in our lives. It speaks to the times of indecision and our vision for the future. I think we tightened up around that and it defined a lot. We didn’t necessarily plan for the album to have darker moments and brighter moments, it’s just a reflection of our lives. Basically, it’s a collection of the emotions and processes we’ve gone through over the past few years. The creation of Chrome was a long journey, a kind of pilgrimage.
PAN M 360: The productions of the first right of the project are very rhythmic and very inspired by UK garage. Does that kind of echo your lifestyle over the last few years?
LAF: Yeah, 100%, the last few years have been intense. There was the pandemic which was a time of uncertainty for us and we’ve also done a lot of shows in the last few years. It’s a lot of ups and downs, a lot of emotions. It’s true that it’s a bit crazy for the first songs, the beginning of the album is 100% clearly more intense. It’s not necessarily that it’s smoother, but it’s definitely more digestible. But it was intentional, it was the idea to reflect a little bit the chaos that we all went through together and the brightness that follows. There was a moment in the beginning of the album process where we had an interest in terms of production around UK Garage, then up-tempo, drum and bass type productions. After that, we went in many other directions. It’s clear that there was a really intense momentum in the beginning of the production. Those music sessions were super intense and we went through many emotions during the creation. There was a kind of whirlwind in the studio and we became quite invested in the music.
PAN M 360: What did your respective solo adventures bring to your creation as LaF?
LAF: Mostly it gave us a better understanding of ourselves. It gave us a fresh perspective on creation and made it easier to try new things. It clearly gave us more confidence and the desire to take LaF to another level. It was nice to see that we were able to create on our own and know our own capabilities. It gave us some breathing room and it definitely helped us later on.
PAN M 360: How did your Blue Cheez collaboration with Rau Ze come about?
LAF: We have several friends in common with the singer of Rau Ze, Rose Perron, and we followed her closely at the Francouvertes. We’ve been going to the Francos for several years now. We were all very impressed by his performances. We met her at the festival La Noce in Chicoutimi and we spent some time with her. We really got along well with her. During the creation of the album, we had the idea to invite her on the track. We thought she could do really well on the production of Blue Cheez. The creation was super easy with her and her colleague Felix Paul. We are really happy with the result.
PAN M 360: Are there any other solo projects in the pipeline? Do you want to focus on LaF in the future?
LAF: We don’t really know yet, only time will tell! LaF is an artistic collective, but it is first and foremost a group of friends who love to make music together. It’s a bit like a fireplace that never goes out. For sure, solo projects are not over. We’ll always make sure that our solo and LaF careers don’t overlap. We think that our individual projects complement LaF. This collective is our life project, and we will defend it as if it were our first born.
Roy Davis Jr. is a house music legend. American DJ, producer and musician, his career spans over three decades during which he never stopped to innovate and push boundaries, blending elements of soul, funk, and jazz with electronic music to create a unique sound that has earned him critical acclaim and a dedicated fanbase. With a career that has seen him collaborate with some of the biggest names in music and perform at top venues around the world, Roy Davis Jr. remains an influential and highly respected figure in the electronic music scene. Cofounder of the renowned label Undaground Therapy Muzik in the 1990’s, he relaunched it in 2018 and has initiated the digitization of the entire back catalog – a very good news for electronic music loversand one good reason for PAN M 360 to interview him.
PAN M 360: You grew up in Chicago in the 70’s and 80’s. What genres of music did you grow up listening to and how did they influence you in becoming the artist you are today?
Roy Davis Jr. : I grew up on a lot of different music genres coming from a musical family; Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Soul music and Disco, break dance music from NY to Italo Disco to house and Hip Hop. My musical taste has always been hugely varied and although I am a house music producer my music taste has a wide range still today.
PAN M 360: You are one of the architects of Chicago (and worldwide) house music. How would you describe the essence of house music and what can you tell us about the way it is evolving (what changed, what did not change)?
Roy Davis Jr. : Being one of the originators and architects of house music I remember my early days in the basement in the beginning of the 80s making dope tracks with one keyboard, the Roland Juno 106, and a Roland TR 808 drum machine and being thrilled when they reached the dance floor when played by DJ Pierre, Lil Louis and Ron Hardy. Being recognized by those guys at that time made me a superstar in high school. Radio didn’t really come to mind, also we were a lot simpler back then how we created compared to later when things gradually got more and more musical. We started adding more vocals with messages of unity & love in our lyrics and also incorporated instruments like violins, bass guitars, and such. Having said that, the essence of house music was and is still today very raw and keeps the 4×4 kick drum rolling.
PAN M 360: In 1996, you cofounded Undaground Therapy Muzik with Odell Braziel, which had and still has a huge impact on the house music scene thanks to all the classics you’ve released and key artists you’ve collaborated with. Looking back, how would you describe the birth of the project and the road travelled since?
Roy Davis Jr. : Well in the beginning we never knew what would happen to our vision, we however deeply believed in each other on how to get the job done. We both were djs with a mission to own our own destiny with our music, a lot of the songs we put out had its own individual life. The road we choose to travel was one that created our own journey as opposed to aiming for the hit records per se.
PAN M 360: What made you relaunched the label in 2018 and what happened between then and now?
Roy Davis Jr. : A time came when I was traveling too much to focus on my own label and my partner Odell had moved on to became a college professor and therefore we decided to let things rest for a while. So, I took a break from the label and started selling music to other companies like Miles End, Bombay, Nice and Smooth records out of Canada. I also thought it was a good time to make a shift and move to Los Angeles where I was born to reconnect with family on the west coast and I started doing work in L.A. with artist like Terry Dexter, Patti Labelle, Baby Face, Christina Milian and Seal to name a few from that era. Now, blowing life in the label again, I feel like it is a fantastic time to create and put more music out so I’m keeping my eyes open to younger new talents. I’m also very excited as I just started on my next Roy Davis Jr album that will be launched on UTM.
PAN M 360: The full back catalogue is being digitised for the first time, what can you tell us about this process and the reissue of The Men From The Nile “Watch Them Come”?
Roy Davis Jr. : Well, it wasn’t easy trying to dig up a few of these classic pieces and get them re-mastered but I have a good team and friends that helped me pull it all together, and get new remixes done for today’s time.
PAN M 360: 2022-2023 is an important year for you and for electronic music heads since you are coming back on stage to DJ. How does it feel? What is the thing you are most excited about, and maybe the one you are more stressed about regarding this part of your work?
Roy Davis Jr. : Coming back to the stage since our Covid break has been real great vibes from the crowd having sold out shows in America, France and Canada. It feels good to be back out and about, I’m still being picky and careful of how much I’m doing out there with my body having M.S. and making sure I don’t overdo things. I however also see this as an opportunity to be able to create more special moments for my fans.
PAN M 360: Where can we meet you on the road in the next few months? Are there any cities, clubs, festivals already confirmed you can share with us?
Roy Davis Jr. : Well I just finished up Miami Music Week and I will head back on the road April 21st at Djoon in Paris and then on the 22nd in Berlin at OXI for the month of April and the Chicago House Music Festival June 24th, with more to come over the summer. My gigs are posted on my key channels and I can reassure you I have some more heat coming!
Men From The Nile ft Peven Everett ‘Watch Them Come’ with remixes. Released 20th March (vinyl) / 24th March (digital) on Undaground Therapy Muzik. Buy link .
To call Billy Childish (Steven John Hamper) a prolific artist would be an understatement. A painter, writer, poet and musician, the Chatham, Kent native co-founded the Medway Poets literary movement, founded the Stuckist art movement and the Hangman Records label. A fervent defender of amateurism and free expression, the tireless musician, singer and songwriter has (re)defined garage lo-fi punk, under names such as The Pop Rivets, Thee Milkshakes, Thee Headcoats, The Buff Medways, The Chatham Singers, The Spartan Dreggs and Wild Billy Childish & CTMF. Not only does he have one of the longest discographies in the history of music with hundreds of albums and singles, but he is also the author of more than 40 books of poetry and nearly a dozen novels, has made several films and photographs and painted more than 2,500 pictures, often under the name William Hamper.
In recent years, music has become less important than painting. Hamper makes a living from his paintings, but Wild Billy Childish is never far behind. Having recently recalled his two old accomplices Bruce Brand and Johnny Johnson for the Tribute to Don Craine EP (the late leader of the British R&B band The Downliner Sect) under the name of Thee Headcoats Sect, a short-lived band that also produced the 1999 album Ready Sect Go! Recorded last year at Ranscombe Studios in Rochester, Irregularis (The Great Hiatus) features 12 tracks of pure Headcoats, with perhaps a more pronounced blues and R&B bent.
The trio’s last album dates back to 2000 (I Am The Object Of Your Desire), so a chat with the undisputed king of garage rock and punk was in order. Captured in his home town of Chatham, Billy Childish kindly gave us some of his precious time to answer a few questions (we would have asked him thousands!). A meeting with a larger than life artist.
PAN M 360: You recently got back together as Thee Headcoats Sect to make the Tribute to Don Crane EP. Did that lead to the reformation of Thee Headcoats?
Billy Childish: Essentially. I saw it as a good excuse to do a 45 for Don. And then Johnny, our bass player, would have to come out from Sicily. And since he was coming and the other fellas were keen to do it, I saw it as an opportunity to record an album. Which is a normal thing with me: if we bother getting the canon out and loading it, then we might as well go one step further. So I said to the lads ‘’do you fancy doing an album?’’ and I had a few tunes in mind. They seemed keen.
PAN M 360: Two birds with one stone then.
Billy Childish: Yeah, essentially, the same thing happened with the Singing Loins. A friend of mine died a year ago he was in the Singing Loins. I recorded their first two albums 30 years ago. They’re a folk group, and we did a folk variations of an album of mine. And then Chris Broderick died last year, and I said to the two lads, ‘’why don’t we do a 45 for Chris?’’. And we did it. And I said, my usual trick, I said ‘’well, we’re recording the 45, might as well do an LP!’’ (laughs)
PAN M 360 : So there weren’t any rehearsals? you just spontaneously jammed around?
Billy Childish: Johnny came over on the Friday, we met in the studio, I showed them the tunes… It’s actually how we record most of the stuff these days cuz we don’t really rehearse. I often work out a tune and then show the other two and we do a run through and then press record. And you know, first, second, third take. and we go to the next one and the next one and the next one.
PAN M 360: It’s kind of a trademark; since your first albums, you seem to favor a simple and spontaneous approach to recording.
Billy Childish: That came about because in the Pop Rivets, where I was the singer in 77, I knew nothing about music or how to record it, and I still don’t know much of the technicalities of it. But I go by the sound I like, and we were told what we could and couldn’t do. And things were not sounding as exciting as the records we heard when we were kids. I was brought up on rock and roll music, 60s music, and I couldn’t work out why it sounded worse. So we did have an old ReVox… well, we still got it, we use it sometimes, it’s a ReVox half track, early 60s tape recorder, and we used to record ourselves on that and found out that recording things very simply and straight sounded a lot more exciting and a little bit more like the records that we liked, with a bit more performance involved. So then, by trial and error, we managed to translate that into recording into a studio as well. And even in a digital studio, we’ve been able to get enough good equipment between us and the digital recording to make it sound like real music as far as we’re concerned.
PAN M 360: You have always claimed a more authentic approach to rock and roll with a more raw and direct sound and concerts in small, human-sized venues.
Billy Childish: Yeah, well, it’s a funny thing because I’ve been accused of being lo-fi. But music is incredibly snobby in that way. If you consider that a rough charcoal sketch could be in the highest Museum but a cassette recording of a tune couldn’t be on Top of the Pops… it’s very strange. It’s like a very strange snobbery this idea about what raw is, or what they call lo-fi. And I don’t try to sound lo-fii. I’m not interested, strangely. I mean, even when we were in the Milkshakes, people talked about garage music, and we always referred to it as rock and roll essentially. And one of the things I liked about the Clash, very early on with their first album, was that they referred to it as rock and roll. There’s a strand of punk rock that came through, which may be with Joe Strummer, slightly with the Damned and the (Johnny) Moped, which came from a rock and roll background. A lot of the other stuff in punk rock, which I was unaware of at the time, came through the glam channel, which I’d call pantomime dame rock and roll. And I hated glam music when I was a kid. I actually used to listen to Buddy Holly and people like that during the early 70s, whereas my friends were listening to David Bowie. So to call it raw, it’s sort of a fair enough description, but it’s got this sort of pejorative thing to it, you know. It’s a bit like talking about indigenous art, or primitive art. It’s trying to put something into a ghetto to make it less viable in a way. I mean, it’s okay for people like us to like, for a better word, to like the rawness of it. But the thing is, it’s not really the point. It’s like, trying to categorize it into a subdivision. Whereas really, I would think it should be, in a way, the mainstream. For me, it’s like, do you want to see the Rolling Stones at Wembley, or do you want to see them at the Eel Pie Island in 1963? And the idea that the sound that the Stones had in 63, or the Downliners had in 63-64, is somehow inferior to high fidelity now, but the things you hear on stage through these mixing desks is absolutely diabolical and tinny, and it’s got all this horrible top end all this horrible bottom end. I mean, the Jimi Hendrix Experience wouldn’t even be able to play now. Because they wouldn’t be able to use feedback, the sound isn’t in the control of the group. It’s like some sort of homogenized sound. We just played in Berlin, and we still use a vocal PA. And we don’t go for off stage mixing. The reason we don’t do it is because you have all this bass end that you get through these massive PA’s and all this weird high top end… You know all this boom and bottom, and then all of this weird scratchy top end. And then the drum sound completely inauthentic. Whereas we go for how a jazz drum sound like. If you listen to classical stations, which still record jazz groups, some of them still have the drum kit sound like a drum kit. I mean, regardless of what the music’s like… So really all we want is the drum kit to sound like a drum kit, a Selmer amplifier, a Vox amplifier that sound like a Vox amplifier. And the vocal to sound like it’s going through a PA, which is part of the the suite if you like, of what music is meant to sound like. I mean, you’ve got all this snobbery about people wanting to use a Vox amplifier but they don’t want to use the drum kit that goes with it, or the PA that goes with it… It’s a bit like having a Georgian house with plastic windows in it. I will tell you that the amount of times I talked about sound and music on interviews in the past, and how uninterested anybody is in it is quite incredible, because they believe that the technology is advancing continually. We’re in a situation now where we’re at the height of digital technology, but people try to masquerad it as old technology. You know, can it sound like a tape? can it emulate a tape record, and valve audio equipment, everything’s trying to pretend to be valve, when all of that plus stuff was put in a skip.
PAN M 360: Do you apply this method, or philosophy, to your other projects? For instance when you paint?
Billy Childish: Yeah, because I don’t like plastic. I like oil. We use charcoal and use linen, like the finish. There’s a quality and integrity in material. And a you know, it’s a bit like having a whole grain bread rather than a Mother’s Pride, something that’s actually made of wheat. You know, or meat that comes from an animal that lives in the sun and grass, and not in a barn and injected with all sorts of stuff, you know, or a good example would be like an apple that you picked from your garden, which might have a worm in it, and might be irregular, but tastes twice as good as the factory farm apple. I think people are so used to a modernized lifestyle that they react very badly to what they think is dirty or unclean. I think it’s all part of that modern world, to have this sort of like germ free adolescents, to quote X-Ray Specs.
PAN M 360: Getting back to the new album, would you say it’s maybe one of your more bluesy or more rhythm and blues record yet with Thee Headcoats?
Billy Childish: With Thee Headcoats? Mmmm… Well, possibly it’s a little bit more that, in the sense that there might be slightly more blues and R&B encapsulated on one record. But we certainly did a lot of bluesy or R&B stuff over the 15 or so albums, I don’t know how many albums we made… But you could make probably a few R&B albums out of what we did. If you’ve put those pieces together, you can make a couple of punk rock albums out of what we did, and a couple of maybe rock and roll albums out of what we did too. But as far as it goes on one album, it’s feasible, without me knowing because I don’t know what we’ve recorded, It’s a bit more R&B. But we did do a blues group called the Chatham Singers, which is obviously a lot more bluesy.
PAN M 360: And you have a great version of ‘’Cops and Robbers’’ also on the album…
Billy Childish: Yeah, I was unaware of the doo wop version of it when we recorded it. I wish I’d listened to that sort of early 50s version before, which is a quite strange version. I thought it was by Bo Diddley. It’s really quite good and it rhymes right away. It makes sense when you hear it. Bruce found it and he sent it to me after we recorded. It’s quite interesting. Well, it’s like ‘’Have Love Will Travel’’, it is originaly a doowop song, isn’t it? You know the version the Sonics do? The original to that was sort of a doowop number. Ba bum ba bum ba bum ba ba ba ba ba bum…
PAN M 360: Tell us about the closing song ‘’The Kids Are All Square’’. Usually it’s the kids who accuse the adults of being squares. Now, its more and more the other way around it seems.
Billy Childish: Well, you know, we did an album called The Kids Are All Square with Thee Headcoats many years ago and I often thought ‘Oh, well, I need to write a song about that.’ So I think I wrote it about four years ago, or five, maybe 10 years ago… But the album was probably 20 years ago. But the reason we did The Kids Are All Square album in the first place was because I always thought about “The Kids Are Alright” by the Who. I thought it was a very patronizing title. So we were already well aware, 25 years ago, or 20 years ago, that the kids were square. Because, you know, no one wanted to know what we were doing or what we’ve done. We were so outside the mainstream of culture with what we were doing and what we believed in. And I just updated the lyrics a little bit for this version. I think we’ve got Billy… is it Ilish? Billy Eilish? Billy Eilish, or she’s called, I don’t know… she’s got some name a bit like mine. And then Beyonce I think has an appearance on the song, in the lyrics. Yeah, we’ve mentioned these style icons, Billy Eilish, she’s some sort of girl with blue hair. Beyonce, some sort of lady with a large buttock.
PAN M 360: Where Bruce and Johnny hard to convince to get back with Thee Headcoats?
Billy Childish: I never bother convincing anybody, you know? It was like a suggestion. And if they’d have not been interested, I’ve got other things to do.
PAN M 360: So does that mean it’s an official reunion of Thee Headcoats? Should we expect more albums? Or maybe shows?
Billy Childish: I don’t know. The difficulty is John living in Sicily. And I don’t really like reunions much. But it would be possible if it was good fun. I mean, we’ve been asked to go to Japan. But although we’re sort of like respected, don’t forget, I still don’t have a manager. We don’t have management or agents. So no one looks after our corner. I mean, Thee Headcoats album is recorded because I paid for it to be recorded. You know, and no one else asks me to do things. I mean, when I said to Damaged Goods I’m doing an album, they said ‘’great, we’d love to have that’’ and they gave me an advance to cover the costs of two or three days work, And then giving Johnny some airfare and we get a bit of spare. But it’s like, we don’t have a machine behind us, or a management or an agent. Even when we’re in Berlin, with CTMF, my current group, we’re playing a little bit, we like playing small venues. We like using local PAs. And we like nobody telling us what to do or how to do it. And it actually makes it much more awkward using the equipment we do. And also people would prefer it if we use modern equipment, which is the big irony. So we’re sort of like doing something that no one else does. And also, when you do it, the way we do it, you’re much more exposed. And you can’t hear what’s going on so well, the holes are more apparent, the mistakes are more apparent. So you’re laying yourself open for a lot of problems using the gear we use. But for me, the whole thing is the sound and the feeling. And if it can’t be the sound and the feeling I want. I’m happy to stay indoors and have a cup of tea instead.
PAN M 360: You have to find a venue that will fit your standards.
Billy Childish: And also someone who will lend us the gear if we’re going abroad. Yeah, we’re playing with CTMF in Reno, or near Reno, in Nevada in July. We’re doing one show in the States. People who are fans got a Vocal Master PA, we use a real drum kit, and we use use amplifiers, so that we can have the sound that we like. I mean, we’ve just been asked to go to Serbia, but who’s got the crap we use in Serbia? Or what promoter understands what we do? They don’t understand, because everyone would prefer if we’d play a big venue with the modern equipment. Even in the Milkshakes people said to us, in the early 80’s in Germany, ‘’if you use the big boxes, people would like you’’. Because we used to take a vocal PA with us and do it the way we want it. But for us, it’s the homegrown. It’s a small corner shop, not the supermarket. And it’s the analog sound, it’s the way we want it.
PAN M 360: It would be great to have you guys in Montreal. I think you’ve played only once, many years ago.
Billy Childish: We did that with two amplifiers, I think, because you can get that sound there. We flew over, we did it as a weekend. We flew one day, did the gig the next night and flew home the next day. Julie (his wife and partner in many projects) found it a bit intense.
PAN M 360: Is it going to be the same thing with the Reno show?
Billy Childish: Julie is American and we’re gonna visit the family and California. So we’re gonna be out there. It’s actually a family holiday. Because I haven’t been there for a long time. And then someone roped us into doing a show in the middle of it, which I agreed to.
PAN M 360: You do a lot of stuff. You’re a musician, you’re a poet, you’re a writer, you’re a painter… What are you working on right now?Billy Childish: I published a novel in secret, like in chapters, last year. And that was part of a double novel that I’ve been writing for 12 years. So I’m writing this novel on the punk rock period, which I work on every day. I’ve done about 32 drafts of that over the last 12 years. And then I started a quarterly magazine, small press poetry. People just subscribe. I’ve got an exhibition opening in England in July with my English gallery. There’s a couple of other things but I can’t remember… I’m working on a couple of films of some of the concerts we did recently… What else do I do? I do quite a lot of things. I’m writing and painting, doing the poetry. There’s some other things I do, but I can’t remember. I’m working with about three or four different groups at the moment as well. And the painting takes quite a lot of my time, it is my main job, being a painter. There’s an art fair in Hong Kong, I mean, at the minute. And then there can be Art Basel, which is another big art fair, which is coming up as well. But I’m not signed to any art galleries either. You know, we just did a big show in New York.
PAN M 360: And what are these four other groups?
Billy Childish: The Chatham Singers, which is the blues group, the Singing Loins, which is the folk group, the William Loveday Intention, which is sort of like another strange group, the Guy Hamper trio, which is with James Taylor, which is like an Hammond organ instrumental group, CTMF, Thee Headcoats, which we’ve just done… I think that’s it.
PAN M 360: Well, that’s quite prolific. Thank you for your time!
Billy Childish: It’s a pleasure. Oh, and if someone’s got a vocal PA and the right gear in Montreal, we might consider coming over!
(Photo: Alison Wonderland)
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