Interviews – Page 57

Formed in 2018, Montreal-based female trio Les Shirley unveils their second album More is More this Friday.

Raphaëlle Chouinard (vocals; guitar), Sarah Dion (bass), and Lisandre Bourdages (drums) are back with an opus tinged with vulnerability and feminism. Moreover, the group does not hesitate to denounce male privilege. “In recent years, the feminist movement has grown, and I think we are going in the right direction. However, when we look at our neighbors in the United States, we quickly understand that it is not won. We like to send this message,” says the singer of the trio.

While still influenced by punk rock and grunge, Les Shirley explores more introspective topics such as love and anxiety in More is More. “We’re showing a darker side of Les Shirley. I think people will recognize themselves in the lyrics,” says Raphaëlle.

The guitarist makes it clear: “It was lacking in girl power at the time. With this album, Les Shirley created music that they would have loved to hear as teenagers. “When a woman writes, it brings a completely different perspective on events. We would have loved to hear our music when we were young,” adds Raphaëlle Chouinard.

Throughout the creation of More is More, Marie-Pierre Arthur acted as co-director. Her expertise instilled more confidence in the three women and greatly contributed to the development of the project’s eleven tracks. “We’ve always been big fans of Marie-Pierre. It was incredible to have someone like her with us during the creation of our project!“

Pan M 360 spoke with the trio’s singer and guitarist, Raphaëlle Chouinard, about their creative process and their new album More is More.

PAN M 360: How was Les Shirley created?

RAPHAËLLE: Before Les Shirley, Lisandre and I had done an electro-pop project together. When that ended in 2018, we still wanted to play together. We already knew Sarah, but she was basically a drummer just like Lisandre. So, Sarah decided to play bass. At the beginning of our formation, we didn’t really take ourselves seriously. During our first shows, we noticed that the crowds really liked our project. That’s when we realized that Les Shirley wasn’t a joke.

PAN M 360: What are you talking about with More is More?

RAPHAËLLE: Unlike our first project, we deal with deeper subjects. We show the darker side of Les Shirley. We mix these themes with our pop melodies and our musical style. More is More was written during a time of pandemic and reflects what was going on in my head during that time. It talks about things like anxiety and lack of motivation. I think people will relate to the lyrics.

PAN M 360: You say you create songs that you wish you had heard when you were younger. Would you have liked to have heard the messages you are conveying in this project?

RAPHAËLLE: It lacked girl power back then. There were almost no female bands back then. Not many women were sharing their experiences through music. I think that side of the musical story is missing. When a woman writes, it brings a completely different perspective on events. That’s something that was missing when we were young.

PAN M 360: Throughout the album, you have a denunciatory and feminist tone. Is it a desire for you to engage with this generation?

RAPHAËLLE: During the pandemic, I got closer to my emo roots and my writing became more and more engaged. In the last few years, the feminist movement has grown, and I think we’re going in the right direction. However, when you look at our neighbors in the United States, you can quickly see that it’s not a given. It is important to continue in this direction to make things change. It’s a message we like to send. For example, in the song It’s Time, we say “It’s time for your wake-up call.” It’s a message to men that it’s time for women to take their place. The goal is not to divide, but to find a middle ground that appeals to everyone.

PAN M 360: Tell me about Marie-Pierre Arthur’s involvement as co-director. How did she contribute to your project?

RAPHAËLLE: Marie-Pierre brings a great energy to the studio. She was always there to guide us and answer our questions. She brought her pop touch to our album. We’ve always been big fans of Marie-Pierre. It was amazing to have someone like her with us. Also, it’s very helpful to have someone who is not entirely part of the creative process. This person makes you question the structures of the songs and many details to improve. Also, I would say that his expertise gave us more confidence in our abilities.

PAN M 360: How do you see the recent renaissance of punk rock?

RAPHAËLLE: Several artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Machine Gun Kelly are contributing to the renaissance of this musical style. I think it’s good. A lot of people say that it’s very pop or even too pop. In my opinion, it’s as pop as what Avril Lavigne and Blink-182 used to do. If these artists can make young people discover more of this musical genre, that’s great. It’s going to inspire a lot of them to push further into rock.

PAN M 360: How did the title Do it Again come about?

RAPHAËLLE: We often do write retreats in a cottage. I think I already had the guitar riff in my head. I wrote the song during the pandemic. This dark period of our lives brought back many bad habits in all of us like consumerism. This song unfolds as an internal dialogue. It’s about those behaviors that you want to stop, that your heart tells you to stop, that your friends tell you to stop, but that you never stop.

Photo Credit : Stéphanie Dinsdale.

AN ALBUM LAUNCH PARTY FOR MORE IS MORE WILL TAKE PLACE IN MONTREAL ON NOVEMBER 24TH AT THE THÉÀTRE FAIRMOUNT!

For some years now, jazz fans have been citing Makaya McCraven, son of African-American drummer Stephen McCraven, and Hungarian singer Ágnes Zsigmondi.

A masterful percussionist, composer and bandleader, Makaya McCraven is one of the true game changers in jazz, a musical genre that has been steadily regenerating itself since its name was first coined in the late 19th century.

The latest chapter in jazz is being written all over the world, and Makaya McCraven is certainly one of its visionaries. His thoughts on groove, modern jazz, and, most importantly, the digitized integrations of the electronic and hip-hop families into his own compositional context now position him as one of the essentials.

His albums In The Moment (2015), Universal Beings (2018), We’re New Again, a brilliant retelling of the late Gil Scott Heron’s I’m New Here, and Deciphering the Message (2021), precede the release of the recently released In These Times, which is more inclined to chamber jazz given its generous instrumentation including guitars, bass, drums, strings, vibraphone, brass, woodwinds and reeds.

PAN M 360 was finally able to get in touch with Makaya McCraven and reach him in Chicago for the following interview.

PAN M 360: You’re in Chicago right now, aren’t you?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: Yes. I live in Chicago, I have a few things going on there. I’m running my studio, doing a little bit of media, getting ready to hit the road, rehearsing and arranging, taking my two kids to school, picking them up, going to soccer practice, and spending as much time as possible with my family. I’ve been busy my whole career as a musician I’ve always had a lot of gigs, a lot of work, a lot of bands, and a lot of projects. But, you know, where, where I think I was, it was a difficult time when my kids were very young. Now we’re finding a new balance with them. We’re trying to figure out how to do it all with the amount of travel and the type of schedule that I have, and also on my wife’s side who is a very busy person.

PAN M 360: So you chose Chicago, after living in different parts of the United States. So why did you choose this city in the first place?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: I followed my wife (Nitasha Tamar Sharma) to Chicago, she is a full professor at Northwestern University – African American Studies and Asian American Studies. When I met her, I was very busy with my music career on the East Coast, in Western Mass, and I had a lot of things I was pretty young and she moved here during that first period of almost a year, you know, I was just visiting Chicago every month, maybe just to stay and I started laying the groundwork to move here and after about a year, I came and moved in with her.

PAN M 360: We’re not going to recap your artistic approach as we’ve done many times on PAN M 360, but it’s very clear that what you’re doing musically is very different, and perhaps considered one of the important aesthetic turning points in jazz of our time. You have been credited with integrating very sophisticated grooves into very creative contemporary instrumental music and also into a perfectly assumed digital environment. How does this remain connected to the jazz idiom?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: A lot of my desire to do things with contemporary sounds and processes has to do with how I view the heritage of jazz music because that’s still the best term we can use to describe it. But the idiom itself, for me, is much broader than one musical genre. It’s a way of looking at a musician’s practice in different eras of music. Many of the great musicians I admire have had their own problems with the word jazz because they felt it put them in a box.

PAN M 360: Miles Davis edited a lot of his music sessions in the early 70s, so this process is not really new. But today, digital culture is dominant and has led you to use the tools of digital culture to transform your own recordings of instrumental music. Where do you stand today?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: Jazz wasn’t designed to chop up eras and styles through recording sessions. But I think it’s a given now. Inevitable, right? The progressive musicians of today are like the progressive musicians of yesterday, in that they are inspired by what has gone before. They look for new sounds and new things to learn. Sixty years ago, for example, it was bossa nova. It was a fusion, it was new, and it was fresh. Now it’s part of standard jazz. Today, in my own way, I want to imitate that moment of inspiration, being close to my time is part of my inspiration.

PAN M 360: So capturing the moment, capturing the time, is crucial for you.

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: Yes, of course, I can learn the notes and the language of bebop, I can learn the music of Charlie Parker. But what I think is most important is to ask what it was that Charlie Parker did that was so special about his time. And what made such an impact. It was that he had created a new strain, organically embedded in the community across the racial lines of the time. He was making music that spoke to people but playing it at a very high level but taking it to new things. And not watering it down to just being popular, but rather creating something substantial and provocative.

PAN M 360: So taking the popular music of a period is not copying it.

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: The heritage of jazz is not a series of mimicry of styles, it is a spirit of recreation. And I can relate to Charles Mingus imploring “Don’t call my music jazz” or Miles Davis chanting “Don’t call my music dead”. That’s why I’m sure to participate in the tradition and try to follow what they did.

PAN M 360: So your approach is not different from previous generations of jazz?

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN: Well, not really. Let’s take electronics: I wasn’t the one who started experimenting with electronic tools. A lot of jazz-related artists did it in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. People experimented with things and connected them to what was there before. Since the beginning of jazz, it’s been like that. Drums and musical instruments are also machines, the drum kit is an assortment of drums and cymbals invented by jazz musicians. Over time, popular or classical repertoires have continued to influence jazz. It’s in line with what all the greats have done before us. We’re not reinventing the wheel.

PAN M 360: As you say, you don’t reinvent the wheel. But you do add things to it. Jazz always offers an opportunity to capture the times we live in, by injecting rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, and textural proposals. This is what you do yourself because you are sensitive to electronic music and hip hop, while maintaining the propensity of modern jazz to take up the French impressionist music of 125 years ago. So you’re not only doing new things, you’re also including different types of acoustic jazz from the eras before yours, from Miles Davis to the groove jazz of the CTI label in the 70s. So you’re not just in one period of music, one style. It’s the diversity of material that makes your music so interesting and makes you a creator in your own right.

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: Yes, these are variables that I gravitate towards. I have to take a very open and broad approach to the things I hear and connect with. I challenge myself to learn them and encourage younger musicians to do the same. You know, it can put so much weight and pressure on a musician, they can feel like they have to do this or that, that they have to fit in. That’s why I tell young musicians that adapting to the present is like having unique guests while learning about the past. I tell them that they have to look at what’s out there and what’s coming, but they also have to know their music and be able to support it. When you create, you find the things that really speak to you. And if you go through a young person’s record collection, there will probably be all kinds of results, all kinds of music and sounds. I’ve also experienced through my record collection and my parents’ record collection everything from Indian or Arabic music to rock to Jamaican reggae to Eastern European folklore. It continues.

PAN M 360: After the release of the Universal Beings album, what led you to In These Times?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: After we did Universal Beings, which was a collection of small bands, playing in different places, we put on a couple of big shows for the release of the record. We invited all the musicians from the smaller bands to the same set. I had a larger orchestra to draw from. And the concept started to take off because I did more and more concerts like that. When it really became a part of my thing, I worked on my compositions that I played with all the different bands. I ended up getting more regular orchestras where, for example, I would play music from my regular band and a string quartet in the context of a multimedia performance. We did that at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall, among others. And so I just followed the course of opportunities and venues for this broader orchestral expression in instrumentation.

PAN M 360: Have these opportunities been conducive to the evolution of your musical language?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: Absolutely. What a chance to flesh out my music in these spaces! So we were able to record these shows and then work on them in the studio and finalize the arrangements for the new album. More precisely, I took the arrangements originally planned for these concerts and mixed them with other sessions recorded in the studio. These orchestrations and arrangements were rethought, turned upside down, and sideways. The production process generated new forms to the pieces. So now it’s part of my language to record live and reimagine afterward. In a way, I can take all my previously recorded music and transform it into a cohesive proposal, a statement that sums up where I am at. So there is the composition, the editing, and the performance on stage, a kind of culmination of the work done.

PAN M 360: Musicians of previous generations often made their mark early in their careers, which is not the case with you. A long “gestation” process for you?

MAKAYA McCRAVEN: Yes, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams or Wayne Shorter’were in their early twenties when they emerged internationally. I’m about to turn 40, I’m almost twice their age, and I’m not a young lion. The process takes longer in my case. But if you really want to see where so-called jazz music is going, I think I’m in the right place.

Formed by producers, songwriters, and remixers Zacharie “Soké” Raymond and Yannick “KNY Factory” Rastogi, the duo Banx & Ranx has unveiled its new track “Balenciaga,” on Friday, October 21st. And why should we write about a combo that releases a single song? Well, read on!

They have more than three billion online streams, all platforms combined. However, they’re mostly unknown to the public. The two men have been working in the shadows for nearly seven years. They have been responsible for many international hits such as Kiss and Make Up with Dua Lipa and Contra La Pared with Sean Paul and J Balvin. Under license from Universal Music, they recently worked as musical directors for the Cirque du Soleil show MÜV.

With Balanciaga, Banx & Ranx brings its listeners back to the middle of July. This collaboration with the artists Demarco and Konshens is tinged with dancehall and reggaeton. In fact, it was Demarco who established contact with the duo. “He wrote to us on Instagram, because he liked the work we did with Sean Paul. Then we sent him a bunch of instrumentals,” Zacharie says. “When Demarco sent us his recordings on the Balanciaga beat, it was unequivocal: we absolutely had to release this track as a single,” he adds.

Born in Paris, Yannick moved to Guadeloupe at the age of three. Later in life, he moved to Montreal and started posting tracks on SoundCloud. Zacharie also started posting at a young age on the platform. “We both liked the music the other was creating and we decided to get in touch,” says Yannick. That conversation turned into several meetings in Montreal, and then countless recording sessions that led to the birth of Banx & Ranx in 2014.

Recently, they have made it their mission to make Canadian artists shine. Through their record label 31 East, Banx & Ranx have brought emerging Canadian artists like Rêve and Preston Pablo to the forefront. “We realized that it was important to grow Canadian artists. It quickly became a priority for us,” says the duo.

PAN M 360: What are your influences and what are you currently listening?

ZACHARIE: We are inspired by many different things. Obviously from music, but also from our lifestyle. We like to go out to bars, party, and meet new people. We love to travel, and we incorporate elements from the different cultures we come across. I would even add that visual arts and fashion inspire us. I listen to many different genres of music, but most of the time I listen to our own tracks to make sure the mix is right.

YANNICK: I listen to many different genres of music. Some days I only listen to music from the 70s, and other days I only listen to Caribbean music. I enjoy the music of Guadeloupe, the Zuke. This style of music makes me happy. I have countless different playlists on my Spotify.

PAN M 360: What software do you use to create? Do you have a favorite plug-in?

BANX & RANX: We’ll give away one of our secrets: we often use the metronome sound from Logic Pro as the basis for our bass line. We modify the metronome sound in our own way. Then, we like to try several different plug-ins. Of course, we reuse some of them, but it’s important for us to differentiate our tools. It’s also very important for us to have a mix of acoustic, organic, and electronic.

PAN M 360: In a previous interview, you said, “we want every music producer to be able to find the Banx to their Ranx.” How do you complement each other?

BANX & RANX: Our personalities are very different; we complement each other very well. We are like Yin and Yang. We have been able to develop a very efficient way of working. Now, it’s like we are one brain, and we are the two hemispheres. Together we can achieve our goals faster. Not many people think about it, but to travel together is very nice. It’s nice to be able to experience things together because we always have someone on our side to understand. It really makes it easier to navigate through the ups and downs of life. It also helps to push each other out of our comfort zone.

PAN M 360: Tell me about your new title Balenciaga. How did you get in touch with DeMarco and Konshens. How did the creation process go?

BANX & RANX: We created the instrumental for Balanciaga two years ago. At first, this song was intended for Bad Bunny. Some time ago, Demarco contacted us on Instagram because he liked the work we did with Sean Paul. Afterwards, we sent him several instrumentals and he chose the one for Balanciaga. When he sent us his recordings, it was unequivocal: we had to release it as a single. Konshens joined the track soon after. As far as lyrics are concerned, Jamaican artists don’t worry much about them. They improvise a lot. We’re willing to bet that he was wearing Balanciaga brand clothes during the recording. That’s probably where he got his inspiration from.

PAN M 360: What advice would you give to young producers who listen to you?

BANX & RANX: We have several pieces of advice we’d like to give. One is to visualize success and mentally project yourself into the future. We’ve done that a lot and we’re sure it’s helped us get to where we are today. Secondly, it’s very important to surround yourself with good people and to have a manager that you trust. We’ve had the same manager for eight years now and it’s worked out great. The entourage allows us to get out of our comfort zone and get outside opinions on our creations. Third, I would tell young producers that it’s important to give 100% and work with passion. You’re going to work on music every day, you’re going to dream about it. If you are not motivated by passion, you will not make it.

PAN M 360: How do you judge the freedom and space you must give to the artists on your tracks? When you create, do you imagine a specific artist who could pose on your tracks?

BANX & RANX: At the beginning of our career, we had prepared about 100 beats, but we were not able to record good tracks with artists, because our music was too condensed. As a music producer, you tend to want to show everything you can do in one song. At one point, we decided to hire a songwriter to accompany us in our creations. It allowed us to improve on that level. It’s certain that when we create, we imagine that a specific artist will play on our songs. However, artists rarely look for the instrumentals that we think they are looking for. You must adapt and find the perfect artist for each song.

PAN M 360: In the past, you have collaborated with many great artists. Is there an artist you have never worked with, but would like to work with?

BANX & RANX: We would like to work with artists like Post Malone, Drake, and Justin Bieber. Right now, we love working with young artists. It’s always special to work with them, they have a special energy and always feel like they must prove themselves. You don’t always find that energy with popular, established artists. We realized that it was important to grow local artists and it became a priority for us. Recently, this is what we tried to accomplish with Rêve and Preston Pablo.

PAN M 360: What can we expect from Banx & Ranx in the future? BANX & RANX: For sure we would like to do an album with many collaborations one day. It’s a dream for us. We’ve been talking about this possibility recently, but nothing is concrete yet. Hopefully, something like that will happen in the next couple of years. Now, we are constantly in the studio looking for new sounds. We hope to release many more tracks in the next few months.

At just 22 years old, Charlie Houston is writing the kind of vulnerable pop music that sticks with you weeks after your first listen. It’s nice to see and hear music/lyrics that have no filter; music that is completely a true snapshot into the artist’s state of mind, something a lot of modern pop music is missing nowadays.

Charlie is still early on in her career and was kind of flying under the radar with her first release I Hate Spring, but eventually got messaged by the Grammy-nominated, electro-pop duo, ODESZA, to collaborate last year. She just wrapped up a tour with them and is gearing up to tour with Charlotte Cardin for a string of shows in Quebec this November. On top of that, she just dropped her Bad Posture EP last week, via Arts & Crafts, as she focuses on her Philosophy major studies.

We spoke with Charlie Houston as she was on tour with ODESZA about her thought process, vulnerability, and motivations.

PAN M 360: You’re on tour with ODESZA still right?

Charlie Houston: Yeah I’m in Sacramento, California on tour with them.

PAN M 360: And I saw that you did a little collaboration with them last year. How did that happen?

Charlie Houston: They reached out to me last summer, just on Instagram, actually. They DM’d me, super out of the blue. And they were just like, ‘do you want to make a song together?’ And I’m a huge fan of them. So I obviously said yes. And then the beginning of this year, they asked if I wanted to come on tour with them.

PAN M 360: What was the experience like collaborating with them?

Charlie Houston: It was cool, but it was remote. I didn’t get to have an in-person session with them, which I mean, I definitely would have preferred because I definitely like collaborating more in person. But they basically like we had a few calls together. And then they sent me some just like instrumental stuff that they were working on. And then there was one track that I really liked. And then I essentially just wrote the top line to it. And then we kind of sent it back and forth and workshopped a little bit.

PAN M 360: You have this new EP, Bad Posture, out now. I relate so much to that title. Being a writer, my posture is shit. Where did the idea for the title come from?

Charlie Houston: I haven’t reached the point in my career where I’ve made a body of work that had kind of a cohesive concept, per se. And so and I didn’t want to like force a meaning to kind of attach all the songs together. Thus far, all of the projects I’ve released have just kind of been like collections of songs that I’ve written at a specific time period, but they weren’t necessarily all about the same thing, or whatever.

But my mental state is obviously changing as I grow up. And I have really bad anxiety. And that translates into me grinding my teeth at night when I sleep and then just naturally having all of my tension and stress, and just that emotional state existing in my neck. Like it manifests itself physically in my jaw and neck. And a lot of stuff I write about is stuff to do with, my anxiety and kind of negative emotions to do with relationships and breakups. So ‘Bad Posture’ made sense.

PAN M 360: Were the songs in Bad Posture written during the same writing period as I Hate Spring?

Charlie Houston: No they were written after and I think they’re definitely a progression. Maybe not a progression, but they were written at a different point in my life. I feel like I’m getting more comfortable with being vulnerable in my writing. My song “Comfortable” is extremely important to me and “Lately,” is about my anxiety about dying.

PAN M 360: And you’re only 22 right? With that much anxiety.

Charlie Houston: Yeah like I think of I Hate Spring as writing about that stuff to be relatable for other people, but I feel like now, I’m writing stuff I’m just thinking about if that makes sense.

PAN M 360: Do you ever think about maybe being too vulnerable in your writing or on the flip side, not vulnerable enough?

Charlie Houston: I mean, it’s interesting. I feel like when it comes to writing about things … just kind of like internal feelings, I don’t really think of a filter when it comes to that. I’m just kind of writing directly what I’m feeling and so I feel like I’m normally pretty honest and true to those emotions. But I definitely find when it comes to writing about experiences with other people, I’m definitely not as vulnerable. I get self-conscious about writing very specific details about like, my relationship with someone. And so I feel like that’s definitely something that I would like to become more comfortable with but at the same time not become more comfortable with.

PAN M 360: Have you been writing on tour at all?

Charlie Houston: No. I mean, like a little bit? This is only my second time touring. And this is by far, much larger than what I was doing before. And so I feel like, for the first few weeks, I was very overwhelmed a lot of the time. And I’m also a very retrospective person in my brain. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t really process things until after they happen. In the moment, I just can’t. I couldn’t explain to someone how I feel about something when it’s happening. And so right now, I feel like I’m almost like, on my emotions feel like they’re on autopilot.

PAN M 360: That makes sense. You’re in tour mode.

Charlie Houston: I’m also in school right now. And it’s like the beginning of the school year. And I’m also about to end this tour. And so, before the tour started, I 100% was like, ‘I’m gonna write so much on tour,’ just because I thought that’s what people did. But I feel like I definitely, like just don’t have the mental capacity right now.

PAN M 360: What are you taking in school?

Charlie Houston: I’m majoring in Philosophy.

PAN M 360: Man, I took a few of those classes in University, and most made me feel like smashing my head against a wall.

Charlie Houston: That’s pretty on-brand. I would say with all classes I take, it’s wanting to smash my own head against the wall.

We spoke with Charlie Houston as she was on tour with ODESZA about her thought process, vulnerability, and motivations.

PAN M 360: You’re on tour with ODESZA still right?

Charlie Houston: Yeah I’m in Sacramento, California on tour with them.

PAN M 360: And I saw that you did a little collaboration with them last year. How did that happen?

PAN M 360: What was the experience like collaborating with them?

PAN M 360: You have this new EP, Bad Posture, out now. I relate so much to that title. Being a writer, my posture is shit. Where did the idea for the title come from?

PAN M 360: Were the songs in Bad Posture written during the same writing period as I Hate Spring?

PAN M 360: And you’re only 22 right? With that much anxiety.

PAN M 360: Do you ever think about maybe being too vulnerable in your writing or on the flip side, not vulnerable enough?

PAN M 360: Have you been writing on tour at all?

PAN M 360: That makes sense. You’re in tour mode.

PAN M 360: What are you taking in school?

Charlie Houston: I’m majoring in Philosophy.

PAN M 360: Man, I took a few of those classes in University, and most made me feel like smashing my head against a wall.

Charlie Houston: That’s pretty on-brand. I would say with all classes I take, it’s wanting to smash my own head against the wall.

After a first degree in art history obtained in France, Jessica Ekomane decided to take advantage of a university exchange program to discover Berlin and undertake a course in sound studies. Still living in the German capital, she has found her place and her mode of expression: experimental music. After having experimented with sound installation, it was during her first concert in a Berlin bar that her interest in the form was confirmed. Invited to Montreal by AKOUSMA, the composer will present Manifold, a piece commissioned by INA-GRM, written for the acousmonium (orchestra of speakers).

PAN M 360: Please introduce us to “Manifold”, the piece you will perform at Akousma

Jessica Ekomane: I always have a hard time talking about this piece because I feel like it brings together a lot of things I’ve been working on over the last few years, including developing melodies, polyphony and rhythm, all at the same time. I also use a lot of “tuning”, tuning that is not the European piano tuning, well equal temperament as we know it. I use a “heptatonic” tuning that comes from Malawi. It is a family of tuning that is found in different countries and also in the diasporas. I try to go in this direction, to break a little bit of this very reduced choice of notes with which we have been making music for a very long time. Moreover, as I use Max/MSP (editor’s note: musical software of sound synthesis), I am really in the field of the frequencies. It’s not notes so it doesn’t really make sense to limit myself to those few frequencies.

PAN M 360: You played a DJ set for the 31st anniversary of the legendary club Trésor in Berlin,

Jessica Ekomane: So when I do DJ sets, I don’t play music to make people dance, it’s more experimental stuff. It’s true that it changes me from what I usually do, it’s a much lighter side and it also allows me to share the music I like, to listen with others. We listen together. I like to make mixes because it’s an opportunity to put forward artists who are less known. I don’t intend to make a career out of it, I rarely do it because I really want to keep this fresh side, not too professionalized.

PAN M 360: What are the elements that had an impact on you you when you discovered the Berlin experimental music scene?

Jessica Ekomane: What’s interesting about this city and what I discovered when I moved here is the openness, compared to, for example, some French institutions that seem very closed and elitist. In Berlin, there are spaces to start with where people are just interested and rather encouraging, even if they give criticism or feedback. Except for the fact that it was a lot of white men, it was always experimental music. If people see that you’re doing something, they’re willing to give you an opportunity. That’s how I got my first gig at Madame Claude’s bar, which hosts both known and unknown experimental music artists.

PAN M 360: How do you perceive the place of women in the experimental scene in Berlin?

Jessica Ekomane: It has improved a lot in the last few years. I’m also in dialogue with women from the previous generation who tell me that they used to be alone and they really see the evolution, not only on the level of musicians, on the level of sound engineers for example. It’s possible to have women or non-binary people as sound engineers. Of course there is a lot of progress to be made, but when I leave Berlin or come back from other places, I realize how far ahead it is. Maybe it’s also because I’ve created a bubble for myself, an environment where I don’t have to deal with it as much, because it’s a lot to bear sometimes. I hope that progress will continue because historically speaking, we are at a time when there are many questions about identities that can also create friction or a reverse effect with people who want to go against that.

PAN M 360: Are there any female composers, singers, who inspire you by their background or their music?

Jessica Ekomane: I really like Éliane Radigue, I really like Mariana Maché. Recently, I’m starting to listen to Mary Lou Williams more too, she’s an Afro-American composer and pianist who comes from jazz, she did some great vocal compositions, Nina Simone too. I also listen to a lot of music that is not necessarily gendered, for example the music of the pygmies who are between the Congo and Cameroon. That’s where I learned the most about how to think about polyphony.

JESSICA EKOMANE SE PRODUIT CE JEUDI 13 OCTOBRE À L’USINE C, 21H, DANS LE CADRE DU FESTIVAL AKOUSMA. POUR INFOS ET BILLETS , C’EST ICI

Andrew Boudreau is an active member of the creative jazz scene in North America. An adept pianist and composer, Andrew will be presenting music from his 2022 album, NEON, as part of the L’OFF Festival de Jazz. His performance at L’OFF is something of a homecoming for the artist who once studied at McGill’s own Schulich School of Music. We spoke to him about his music, his upcoming performance, and his thoughts on the creative scene.

PAN M 360: Andrew, thanks so much for being with us. I suppose the first thing I’ll ask you is how the hell do you manage to play a 13/8 ostinato while keeping 4/4 in your right hand.

Andrew Boudreau: Haha that’s a good question. I’m not sure I know the answer. If I find out I’ll let you know.

PAN M 360: Thanks for indulging me. So what is your relationship with Montreal? I understand you studied music here.

Andrew Boudreau: I’m originally from Nova Scotia. I moved to Montreal to do my bachelor’s degree in music at McGill. I stayed in the city for three to four years after my studies.

PAN M 360: So you must be familiar with the L’OFF Festival de Jazz?

Andrew Boudreau: Oh yeah. I think the first time I played might have been in 2013, a long time ago, but always as part of other people’s projects. I think one of the cool things about this festival is that the big mission is to celebrate the scene here. I think that involves some kind of collaboration with those outside of the scene with musicians that are from here and that is a really beautiful thing to witness. It’s one of the reasons that October is a great month to be in Montreal.

PAN M 360: Well let me ask you, what exactly is the nature of your quartet and your album NEON?

Andrew Boudreau: It’s a quartet with three of my friends, Neta Raanan on Saxophone, Simón Willson on Bass, and Eviatar Slivnik on Drums. We all met in Boston where I went to do my master’s and now we all live in New York City. They are heading up to meet me here, and for some of them, it will be their first time in Canada, which is really exciting. As far as the nature of the music goes, I definitely wrote these compositions with these three people in mind. There are some parts of it that are really specific in terms of composition and notation, but also parts that are quite open-ended. I think that is because of their strengths as musicians playing stuff you write and stuff you don’t write.

PAN M 360: What sources of inspiration are you drawing from here?

Andrew Boudreau: For the music on the album, I started working on it, in a way a long time ago, but also during 2020 and 2021 which were obviously quite intense for a lot of people … I suppose that left a bit of a mark on the music. Some of the music is connected to geography. One of the compositions on the album is titled “Mile-Ex.” I used to live in the Mile-Ex and when I did, no one would know what you were talking about, and now it’s pretty trendy, now that I’m gone ha. I’ve been inspired by a lot of visual artists. One of my favourite artists is Nova Scotian, Maud Lewis. She lived in a tiny house on the coast and no one really paid attention until she passed away, unfortunately. Musically speaking, I’m pretty omnivorous, I’m always looking to hear new stuff. Some of what I listen to has piano, bass, drums, and saxophone, and some of it doesn’t at all. It changes by the day.

PAN M 360: How would you best describe your presentation at L’OFF this year?

Andrew Boudreau: I would describe it as a collection of individual compositions. It’s not that there is one frame of reference, writing only about one writer, painter, or event. For me, it’s more about piecing together a collage or a narrative through a bunch of pieces or compositions. What we’ll be playing is some assembly of this music that I’ve written. I like to rearrange them in different ways, so they can be somewhat different each time, even if we have recorded these nine pieces a certain way. What we’ll be doing is creating an arc through some arrangement of those pieces, finding new ways to sequence them and present them.

PAN M 360: Modern jazz can be a bit daunting for some, is there anything you would want people to be aware of going into your show or not really.

Andrew Boudreau: I don’t know what I’d tell them to listen for in advance … I would say that for me, it’s less about word painting. It’s almost to me that all the titles are subtitles or something. I think theme and variation apply to all the music here, otherwise, I suppose it’s more about creating a mood or an atmosphere and seeing how that can evolve, devolve, and change. But I suppose rather than giving instructions, I would just be curious to hear what people have to say.

ANDREW BOUDREAU IS PERFORMING THIS THURSDAY OCTOBER 13TH, 10PM AT DIÈZE ONZE

Andrés Vial is a well established pianist, multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Montréal. A staple of the creative scene here, Andrés is a regular performer at the L’OFF Festival de Jazz. This year finds him returning with what will no doubt be two remarkable shows, one with his own quintet and one as part of a special collaboration with drummer Joe Chambers.

PAN M 360 : Andrés, many thanks for taking the time. It seems you have quite an exciting L’OFF this year. It must be nice to return to the festival circuit. Would you say there is something special about L’OFF this year in light of all that has happened since 2019 or not really?

ANDRÉS VIAL : Thanks for asking me! The last few editions of l’OFF Festival were hybrid and/or virtual, so I think this year is special for everyone involved. It definitely is for me, because I haven’t played the festival since October 2019, and this year I get to perform with my mentor, Joe Chambers.

PAN M 360 : The music you are presenting with your quintet this year explores folkloric and rhythmic idioms from West Africa and South America. Is this a new direction for you or something that has always been a part of your musical voice?

ANDRÉS VIAL : It’s not entirely a new direction for me. I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate with renowned musicians from West Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America for decades now – people like Bassekou Kouyate from Mali, Malika Tirolien from Guadeloupe, and Janet Valdés and Obsesión from Cuba. And my family is from Argentina and Chile, so I heard a lot of South American music growing up. Since about 2015, I’ve been consistently incorporating elements of South American folklore into my original compositions, as well as adding pieces by South American composers to my jazz piano (solo and trio) repertoire.

The original music I’m presenting at l’OFF Fest this year was definitely written and arranged with specific musicians in mind, who come from West and Central Africa, South America, the Caribbean, the US and Canada: Mamadou Koita, Elli Miller Maboungou, Vovo Saramanda, Michael Davidson, Tommy Crane, Ira Coleman, Martin Heslop, Caoilainn Power and Joe Chambers.

PAN M 360 : Do you find that the ‘jazz’ idiom is easily assimilated with music from other cultures?

ANDRÉS VIAL : Jazz is essentially hybrid music to begin with. Like many other New World musical traditions originating in the African diaspora, jazz has always incorporated elements of African, European, and Indigenous music. Of course, depending on the era, geographic location, and specific circumstances, the extent of these different influences can vary greatly.

PAN M 360 : Did you come to any new epiphanies or discoveries in working on this project, perhaps about the unity of all sound and things?

ANDRÉS VIAL : Definitely. I felt a unified sense of purpose being expressed by the group immediately. They’re all such sensitive musicians that I could really hear how much everyone was listening and adapting to each other and the flow of the music. I think it always comes down to how musicians relate to each other, personally and musically. Because we’re all operating within the greater sphere of Black music, it’s been pretty easy to get on the ‘same page’ quickly. There are alot of commonalities in terms of how we approach ensemble playing, improvisation, polyrhythms, etc., but there are also some noticeable differences that have required us all to adapt to best serve the music. Each of us has been pulled out of our comfort zone at times, and each of us has also been able to share aspects of our own culture and musical knowledge with the others. It’s really been a gift.

PAN M 360 : I would love to know more about your work with Joe Chambers. How did it come to be and what exactly is the nature of your ensemble ?

ANDRÉS VIAL : I saw Joe perform at Upstairs and give a masterclass at McGill around 1999 or 2000. It was such a heavy experience that I decided to audition for the New School in NYC, so I could study with him. ( I was playing a lot of drums at the time.) I played vibraphone in his Jazz Percussion Ensemble there for a year, which was great, and we played a lot of the compositions that Joe contributed to Max Roach’s M’BOOM percussion ensemble, of which he was a core member.

Fast forward about 20 years to 2022. This past May, I was preparing to record an album of my own original percussion ensemble music, and I emailed him to ask if he’d like to play on it. He said yes! He came up to Montreal for 3 days and we cut the record – it was an amazing experience. About a month later, he called me and asked if I’d like to work with him on his new Blue Note album! I ended up playing piano on 3 tracks, contributing two of my originals (Dance Kobina and City of Saints), and co-producing.

Our co-led ensemble features musicians who appear on both of our upcoming records. For our OFF Jazz Fest show we’ll be playing mostly originals, as well as a few standards.

PAN M 360 : How has it been working with someone directly connected to the jazz lineage?

ANDRÉS VIAL : It’s been a dream come true, on so many levels. I’ve learned so much from playing with him. He is absolutely one of the finest ensemble players of all time. His level of groove and swing, his dynamic range, his touch, his telepathic ability to connect with everyone in the band…and he’s such a great composer. Joe turned 80 this year – what a profound contribution he has made to this music over the last 7 decades! It has felt surreal at times, especially for me and the other jazz cats in the band. Personally, there is nothing more rewarding than having a mentor say they dig your piano playing and your compositions, and they want you to join their band. It’s truly been an honor to work with him.

PAN M 360 : Can we expect an album release any time soon? Anything exciting on the horizon we ought to be on the lookout for?

ANDRÉS VIAL : Joe’s album Dance Kobina will be out on Blue Note Records on February 3rd. My album Spirit Takes Form, featuring Joe and many of the aforementioned musicians, will likely be out by Fall 2023.

PAN M 360 : Thanks again for your time, wishing you all the best Andrés.

ANDRÉS VIAL : Thank you, Varun!

The Andrés Vial Quintet plays this Thursday, the 13th of October, at 12PM at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

The Joe Chambers/Andrés Vial ensemble plays on the 15th of October, at 8PM at Théâtre Plaza.

Conceived by American saxophonist Steve Lehman and composer Frédéric Maurin, artistic director of the Orchestre National de Jazz, in close collaboration with the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM) in Paris, the “Ex Machina” project “explores new musical directions” by developing a game of real-time interactions between the soloists and a form of artificial intelligence in the context of a large jazz ensemble.

Resulting from a collaboration with the Musical Representations team of Ircam directed by Gérard Assayag, the Ex Machina project integrates devices created from the DYCI2 environment by Jérôme Nikapour in the composition process and in the soloists’ improvisations in real time. Thus, the computer and its software become in turn “a generator of electronic orchestrations for the composers and an improvisation partner for the musicians”.

A most singular project, its presentation at Off Jazz, this Friday at the Théâtre Plaza, deserves our full attention. This justifies this conversation with its conceptors !

PAN M 360: What “machine” are we talking about here?

STEVE LEHMAN : In this context, the “machine” refers to the DYCI2 Software but also all of the other tools we often use as part of our compositional process: ableton live, max/msp, spear, open music, etc.

PAN M 360: What is the DYC12 environment?

STEVE LEHMAN : DYCI2 (not DYC12) is a computer-driven musical environment capable of responding intelligently to live and pre-recorded audio signals from acoustic instruments and other sources.

PAN M 360: Then, is artificial intelligence involved ?

STEVE LEHMAN : Yes, DYCI2, is meant to demonstrate a kind of (artificially) intelligent musical behavior.

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN : But it seems to me that the term AI is sometimes overused, at least in the kind of music we make, because it’s still a system that needs human ideas to work.

PAN M 360: How were the triggers designed to generate this dialogue?

STEVE LEHMAN: Triggers are used in this context more for work with pre-recorded audio and synthesizers. The real-time interaction doesn’t involve triggers.

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN: In this context, triggers are used more for working with pre-recorded audio and synthesizers. Real-time interaction doesn’t involve triggers, other than sending a signal to the DYCI2 system that says “now listen to this instrument”.

PAN M 360: What was the commitment of IRCAM, generally dedicated to contemporary electroacoustic music, in this creative process?

STEVE LEHMAN : Fred and I worked in close collaboration with researcher, Jerome Nikapour, to explore and in some cases expand the capacity of DYCI2 and its integration into our written and improvised music for acoustic instruments.

PAN M 360: How did this collaboration with IRCAM come about?

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN: On my side, I had been in contact with IRCAM for some time and I had taken several of their courses.

STEVE LEHMAN : When Fred became director of the ONJ, he opened up a dialogue with IRCAM which led to this collaboration and co-commission of the piece “Ex Machina.” Personally, I have also been involved in various projects with IRCAM and a guest researcher and artist-in-residence since 2011.

PAN M 360: What is the part of the collective performance beyond its interaction with DYCI2 ?

STEVE LEHMAN : There is a great deal of notated music for the ensemble. And the formal design of the music is structured in great detail as well.

PAN M 360: How much of this is improvisation? Individual performances?

STEVE LEHMAN : Yes. Individual solos and then individual solos that happen in the context/structure of a given composition.

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN: There are both individual solos and a duet that form a kind of “cadenza” and individual solos that occur within the context/structure of a given composition with sometimes the whole orchestra playing.

PAN M 360 : Why “39”? Why “Ex Machina”?

STEVE LEHMAN : For “39”, you’ll have to ask Fred. For ‘“Ex Machina”, it’s away to evoke the idea that certain aspects of the music come “from the machine” And maybe also a subtle reference to Gérard Grisey’s “Tempus ex Machina.”

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN: For “39”, it’s very simple: it was the provisional working title of this piece because it was the 39th piece I was writing for a large ensemble and then in the middle of a rehearsal, a musician from the orchestra said to me “keep this title, because at the moment many people are at 39°C because of the illness”. So I kept it.

PAN M 360: You can see some excerpts of the performance of this work by the NYO on YouTube… Will an album be recorded?

STEVE LEHMAN : Yes, we will record in late-January with a release anticipated in Fall 2023.

PAN M 369: Can you explain how your paths (Steve and Frédéric) crossed and what your common interests were in carrying out this project?

STEVE LEHMAN : Fred and I met in Paris after a concert I presented there with my octet in 2016. We quickly discovered that we had a great deal of musical interests in common, including a deep interest in the French Spectral school of composition (Tristan Murail, Gérard Grisey) and it’s potential integration into improvised music.

PAN M 360: Do you know of any other projects of that kind, i.e., an interaction between contemporary jazz and electronic devices favoring an interaction, or even a work put together in real time?

STEVE LEHMAN : Not so many. But I think George Lewis and his development of the Voyager software for real-time interaction is an important precedent that one should note.

PAN M 360: How was this approach received by audiences?

STEVE LEHMAN : Extremely enthusiastic! We have received standing ovations at all of our first 5 concerts in Paris, Amsterdam, NYC, Washington DC, and Brown University. It’s a good feeling. I think audiences see and hear that the entire ensemble is 100% invested in the music. And I think there is a sense that this project involves a good deal of risk and exploration. And it seems that listeners connect and appreciate that a great deal.

PAN M 360: What will be the instrumentation in Montreal? Is this the line-up?

Steve Lehman – Compositions, alto saxophone

Frédéric Maurin – Compositions, direction

Fanny Ménégoz – Flute, alto flute, piccolo

Catherine Delaunay – Clarinet, basset horn

Steve Lehman – Alto saxophone

Julien Soro – Tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet

Fabien Debellefontaine – Baritone saxophone, clarinet, flute

Jonathan Finlayson – Trumpet

Fabien Norbert – Trumpet

Daniel Zimmermann – Trombone

Christiane Bopp – Trombone

Fanny Meteier – Tuba

Chris Dingman – Vibraphone

Stéphan Caracci – Marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel

Enzo Carniel – Piano

Sarah Murcia – Double bass

Rafaël Koerner – Drums

STEVE LEHMAN: Yes, that’s right. You should also include Dionysios Papanikolaou – Live Electronics.

PAN M 360: How do you situate this approach in a context where “serious” jazz has every interest in renewing itself?

STEVE LEHMAN: I’m not sure I understand the question. But as a student of both Jackie McLean and Tristan Murail, I can say that this projects feel very personal to this group but also 100% consistent with the never-ending evolution of the traditions of both jazz and spectral music.

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN: I believe that jazz is precisely a music that is always reinventing itself since its beginnings. It has never stopped and it continues today ! The problem today comes rather from a part of the critics and from certain places or festivals that believe that this music should be the one that was played 70, 60 or 50 years ago. But it is the history of jazz to evolve. In 1947, some critics and programmers said that bebop was not jazz. History repeats itself.

PAN M 360: Sorry, the wording of this question may be reductive and confusing. The intention was rather to underline that your approach is extremely relevant in a context that is more difficult and less favorable to jazz than it was, which has little to do with its real creativity.

FRÉDÉRIC MAURIN: No problem. Indeed, we agree that times are not very conducive to risk-taking despite the incredible vivacity of artists.

PHOTO CREDIT : SYLVAIN GRIPOIX

EX MACHINA DE L’ONJ, IS PERFORMED THIS FRIDAY, 8 PM , AT THÉÂTRE PLAZA AND PRESENTED BY L’OFF FESTIVAL DE JAZZ DE MONTRÉAL – INFOS + TICKERS HERE !

In contact with electronic music (Drum N Bass, Jungle, House) since her teenage years, Denise Rabe has followed a creative path marked by stages and encounters that have, as a DJ and producer, gradually led her to find her place in the techno world. Since then, the German has played in the most famous clubs in her country and has collaborated with figures of atmospheric industrial and abstract techno like producer Rrose and Shxcxchcxsh. The uniqueness of Denise Rabe’s work is illustrated through the subtle blurring of the boundaries between experimental and pure dancefloor-oriented techno, as evidenced by her latest EP Blame Me—featuring remixes of The Advent, TWR72, and Cri Du Coeur.

DJ set hör

PAN M 360: Can you introduce yourself through two/three events or encounters during your career that shaped you into the artist you are today?

Denise Rabe: The most important encounters were when I was 16. My friend Exzeme taught me turntablism. I loved it and bought my first Technics turntable. My first little experience on stage scared me so much that I never wanted to do it again in public. 10 years later (2011) when I moved to Berlin [which has another whole universe in it, why and so on, but we wanna keep it short] I changed my mind and wanted to go for it and recorded my first Soundcloud set. Here I met the boys from Legotek and played shows in About Blank, Sisyphos, GoldenGate, Tresor … 2014 I met Emmanuel from ARTS through a Tresor gig, we hung out afterward and I showed him my first productions, he liked it and this is how my first EP with the incredible Rrose Remix was born.

PAN M 360: What can you tell me about the creative process and inspiration for the Blame Me EP?

Denise Rabe: This is always the hardest question for me to answer. It starts with a recording and then takes me to a place I had no idea I would end up. But I remember I wanted to work with some ACID sounds. It turned out sounding definitely not like the usual ACID tracks, not even close I would say. But that’s completely normal for my process I start with an inspiration and in the end, even I can’t hear the connection anymore. But I like that it’s so surprising and that’s important for me in a creative process. Find your way and sound. If I wanna do something specific I end up frustrated most of the time. I need to go with the flow.

PAN M 360: About the art of remix in general, is this something you like to do? What’s your approach to this specific exercise?

Denise Rabe: It depends, if the sounds are interesting it is easier to work with and it’s more inspiring. It is definitely more challenging when the track has a hi-hat, a clap, a kick, and one or two sounds only. The last one is tougher for sure but also a good challenge and practice to work on your skills. Making a good track with not so many elements is not so easy. But yes most of the time I enjoy doing it.

PAN M 360: When I listen to your music, I feel there is an interesting balance between dancefloor-oriented and more contemplative/experimental musical elements, does one side influence the other, and if so, how?

Denise Rabe: I am always in the middle of you must do some dance floor stuff and the other half is more on the artsy side of things. I want it to be danceable cause every (Techno) producer wants to hear their tracks played by others. I try to find the balance between artsy and what works for the people in the clubs. Music should come naturally because it is something very personal and I would say my music is and mostly I have the best flow on breakbeats, it comes more naturally. No idea why. So I would say the experimental one is influencing the dance floor music.

PAN M 360: How do you organize your working time between production and DJing? How do you manage your pace that I suppose goes crazy quick in Berlin?

Denise Rabe: Usually I do my DJ stuff the week before the gig but then I can’t do anything else. Depends also on how many gigs I have and how much time is in between, if I play more regularly—the prep for the shows is quicker. When there is a bigger gap it needs more time again, to recall the music and my organization of it. It helps to do podcasts so you have some stuff to go through as well. The digital is a blessing and a curse at the same time. You don’t have to carry all the records anymore but the amount of music to choose from is too much. That is what overwhelms me sometimes. And I do sit in the studio when it feels right. Not every day is a day to be creative. I recently figured I am not a machine, and I have to respect that. The more pressure I put on myself—the less music comes out. “No pressure” is my new mantra.

PAN M 360: How did the collaboration with Arkham Audio happen? Do you have ties with the Belgian techno scene?

Denise Rabe: I met Jerome (Cri Du Coeur) through my good friend Sammy one of the CYRK guys who is from Belgium and manages the label.

PAN M 360: You are also managing your own label, Rabe. From your experience, what are the biggest challenges in distributing music nowadays?

Denise Rabe: Definitely in Germany, Deutsche Post became the biggest enemy for Bandcamp sales. They changed the size and price of the packaging worldwide. On the other hand Triple Vision is doing the job of distributing. Of course, the environmental aspect, the time it takes and the costs make you think twice to press and what to press. That’s also why I started the digital-only series now Rabexxx.

PAN M 360: Will you be featuring other artists’ work on Rabe in the future?

Denise Rabe: For now I am focusing on the digital side of the label to work with other artists in collaborations. The first one was with Ricardo Garduno. I am definitely open to opening up the Label in the future, but not yet. We will see I want that it happens naturally.

You could walk outside your door right now, pick up a small pebble, and toss it across the street, and the chances you hit the dwelling of a Montreal musician are pretty high. Many of them make Lo-Fi music; music that sounds a bit “dusty” due to production restrictions—or in the case of the duo project Tinkertoy Fog Machine from Kai Thorpe and Tyrin Kelly—on purpose.

Living up to their name, Thorpe and Kelly are meticulous ‘tinkerers,’ using DIY recording techniques until their music sounds like a beat-up and forgotten cassette that has been manipulated and warbled from playing it too many times. It’s psychedelia that kind of sounds different with every play. Just check out their 2021 release Fingers Crossed.

The two bandmates are definitely on the same wavelength as longtime friends, roommates, and members of the local dance-punk group, Crasher, and backing musicians for Boyhood, an alt-rock group from Ontario.

This past summer, Thorpe, and Kelly have been refining the Tinkertoy live show and are planning on going back into the studio with hopes to record more material, meshing with their DIY aesthetics.

We chatted with both Thorpe and Kelly before their performance at Pop Montreal on Oct 1.

PAN M 360: How did Tinkertoy Fog Machine get its start?

Kai Thorpe: We’ve been playing music together since we were like 15. We met in high school so this is kind of just like a continuation of like all these projects that like kind of ended up changing their names over the years so yeah. I guess we’ve been Tinkertoy since 2017. That’s when we moved here from Ottawa.

PAN M 360: And is the music created through jamming or made on a computer program? I can never tell with Lo-Fi stuff like this.

Kai Thorpe: This is like computer song music, but not completely. I feel like that’s kind of discrediting it in a way in my books because I don’t personally find that very glamorous, but the songs were definitely not thought up on the spot. I think maybe we like we jam at the beginning of it to get the first idea, but then it’s all totally layered in Ableton. But then for recording, we have like an eight-track reel to reel that we end up re-recording into.

Tyrin Kelly: Yeah I think the initial ideas come from Ableton demos and loops but then we try to recreate it with more live-off-the-floor energy. Our roots are analog things. We like analog.

PAN M 360: Ah you use reel-to-reel. The recordings sound very vintage too, like finding a dusty cassette under a bed. Not dated, but Lo-Fi and washed out for a purpose.

Tyrin Kelly: We actually spent like a month just like re-amping … like this was kind of our like experimental recording stage, but we’re trying to like teach ourselves like, how to record ourselves. So we’d like to be re-amped like every single instrument 10 times without thinking about getting it done in any way. So we would send vocals and like drums through guitar amps. And then if it sounds bad we discard it, or if it sounds kind of good, we’ll save it. So we can kind of just do that over everything. Just to give a kind of a more like, like you said, ‘dusty vintagey’ vibe.

Kai Thorpe: I feel like it paid off in the end (laughs).

PAN M 360: It kind of reminds me of really, really old Tame Impala demos. Before, he was huge. So do you have a lot of l older vintage equipment? I guess you have the reel-to-reel but any other analog kind of stuff that you play around with?

Kai Thorpe: We have like outboard gear like preamps and some mics. I built some of the preamps and compressors too. Also for like our instruments, I think I have the same guitar the Tame Impala guy has. It’s a Hagstrom 1970 I think? I got it for like 600 bucks from a guy in Longueuil, like an old rocker guy. Now they cost so much.

PAN M 360: Do you guys handle the lyrics together as well?

Kai Thorpe: I’d say everything is like a 50/50 split. Like everything is shared between Tyrin and I. It’s definitely a joint effort.

Tyrin Kelly: And I just wanted to say that the two singles we have out right now, we spent a lot of time on them and maybe overthought them a bit too much? But it was a good process of kind of reinventing our sound so it’s cool to hear that it sounds a bit unique because it was a lot of tinkering around with it.

PAN M 360: Well I’d say the name Tinkertoy Fog Machine makes sense then if you’re constantly tinkering with your sound. And you guys have a silkscreen printing project together as well? Is it linked to Tinkertoy or do you do it on the side?

Kai Thorpe: Aesthetically it is, but this is mainly Tyrin’s project [Trap Door Printing] but it’s all one thing if that makes sense?

Tyrin Kelly: Yeah I feel especially with screen printing specifically, there’s so much correlation between it and like, DIY music. So yeah, I guess we did we printed the cover art. A lot of show posters on street poles voters. And, like just references to the early Montreal scene … there were a lot of like silkscreen posters. I just like the idea of like keeping that alive.

PAN M 360: So would you say you’re going to take the Fall and Winter to keep playing live and then look at recording some new material? Another two singles or a full-length LP?

Kai Thorpe: The next step is a record. We want to do a full length, but it’s kind of daunting, you know? Making a cohesive body of work. I feel like it’s kind of daunting, but I think that’s the next step.

Tyrin Kelly: And if we recorded with someone else, it would be with someone we’re close with and still that sort of DIY mentality. We like to have creative control and we know what we like. The reason why you do DIY is that every step of it is creative. Like you do the mixing stage and it’s creative. Mastering is creative. All of it is creative.

PAN M 360: For sure. What’s the live show at POP Montreal going to be like?

Kai Thorpe: When people see us now they always say ‘Wow I was expecting something totally different.’ It’s more of a psych rock vibe with lots of tweaks that need to be sorted out. We have a four-piece live band. So we have like a keyboard player and a guitarist, and then I play bass and sing and Tyrin plays drums.

Tyrin Kelly: I feel like we play Fingers Crossed and then everything else is pretty much unreleased. Like work to try them out live recording them, I guess. And yeah, I guess we spent the summer just trying to be better by playing live a lot. That’s kind of been our main focus for now.

Tinkertoy Fog Machine plays w/ Sun Entire, Max d Tremblay, and Cobra & Vulture at l’Escogriffe Bar on Oct 1 @ 9pm. TICKETS HERE

Haruna Kimishima is known in Japan as Haru Nemuri. Without claiming to know much about the current Japanese musical spectrum, it is easy to acknowledge the talent of this artist who will probably make a big splash at Pop Montreal this Saturday.

Typhoon of punk poetry and rap, hardcore aesthetics with virtuoso components, the music of this brilliant artist also involves J-Pop, noise or electro referents.

We owe him 3 albums and an EP since 2018: “Harutosyura” (2018), “Kick in the World” (EP, 2018), “Lovetheism” (2020), “Shounka Ryougen” (2022). Already, we can talk about consistency and depth across the board.

PAN M 360 just jumped on the bandwagon, we really insisted on making the following conversation with Haru Nemuri possible.

PAN M 360: How do you see the progression of your craft since the beginning?

HARU NEMURI: I’ve been making music by wanting to become stronger, more beautiful, and more dignified.

PAN M 360 : What would have been the main steps ?

HARU NEMURI: I think that progress is made by never stopping to question both society and myself.

PAN M 360 : Are you self-taught or also have you been trained in music?

HARU NEMURI: I am self-taught.

PAN M 360 : How did you build this language of sounds?

HARU NEMURI: I don’t know, to be honest (laugh). I actively use things that feel sacred, things that have a destructive feel, and things that have a compelling atmosphere.

PAN M 360 : Of course, different crucial influences are observed : hardcore punk, avant rock, rap, avant pop, noize, synthpop, post-minimalism, nujazz, to name a few. What would be your own description of styles and influences from Japan, Occident and other parts of the world ?

HARU NEMURI: When it comes to Japanese music, I first fell in love with bands that are categorized as “ROCKIN’ON-kei (style)”. As for western music I like alternative and hardcore bands and in Russian punk and hip-hop.

PAN M 360 : There seems to be no separation between experimental culture and popular forms in your approach. How do you see it yourself?

HARU NEMURI: To me I think it’s interesting to have both coexisting and I’m consciously creating that state.

PAN M 360 : So you are « closer to the ideal », better in composition and playing. How do you work in your studio?

HARU NEMURI: I can’t really see the destination of where the ideal is as of yet, but I think so. Basically, I make all the songs at home and then in the studio I’m often taking time recording and spending time mixing.

PAN M 350 : For you, what are the main differences between « LOVETHEISM » album and « SHUNKA RYOUGEN »?

HARU NEMURI: I think “SHUNKA RYOUGEN” has a blank space where there are more existences of others.

PAN M 360 : The musicianship seems to be excellent! Can you tell us how you have built your band?

HARU NEMURI: Depending on the situation, the case, and the piece of music, I decide each time who I want to have them join the performance. I decide who to play with based on if they are not discriminatory and cool.

PAN M 360 :Who is playing what in the studio?

HARU NEMURI: Depending on the song, guitar, bass, and drums are often performed by musicians who specialize in each.

PAN M 360 : How is it translated on stage? What is the gear? Who is playing with you? What is the visual aspect of your show? What is the performing aspect? Are there a lot of electronics involved?

HARU NEMURI: I often hear my own sound through a monitor. From the computer through an interface the sound is outputted from two guitar amps, one bass amp, and speakers. The mic is passed through a vocal effector. My manager is operating the computer and controlling the sound to come out.

PAN M 360: Most of your international fans do not understand the Japanese language. They feel the poetic intentions and they love the music. Is it okay with you?

HARU NEMURI: Of course. It gives a lot of meaning to my choice of using music as an expression.

PAN M 360 : Do you see your craft as songwriting or music composition including words and melodies through a musical proposal?

HARU NEMURI: I think it would be the second one. (music composition including words and melodies through a musical proposal).

PAN M 360 : You can play in many kinds of festivals. What are your favorite events ? Where do you mainly perform in Asia and in the rest of the world ?

HARU NEMURI: Every event I’ve attended so far has been great. I don’t actually have a specific venue that I always perform at but in Asia it would be in Tokyo and Taiwan. For the rest of the world, I go to Europe and America. I’d love to go anywhere.

PAN M 360: So this is it! Thank you for your answers and have a safe flight to Montreal!

HARU NEMURI: Thank you so much!

AT POP MONTRÉAL, HARU NEMURI IS PERFORMING AT ENTREPÔT 77, ON SATURDAY, 10 PM. FOR MORE INFOS CLICK HERE.