Interviews

When GWAR blew “The Horn of Hate,” Pustulus Maximus, the meanest member of the Maximus Tribe was summoned to Earth. Stranded in Antarctica since his Scumship was stolen, Pustulus Maximus has taken the lead guitarist role of the intergalactic alien rock band GWAR, since the passing of Cory Smoot (Flattus Maximus) in 2011. 

Flattus Maximus returned to his beloved “Planet Home,” never to return to this mudball planet again. Out of respect to Cory, after the character Flattus Maximus was retired, Brent Purgason (Against the Grain, U.S. Bastards, and former Cannabis Corpse guitarist) joined GWAR’s ranks debuting with the band in a video on the A.V. Club, playing Kansas’ 1976 hit tune “Carry on My Wayward Son.”

GWAR has persevered through numerous deaths in their collective including singer Dave Brockie, (Oderus Urungus) – which left the group without any of its founding members. Returning to the killing fields, led by Blöthar the Berserker, 2017’s The Blood of Gods was an album that paid respect to the loss of Oderus and the struggles and triumphs that produced the new sound of the band. 

The New Dark Ages, GWAR’s 15th studio album and newest record could be the most diverse GWAR record to date. the album’s story involves GWAR, now lost in the Duoverse (“like the multiverse, but it’s a little shittier”), joining forces with a “murderous maven” known as The Cutter and fighting off living monuments and undead soldiers waging a New Civil War. The New Dark Ages is the second GWAR album after Brockie’s passing, and the third album with guitarist Pustulus Maximus writing and performing lead guitar duties.  

Speaking to PAN M 360, from their fortress in Antarctica, Pustulus Maximus tells us a bit about the new GWAR record, the companion graphic novel The Duoverse of Absurdity—the importance of fresh blood, and the regression of our species into a new dark age.

PAN M 360: How has Pustulus Maximus guitar style evolved since hearing “The Horn of Hate,” and entering the ranks of GWAR in your debut with the band in Battle Maximus? 

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): Battle Maximus was another healing period for the band, when I had joined they had the majority of the material written. I was able to contribute to tracks like: “I Bonesnapper,” and “Madness at the core of time,” but for the most part, it was kind of there. My initial idea was not to part from the Flattus Maximus style too much at first. Once we were able to do The Blood of Gods, there was more freedom; we were able to write that album as a band together. Today’s GWAR has come into its own sound, our newest record The New Dark Ages, is a continuation of that, another record we were able to write together—this one really has no outside trauma.

PAN M 360: GWAR is currently embarked on “The Black Death Rager World Tour.” It’s a very busy time for GWAR to bring the bubonic plague to us mortals. What can you tell us about this upcoming GWAR invasion and what can we mortals expect?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): This spring tour is a great tour and we are showcasing some songs off the new record, but this fall is when we’re going to debut an entirely brand new show, a new storyline encompassing all the themes and ideas touched on The New Dark Ages. It’s also going to highlight the companion piece The Duoverse of Absurdity, a graphic novel that goes with the new record. This fall is going to be awesome. 

PAN M 360: Can you talk to us a bit about The Duoverse of Absurdity; you’re facing off against vomitous incarnations of yourself.  Will the new characters from the album or comic, like The Cutter, make their way into the new live shows? 

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): I don’t think there are any plans for a character like The Cutter making it onto the stage, the idea for her was pretty broad—The Cutter represents taking self-harm and directing it to harm others, which is kind of what GWAR does. We harm everyone else, we don’t harm ourselves. I don’t think there’s any mention of that character in the comics but it was fantastic working with Lizzy Hale (Halestorm) on that song. 

PAN M 360: I know Pustulus, that you and Lizzy Hale are acquaintances having appeared on podcasts together. What was it like bringing her into the GWAR fold to represent a character in the universe?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): Bringing Lizzy Hale on was great. She’s an amazingly talented human. Her abilities far surpass normal human abilities for sure; she might even be from another world, like us. She was awesome enough to want to do this with us and we definitely appreciate her contributions. She took a very small part of a song and made it huge; we are forever in her debt.

PAN M 360: GWAR has always been a unique collection of artists and musicians. Merged under one roof in 1984 creating art on their own terms, it’s a collective very much split generationally apart. What is needed to continue such a visceral concept and keep things interesting throughout all these years? Is it the belief, love, and voluntary devotion to this art form that keeps GWAR going?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): Very similar to Nosferatu or Elizabeth Bathory, GWAR continues to thrive on fresh blood. As long as there’s a good supply we’ll always be able to continue. It’s really one of GWAR’s biggest strengths. Not only are we an art ensemble, but the cast and characters continues to increase. By continuing to bring new and young members into the band we can continue forever. Not to mention we are always guided by the guidance of our elders. 

PAN M 360: There has been a lot of heartbreak and devastation in the ranks of the GWAR family. Can we talk a bit about pushing through those darker and tumultuous times as a band and how you’ve got through it as a band?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): GWAR is such a monumental force in all our lives; it doesn’t really become an option to quit. It would be like taking something that’s in every part of your being and trying to reinvent yourself into something new without it, it’s simply not an option. GWAR will persevere through any challenge, any tragedy it has to face, as hard as it may be at any time. 

PAN M 360: Across the 15 tracks on The New Dark Ages, there’s an eclectic ability for GWAR to jump between genres while keeping its roots heavy. GWAR has never been a band who’s been afraid of genre constraints, bUT can you talk to us a bit about The New Dark Ages, these songs, and the metal genre of music.

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): The New Dark Ages, as far as stylistically things are considered, it’s all the same to me: Distorted guitar, offshoots of rock n roll, and heavy metal. You can say it’s an eclectic record, that’s fair, but to me, they’re all branches on the same tree. As far as the themes contained there within, humanity has trapped itself with its own technology. In doing so with the rejection of science and the rejection of knowledge, as a race, humanity has returned to the dark ages. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. You’re regressing as a planet and as a species.

Current Lineup of GWAR

PAN M 360: Some concepts Blöthar the Barbarian expresses in The New Dark Ages have to do with lies, liars, and moral ambiguity. Over the course of a few tracks, he expresses how, “lies have become contagious,” how “ancient lies are recycled,” or GWAR’s hate of “Mother Fucking Liars.” How do lies represent The New Dark Ages?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): “Mother Fucking Liar” is a very loaded track. It’s probably the track with the least amount of lyrics but the most serious theme. It’s not only about liars and two-faced political parties, it’s also about humanity’s obsession with cancel culture and not just the black and white view most people have. With cancel culture, you not only shut someone down but you prevent the ability for that person to ever grow by defining a being by a single action. This is fine for us because GWAR doesn’t care about the affair of humans, but we like to point out your flaws and rub your nose in them, which is why that song is important to us. In that respect, it also reflects politicians like Donald Trump and the war on the truth in the media—that you can present someone with evidence and they can flat out deny it, it’s true for both people on the left and right; they’re maniacs on both sides. 

PAN M 360: With GWAR’s rich history of killing, dismembering, and maiming people which displease them are there any “Mother Fucking Liars,” getting the axe this time around?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): President Joe Biden is usually the first victim on this tour. He seems to think he can hijack the GWAR show and use it as a platform for political peace. If you are not a member of GWAR and you try to get on stage with us you will quickly be dispatched and your bodily fluids will be on the audience in a celebration of your death.

 

PAN M 360: Can you talk to us a bit about the humans behind GWAR. In July, GWAR will release a documentary about the human thralls which make GWAR possible.

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): It takes a lot. By watching the documentary, you’ll plainly see how much of each person’s lives this band occupies, which is pretty much all of it. It’s very much who we are to the core of our character. The documentary does a good job showing that there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes and there is a human side to it. We are easily dismissed as a costumed rock band. We’re a theatre troupe makings its way in a rock and metal world, playing venues traditionally reserved for rock bands … No theatre or opera house is going to let us cover the hall in blood and guts, it’s really like Monty Pythons Flying Circus for us mixed with heavy and lewd political satire – it takes a lot of creative ideas and creative people to pull together and make these things happen. 

PAN M 360: GWAR and the band Ghoul are good friends in the heavy metal world. The last GWAR concert I caught, I believe those maniacs from Creepsylvania opened for you. What did GWAR teach those young axe murderers, and was it fun bringing another band known for their bloodletting on the road with you?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): Ghoul is great. They’re a band that apparently never learned all the lessons GWAR has tried to teach them and they’ve repeated the very same mistakes GWAR has made time and again on the road. It is hilarious to watch. GWAR used to tour in a school bus, but it broke down all the time and didn’t go very fast. Ghoul thought it was a good idea to tour in a similar bus and it’s currently stranded in the middle of Wyoming. It didn’t survive one tour. Hilarious—because it’s not our problem, but if it was up to us, we would only tour with Ghoul. They’re more so a heavy metal band, the theatrics are important to them, but they’re not spilling the same amount of blood as us onstage. 

PAN M 360: How important is showering to you after a GWAR show?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): It’s definitely important to me. I can’t go a single day without showering—it’s about hygiene and staying healthy on the road. There’s this thing imbedded in some people’s heads that they have to live up to their punk rock street cred and be gross all the time, which is fine but if you’re sick for a couple of days it could cause the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s not just money we put in our pockets, but money to pay for the bus, hotel, production, trucks, etc. In my head, not taking care of your body is a bit selfish, but whatever we’re a rock band—you got to be ready to get your asshole licked at any time of the day so it’s good to take a shower. 

PAN M 360: As the human thrall for Pustulus Maximus, I believe you’ve almost hit five years of sobriety. Congratulations on that by the way. Has it been easier to balance your busy work and life schedule with a clear head? How much has that helped you as a touring musician these last few years?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): 100 percent. Thanks for paying attention to that aspect of my life and what I’ve been doing and accomplishing, I appreciate that. I wouldn’t have all the things on my plate if I was still out drinking and getting high. Some people can do it and stay in control others completely lose control. Drinking all those years I was a high-functioning alcoholic, I could still get a lot done but something I couldn’t accomplish as effectively or accomplish all the way to the best of my abilities. I’ve always been in the habit of putting too much on my plate, but doing this now with a clear mind I’ve been able to now live the life I want and everything has improved so greatly. Touring with older people and watching some of your idols fall, made me think about how much I want to do this forever. Being sober and taking care of yourself is a very important step in the longevity of the touring life. 

PAN M 360: I read recently that Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie said cocaine and champagne made her performances better during her time with that band. Are there any performance-enhancing drugs GWAR recommends to aid in the bloodletting, not necessarily the human thrall Brent Purgason, of course? 

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): GWAR always recommends crack cocaine. 

PAN M 360: Is crack cocaine the defining drug in the GWAR mythology?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): It is, simply because Earth is the only place in the universe where you can find crack. 

PAN M 360: Does GWAR have an opinion on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): GWAR does not have a political opinion on the Ukraine conflict, other than we would hope the United States and Russia will team up together and bring back the bomb, fast-forwarding humanity’s destruction on the face of the earth.  

PAN M 360: What is your take, Pustulus, as the monster with the most skin lesions, on Monkeypox? How do you feel about this infectious virus infecting humanity? Making their skin blister and boil?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): Hopefully Monkeypox will be a great sequel to Covid-19 and we hope to bring some back and cultivate it in the United States when we return from Europe this summer. 

PAN M 360: Pustulus you’ve personally killed both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ. Does GWAR still celebrate the holiday season after you massacred the two most important Christmas deities?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): GWAR are very much into the spirit of receiving around the Christmas season. We never feel very spiritual but New Year’s Eve is always a good time for GWAR to celebrate and try to cause the potential end of the world. That’s why we have our new alcoholic beverages for sale, there’s nothing planned yet but hopefully, something will be in the works.

PAN M 360: There’s so much going on in the world of GWAR right now. Is there any last thing GWAR would like to say to humanity in these new dark ages?

Brent Purgason (Pustulus Maximus): Europe this summer, then the USA in the fall. We’ll be recording something secret in the background that we can’t talk to you about yet, but there’s always something new coming out in the GWAR universe. 

After “Free Grillz”, a noticed single released last April, Magi Merlin continues her rise with the Gone Girl EP, her most accomplished project to date. For this second EP, the singer-songwriter skilfully and creatively picks from R&B, soul, hip-hop, and house music of the 1990s. The lyrics that the Quebecer puts on it are full and direct. Originally from Saint-Lazare, a white suburb, she addresses her identity as a black woman, ordinary racism, and the anger it arouses. This EP sounds like an emotional discharge (catharsis) allowing the artist to assert herself. On the EP as on stage, the energy of the rapper is explosive.

We spoke with Magi Merlin as she was on tour in Europe. After a European tour with several sold-out dates, Magi Merlin will delight the audience at the Montreal International Jazz Festival (July 8) and the Quebec Summer Festival (July 16). Two dates not to be missed.

PAN M 360: With Gone Girl, you don’t hesitate to reappropriate some hip-hop codes, your energy transpires assurance and confidence, “Free Grillz” and “Children of Fate” both sound more raw: the people who know your previous releases will certainly see an evolution, musically and aesthetically speaking. What (or what encounters in life) led you to take this artistic direction?

Magi Merlin: When it came to this project, I was interested in fully embodying a self-assured, confidently unapologetic character. It started with tracks like “Pissed Black Girl” where I was writing from a perspective of anger instead of sadness (which was my go-to emotion for while) and there was a lot of power in that. For the rest of the songs, “Free Grillz,” “Children of Fate,” and “Milkweed” all have this unapologetic tone. Being able to just write without fear was something that was really inspiring.

“Free Grillz” by Magi Merlin

PAN M 360: I understand the idea of contrast (opposition even) between music and lyrics is central to “Pissed Black Girl.” Why this choice, and what does this creative approach bring to the track?

Magi Merlin: I really loved the fact that the message and music of the track don’t initially feel cohesive with each other but they actually complement each other quite well. At the end of the day, that song is about taking power and using it to speak your mind. expressing discontentment or disappointment doesn’t have to be negative. I liked that the instrumental of “Pissed Black Girl” has this carefree energy. Voicing our anger is step one after that the job we have to do is to let that anger go. To hold onto anger and sadness amongst other heavier emotions weighs yourself down, you can feel angry but after a while, it’s time to dance.

“Pissed Black Girl” – Magi Merlin

PAN M 360: It’s true Gone Girl feels like a mixtape (short tracks with strong identities, interludes), was it intentional? How did you build this EP? 

Magi Merlin: I wanted Gone Girl to live within its own universe. I wanted that character that I was trying to embody to live somewhere that I could access easily and that became the Gone Girl project! I suppose I always want my projects to feel cohesive and purposeful the way long-form musical projects often feel to me!

PAN M 360: Funkywhat (producer) and Walid Jabri (director) are longtime collaborators, what can you tell me about your work relationship with them? 

Magi Merlin: What really defines the relationships for me is the effortlessness when working together. There is never a point where I feel unheard of or misunderstood. I’m also quite close with both guys on a personal level I think that also plays into things as well. I am able to communicate with them both outside of work and I think that aids in how we communicate as well. 

PANM360: On the cover of the EP and in the clip of “Pissed Black Girl” you wear a splint on your middle finger, this detail caught my eye. What’s the story behind it?

Magi Merlin: Haha! well, for the PBG cover art I really wanted to have the title of the song written in flames on the front lawn. The only place that was feasible was at my mother’s house in St-Lazare, outside of the city. I had to borrow my partner’s car to be able to get the team out to St-Laz for the shoot so I took it the night before and had the WORST luck finding parking. The only place I was able to find required me to move the car by 7 am. The next morning I woke up early to move this car, mind you, I don’t drive often especially in the city so I was a bit stressed and stress makes me very distracted. I hopped in the car, looked for the keys, and found the keys (amazing) I’m ready to go. I go to close the door to leave without noticing that my entire ass hand was still outside of the car. So I slam the car door onto my hand. I looked and my finger looked pretty funny. It was kind of stuck in this bent forward position.

I waited another hour or so for everyone to get to my place, which was also around the same time my local Familyprix opened. I went to buy a little splint and the colour ended up matching my makeup. I had convinced myself that it was just a sprain or something it took another two weeks before I finally took myself to the hospital to check if it was actually broken (I was in denial) it was broken, my nail fell off, and everything.

Magi Merlin and her splint

PAN M 360: How do you feel about ending the Gone Girl tour in Montreal? How would you describe your relationship with the city and your audience here? 

Magi Merlin: I’m always happy to be home, to be able to play for the people who have been supporting me and my music for years. Honestly, it’s always a surprise to come back home, play, and hear people singing my lyrics with me. It’s a shock every time!! I can’t wait for the next show!

MAGI MERLIN AT MONTREAL JAZZ FESTIVAL, JULY 8 , CLUB SODA

MAGI MERLIN AT FESTIVAL D’ÉTÉ DE QUÉBEC, JULY 16, PARC DE LA FRANCOPHONIE, 17H50

A rising star on the Canadian West Coast, trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser and bandleader Feven Kidane is coming to the Casa Del Popolo this Wednesday for a meet and greet with the Suoni Per Il Popolo audience. PAN M 360 noticed her among the many programs of the festival. Her openness to modern jazz and to many other musical styles. Here she talks about her Ethiopian heritage, her deep love of music, her versatility, and her perspective on jazz as a woman of African descent.

PAN M 360 : So you started with a harmonica left by your father and it led you to professional music. What was your state of mind as a child, music wise?

FEVEN KIDANE : As a child, I was surrounded by music always, whether in my head or playing aloud in the car, my room, my parents record player, the TV, you name it. From the age of four I knew I wanted to be a musician (though that took several turns, first starting with wanting to be a singer, then a piano player, then « an electric guitarist », a bass clarinetist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, etc). I will say that I have always struggled in making up my mind, so I suppose it would only make sense that I would be jumping instruments. I was mostly tinkering on anything that would make sound, starting with that harmonica. There was always a feeling that I was onto something, and I realized probably around the age of six that I had a gift. It feels so weird to say that about your childhood self as an adult, but I truly thought at that age that I would be selling out world tours and recording award-winning albums. Through all of the instruments I cycled through as a child, I always had my voice in the midst of it all. I remember trying to copy autotune from music videos I saw on TV in the second grade and absolutely losing it when I nailed a line with my voice. Back then I had no idea what autotune was of course, and I thought that all artists were fantastic singers (boy, was I wrong!)

Music, though, has always lived inside of me. Some of my earliest memories are of intentionally trying to make music. 

PAN M 360 : I could read that  you love Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, and Ahmad Jamal.  Can you add something about those preferences in modern jazz trumpet playing ?  Why more Lee Morgan than Clifford Brown? Fats Navarro ?  Woody Shaw?  Kenny Dorham? Miles?  Of course, Lee Morgan was a tremendous player. For piano playing Ahmad Jamal is an ultimate master and for composition and sax playing, Wayne Shorter is a true genius. How did you get into their music?

PAN M 360 : I should have included Clifford Brown from the start, as he is the one that really got me around on the trumpet. Anyone who starts on the trumpet in a serious manner needs to pay respect to Brownie by learning his work intimately. As far as Lee Morgan goes, Lee’s spirit really sang to me on the horn in a very youthful way, which is what originally attracted me. He was breaking out blues on bop in a playful way that was innovative and original. Young from day one until day none. Woody Shaw is actually my favorite trumpet player of all time and my biggest inspiration, but I wouldn’t have gotten to him if not for Clifford Brown. I want to make a big deal out of Clifford Brown because he really is a big deal. In terms of Woody Shaw, he is one of few trumpet players I feel like understood the tumultuous nature of the trumpet and its extrapolation into everyday life. At the time this was said, I don’t think I was deep into the nature of Shaw’s music; however that has drastically changed and I aspire to be at the same level as him if I have the privilege of doing so in this lifetime. For Fats and Kenny, I haven’t gotten to them yet. I haven’t done my full study of these other horn players (though Fats should definitely come soon) in order to feel like I should move onto them. I’m still dwelling and learning from Woody Shaw’s work before I can properly move onto another artist. One of my favorite albums is Miles’ « The Sorcerer ». I think it’s truly a masterpiece. His work is like a breath of fresh air, so melodic. Teaches that even one note can be artistic as long as its done with proper intention. I got into the music of these folks (including Ahmad Jamal, Wayne Shorter, etc) through my trumpet teacher back home in Vancouver, Brad Turner. He had a profound influence on me by introducing me to these amazing Black artists that shaped this entire idiom and pioneered it in such a groundbreaking fashion. At the school I graduated from, cats were passing album titles out left and right, so listening sessions were very common and popular. A great way to be introduced to great music in academics. 

PAN M 360 : Not jazzwise, your favorite band is the excellent franco-brit band Stereolab. You also pay respect to the late jazz fusion british guitar hero Allan Holdsworth.  From the UK, you also love Genesis when Peter Gabriel was leading.   How those musical crushes are landing in your music, consciously or not?

FEVEN KIDANE : This music definitely makes an impact on me in terms of personal relay, songwriting, and performance. My favorite elements of these artists is that they are not afraid of the unorthodox or the strange. They are teachers to me. When I think of Peter Gabriel, not only was he an incredible artist, but he knew how to sell a show to the public in terms of costume, delivery, and message. I think those are some essential pieces to being a musician. It taught me that the avant-garde spirit that lives inside of us all makes total sense, and is wholly relatable. Nobody can be a freak so lost in their own artistry that it doesn’t translate. That just isn’t possible. I relay that same lesson I learned through Peter Gabriel to Stereolab. Taking their tune « Velvet Water », it’s minutes of this shimmery, glistening synth making waves in your ears. Just beautiful. It’s setting a tone, a scene for your mind to prepare you for what’s coming next. One of their influences is Steve Reich, who I am also a big fan of. Repetition, exploration, and sound. Allan Holdsworth, god of the notes, falls into the latter two categories for me. All these artists wanted to (and still do want to) know the full dynamic of their musicianship. I find it very spiritually fulfilling and something I feel very much. 

PAN M 360 : I understand that you have some Ethiopian origins, right?  Being a big fan of ethio-jazz (Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astake, etc.) I’m curious about  your interest with this great modern culture since the 70’s, still very alive today.

FEVEN KIDANE : I love this question. My parents came to Canada in the late 80s and early 90s with a bunch of VHS tapes that they played for me constantly as a little one, so from a young age my ears were filled by an almost esoteric sense of musicianship. That stuff was holy to me. Still is. I am constantly floored by the magic Habesha music brings. There is an undeniable amount of skill that is extremely evident in not only the songwriting, but also the vocals. Habesha Music has always been a vehicle for historical storytelling, painting sorrows and joys in the most visceral way. Even just listening to it makes me feel closer to my ancestors. Music immortalizes past times, and as a Diasporan Habesha person, I find this music a crucial and accessible part of my identity. 

PAN M 360 : Being a multi-instrumentalist nowadays is an advantage for an open vision, but as you say, it can also limit you in the music world. How do you see your own development  as a versatile instrumentalist and music creator?

FEVEN KIDANE : I love being a multi-instrumentalist. For example, for my solo set at Suoni, I am trying to play some of my electronic music for the first time in a band setting. That alone is pushing my personal limits. I wouldn’t say that being a multi-instrumentalist is extremely limiting by any means, but it certainly tells you the boundaries of what each instrument can do. The vastness of my practice allows me to draw from different sectors in order to think in a different way. There is no cohesiveness to the way I write, not exactly. Each instrument has its own music I make. Altogether it sheds a bit of light into what I find musically intriguing or interesting, and that’s been a joy to self-monitor over the years. It would be cool to live in a world where each instrument I play can fit perfectly into one big vision of music I want to make, but I am just as happy sharing parts of myself with different genres and interests instrument-wise. 

PAN M 360: You said that  your Beta Test project came out wanting to make an experimental spin on 8-bit sounds. . « When I was a kid, I wanted to be a composer for Nintendo because I really loved the kind of music produced for their 80s video games. » Can we have extra-explanation about the way you managed to bring this inspiration into your own music?

FEVEN KIDANE : The use of repetition and intentional note placements is something I not only learned from SNES video game soundtracks, but also what I learned from the Black American Music (« Jazz ») idiom. I would call that a healthy lesson in musical storytelling. When it comes to my own music specifically, I love how all-encompassing video game music from that era really is. It’s like a bitcrusher hug. Although I can’t execute that exact sound palette at all times because of the genres I spread over, there is still an underlying emotional feeling that is carried along in these types of tunes. Whenever we’re playing an old game from that time, there is usually motion; your character could be swimming, falling, jumping, or speaking to another character. This music becomes the persona of your gaming situations. That’s the stuff I love and aspire to make; music that carries you through the stage that you’re at, but has a clear vision as to where it fits in the soundtrack of your life. I think to execute that vision is a very special thing, and that’s what makes a timeless piece. Every musician should aim for that. 

PAN M 360 : Can you briefly explain who are your colleagues coming at Suoni per il Popolo in Montreal this week?

FEVEN KIDANE : As part of the Trading Places program, three of us were sent over (one extra because of this not being a functional music approach during lockdown) from Vancouver. That would be myself, violist/sound artist Meredith Bates, and electronic musician/tenor sax player Andromeda Monk. The three of us are fairly active in each other’s circles back in Vancouver; we’ve shared bandstands and musical spaces quite a few times. Meredith is on the board for Coastal Jazz and Blues Society right now, as well as on the board for VIAS – Vancouver Improvised Arts Society. She’s the artistic director, actually. She’s a person to know, as she is capable of making virtually any sound with her violin setup. Her work is very ethereal, very moving and elegantly liquid. One of the few artists I know who can channel the sound of wildlife and this wild world organically into their work. She is also just a fantastic and friendly person. Andromeda has been involved with Vancouver’s Red Gate Arts Society (a venue that seems to have survived nearly everything, with great success) for a good chunk of years now; I met her over the years there as she was doing sound tech work. I can definitely see how that finite attention to detail, that meticulous study of soundwaves, incorporates deeply into her artistry. She’s brilliant on a synth (I love her on a no-input mixer, too) and strips the DNA of notes to pair together an original sound. I mentioned soundtracks of life earlier, and I very much believe she has a skill in executing such a thing. Her work is so beautiful and emotional to me.  She’s actually playing my solo show with me on the 22nd at Sala Rossa; I am pulling in some of my electronic work to do live and she absolutely nailed the sound I was going for (and originally recorded it with). 

PAN M 360 : Can you explain the context of playing improvised and composed music with your bandmates ?

FEVEN KIDANE: Depends on the band, flavor, style, if I wrote anything, what the gig is, etc.

PAN M 360: Socalled jazz music was founded and developed by African American artists, 125  years ago. Today, it is considered as a world classical music, embraced by the whole music community.  So you are quoted  : « If you are not Black, you are a guest to this music, not entitled to it. »  Even in 2022 ?  Paul Bley, Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Michael Brecker, Chick Corea, Jozef Zawinul, Danilo Perez, Eldar Djangirov, Steve Gadd, Steve Lacy, so many others are guests?  Today, thousands of non Black musicians embrace jazz as a universal language… Can you please explain you thoughts about this ?  

FEVEN KIDANE : Yep, even in 2022. Forever it will be that this is Black music, and that anyone who isn’t Black is a guest to the art form. All the greats knew that. Nothing wrong with that! Knowing and owning it propels self-decolonization, which is crucial to playing in this idiom. Black people created an art form that many people of all races were moved and inspired by that came out of collective suffering, a pain so specific that only Black people know what that is exactly like. That is something that can never be separated from music. It all traces back to Black; this is the music of African ancestors. Everything Black people have created has been co-opted by white people and folks of other races. We are never allowed to have rightful ownership of our works. Remembering you are a guest in this music helps to ensure that credit goes where it’s deserved : Black people. 

PAN M 360 : Where are your upcoming projects? 
FEVEN KIDANE : I’m sitting on a halfway completed electronic album right now, as well as writing material to put out a post bop record. Ideally I would like to get in an improvised/free record too. My dream is to release all three of these at the same time. Give me one year! Ha!

Brandon Valdivia is a prominent collaborator and drummer for a number of projects including, US Girls, Sandro Perri, Tanya Tagaq, Sook-Yin-Lee, and more, but with his solo project, Mas Aya, he dissects his own identity as a Canadian-Nicaraguan artist.

He released the Máscaras album back in September 2021, receiving reviews and coverage in big-name media publications like The New York Times for its mesmerizing ambient electronic soundscape style—utilizing flutes, drums, machines, and vocals samples from the Nicaraguan social security protests in 2018. The album also features vocals from his partner, Lido Pimienta, another prominent name in the North American experimental music scene. You can read our review here: https://panm360.com/en/records/mas-aya-mascaras/

Politics has always been at the centre of Valdivia’s solo project, something he believes is his responsibility as a diasporic artist. He comes from a diverse background of music; free jazz, reggae, post-punk, and Toronto’s 2010s experimental music scene, and has made it his artistic mission to talk about the goings-on of the world.

We spoke with Valdivia before his Suoni Per il Popolo show on Sunday, June 19 about his inspirations behind Máscaras, the ongoing evolution of Toronto’s experimental scene, and raising a new household of potential musicians with Lido.

PAN M 360: Your latest album Máscaras is very tranquil and meditative at points, but also seems to come from a place of anger at times. What kind of headspace were you in when you wrote it?

Brandon Valdivia: Do you find that anger comes from specific songs or like the entirety of the record?

PAN M 360: I’d say by the second or third song it’s definitely present.

Brandon Valdivia: Yeah I would definitely say that with the third song “18 de Abril,” there is a wave of anger or I’d call it much more of a forcefulness. There’s always a sort of punk rock energy in my stuff. I don’t even come from punk, but I do come from more intense music. I also have a history with free jazz or very like expressionistic free jazz, like spiritual free jazz, of like the late ’60s, namely, Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. So I always kind of have that sort of like punk/free jazz energy and when I do some things like seemingly very calm and static-like, I definitely have to have the energy bubbling up. So that’s just kind of part of me, who I am sort of as a musician, so I think that’s always there. But I think generally, the headspace I was in felt contemplative, a very looking inwards mode. Like many of the voice samples that you hear on the record, those came after the music was written.

PAN M 360: You mean the samples of the protests in “18 de Abril” for example?

Brandon Valdivia: Yeah that was a result of what was happening in Nicaragua at the time, which was these intense protests, and basically a full, six months, seven months, to a year of action by the people. I had family members getting put in jail for protesting or being near a protest and being turned into, basically political prisoners. And there was the government that was murdering people. And so there was definitely an element, which later came into the music part, of this anger. This sort of like the ‘rage against machine’-like righteous rage, kind of righteous anger. So yeah, it was a bunch of emotions of looking for peace within myself in addition to this rage bubbling underneath.

PAN M 360: So you’re Canadian, but your parents are from Nicaragua?

Brandon Valdivia: My dad is from Nicaragua, yeah.

PAN M 360: So do you feel like you have to tell these stories as you wrestle with your own identity as an artist? You’re coming from this place, but you weren’t actually born there.

Brandon Valdivia: I think a lot of diasporic sort of people kind of wrestle with that in a lot of different ways, or they don’t at all. I went to Nicaragua in my 20s, for the first time, just after university because my sister went there after high school and I saw how much she changed by being in the land for like six months. She didn’t have any sort of like poetic or philosophical kind of insights into what happened, but I did because that’s just me as an artist. I definitely am Canadian, but I do come from somewhere else too. So since doing this record, and kind of representing Nicaragua in a way, I’ve gotten a lot of messages from people in Nicaragua saying how powerful and important it is. Even performing live, when I’m performing with my partner, Lido [Pimienta] there’s even representation in that way, as far as Central America, because Nicaragua is such a small country. It has a lot of cultural output. But it’s not super representative in Canada, even in the US, it’s not that representative. So yeah, there is definitely this sense of responsibility to represent Nicaragua.

PAN M 360: And with the protests happening there at the time, that probably influenced your responsibility to document it in a way?

Brandon Valdivia: Yes, I definitely felt the responsibility to talk about that. I’ve always been political in my art, in my music-making. I’ve always wanted to talk to or either sing directly about protest movements, or resistance movements or have samples from different protest movements or speeches. Like even the media wasn’t covering it [the Nicaragua 2018 protests] that much. But I’m not Nicaraguan and I try to have it be a diasporic representation of what was happening there but also being Latin American within Canada and North America. So it’s a lot and a long conversation.

PAN M 360: So when you were getting your start as Mas Aya was there a lot of musicians making political music in Toronto? I mean obviously, in hip hop it’s always been there, but what about the experimental scene? Was there much support for political music?

Brandon Valdivia: No. Absolutely not. I started Mas Aya back in 2012. I’m a drummer and I’ve been always involved with lots of projects and bands, so it was always on the back burner. So when I started in 2012, that was actually a large part of my own personal sort of political awakening. And again, I’ve always been political, but these insights that I was having felt were super clear. And I definitely felt anger at basically, what I felt was the experimental music scene in Toronto … it was super navel-gazing. And very sort of like, I’ve used the word nihilistic in the past, and I felt like there was an aspect of that, which is also political, but I definitely felt, to be frank, I felt like no one was talking about anything.

I had many discussions about this with other political musicians about how it felt like everyone was on their own privileged island. And that’s not to discount what they do or be negative, but that’s just how I felt. So I felt like I really wanted to put it in their faces. Like, say ‘Wake up, shit’s happening in the world’ and people would just be playing noise feedback shows to like five people. And I would compare it to other scenes I was playing in. I was in a reggae band, I played with a Zimbabwean Bira [ceremony] player and in these noise scenes, there were all these white art students. Toronto is very diverse and it was back then too, so why was it not diverse in the scenes? So yeah, again lots of questions.

PAN M 360: So your music was a response to those feelings then?

Brandon Valdivia: Very much so. I was playing in these DIY arts spots and my music was very political. I was kind of going from this anarchist direction action kind of standpoint. So yeah, anyway, that’s kind of the vibe. I wanted to kind of slap people in the face with politics.

PAN M 360: I think the diversity within the experimental scene has definitely changed and it’s no longer just white guys with guitar loops, but I’m not sure about it being more political now.

Brandon Valdivia: Yeah I do have a feeling that it is changing, but to be totally honest with you, I haven’t been part of a scene for, I’d say four years now. In that time I’ve become a new dad, there has been a pandemic, Lido’s project has us traveling a lot, and then mine on top of that. And we moved to London, Ontario a year ago. So I can’t really speak to it, but from what I can tell on social media and just listening to new music, there are definitely more women now which is fantastic. And I think there is more diversity. I don’t think that people in the 2010s were purposely trying to be segregationists in their music scene, but that’s just what happened. Now there is a younger generation coming and they’re actively making new music.

PAN M 360: The flutes in Máscaras are probably one of my favourite aspects of the album. Just the way they sort of build and take you on this journey.

Brandon Valdivia: Yeah I love the flutes and they are one of the first instruments you hear. My first instrument was the recorder, but I kind of went away from it until I got into Don Cherry. He was using all these bamboo flutes and I was like ‘Woah,’ so I found some quenas which are like from the Indian region and South America and I slowly brought those back into my repertoire. So now I have a good selection of flutes that I play and with my newest record that will be released whenever I’m bringing back the alto recorder. It’s the same and similar vibe as this one [Máscaras] but more organic worlds with flutes, drums, and synths, but the same kind of explorations.

PAN M 360: And for the upcoming Suoni live show, are you playing the flutes and drums?

Brandon Valdivia: What I’m doing now is more of a basic mix on Ableton Live where I’m basically pressing play, and having like some effects, some live mixing, but the focus is on my performing of live drums, performing with the live flute, and I have a synth and have a drum machine as well. I mean, what’s more, interesting and what’s more me? The need to be on a computer, like mixing stuff on a MIDI controller, or be fucking playing drums live on top of my music? I’m more of a drummer. So again, it’s just trying to meld the different experiences that I’ve had. I’m 40 years old so I’ve been doing this for a long time but it’s like finally, in these last few years, I feel like my identity is here.

I’m a slow person in general. I’m a slow learner, I would say in a way, but once I really learn or like something, I lean heavily into it. And I just kind of feel like that’s kind of what’s happening. It’s just I feel like all these past years of playing drums playing in different bands and all these experiences and playing different music, playing percussion, playing theatre, doing soundtracks or doing live doing scores for theatre pieces, all this stuff has kind of built up into what I’m doing now.

PAN M 360: What’s it like being partners with Lido? She’s another musician with her own successful project and you play in each other’s projects, but just having another creative person to bounce ideas off of?

Brandon Valdivia: I mean it’s fantastic. We’re very different but also two very similar artists. I had her playing on my first tape back in like 2012, she would just come and improvise vocals with me, before we were even friends. If you talk about the Toronto scene back then, Lido was like a breath of fresh air to me. Here was a person from Colombia that was interested in experimental music and unapologetically doing her own thing. So now, we’ve been playing together for many years and it just comes naturally. We are both very questioning of things happening in the world, and we came from this punk rock, anti-establishment style. We both like music on the fringes and that’s marginalized and not so mainstream. And just seeing her career take off has been very inspiring because I get to be a part of it as her drummer, which is awesome. She brings a lot out of me and I’ve learned so much from her. But it’s always busy busy busy and we have kids together so this kind of our life.

PAN M 360: Are the kids getting interested in music at all as well?

Brandon Valdivia: Well Lido’s son, my step-son, he’s 14 and he’s really into music. He’s a piano player and just has really great taste, as far as listening to a bunch of different stuff. We have an old version of Abelton on one computer and so he works on beats and we’re definitely pushing that and he loves it. He’ll sit and play piano for hours. Then there’s Lido’s nephew and who loves listening to music but hasn’t gotten into playing yet. And then there’s the baby, Martina, she’s four, and she seems to have a natural sense for music. She comes in and plays and I put effects on her voice and then I’ll play piano and play drums and we just kind of jam and she’s just kind of dancing with the microphone and has attitude. She’s like a little Lido.

PAN M 360: It definitely seems like you’re both sowing the seeds for future musicians who eventually release their own stuff. So you have a jam space in your house in London?

Brandon Valdivia: Yeah there’s a music studio in the basement and Lido has an arts studio in downtown London. But yeah we’re never pushing for the music. It’s only if they want to do it and it seems like they’re all interested in pursuing music. Especially Lucien, the 14-year-old. He seems pretty obsessed with music and reminds us of what we were doing when were teenagers, making and discovering music.

JOYFULTALK is a multi-medium jazz extravaganza from the mind of Nova Scotian polymath Jay Crocker. The project involves massive visual installations, a staggering variety of live and recorded musicians, and sounds that you’d be hardpressed to find elsewhere. Just a month after the release of his newest work, an LP entitled Familiar Science, he’s starting his long journey across Canada to show off this batch of tunes. Starting in Ottawa tonight, he’ll be heading west, all the way to Vancouver, hitting up Suoni per il Popolo on June 14 before, and finishing with the Sweltering Songs Festival in Fredericton, NB on July 15th. As he begins his current tour, I got to chat with Crocker about his life, influences, cross-Canada move, new album, and much more.

PAN M 360: When I listen to Familiar Science, I heard a lot of varying but often pretty clear influences as to where your sounds may be coming from. What would you say are your personal influences that showed up on this album?

Jay Crocker: At the time, I hadn’t really explored the world of ’80s jazz before – some of the more outlier stuff. A good place to start for me was some of Ornette Coleman’s stuff from the later ’70s and early ’80s. I was listening to a lot of Steve Coleman, and lots of ECM (Records) stuff. Yeah know, lots of funny ’80s stuff. I think sometimes it gets a bad rap because of how it sounds – the production of it. It’s kind of an overlooked period of jazz.

PAN M 360: I heard some Chick Corea in there, maybe some John Zorn – some fusiony stuff.

Jay Crocker: Yeah, yeah, totally, definitely. The way we’re playing it live is getting into some pretty heavy fusion territory, which I’m totally fine with. It’s pretty fun and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while.

PAN M 360: The project that is JOYFULTALK would be pretty hard to narrow down to any particular genre. If you were to describe what kind of music you play to someone before they heard it, what would you say?

Jay Crocker: I would say that it’s jazz. I was trying to make a free jazz record but through my own lens and my own experiences. I think that constant exploration is more important than trying to stick to some form. I studied jazz and I was pretty heavy into the improvised music scene in Calgary before I left for Nova Scotia 11 years ago. When I moved out here, I moved to the country, so it was isolating. The last 7 years of my career have been a product of that isolation.

PAN M 360: Would you say that isolation is deliberate or at least self-imposed?

Jay Crocker: When (my family and I) moved out here, we wanted to have a house, and that wasn’t possible in Calgary. My partner and I needed a change. In Calgary I was playing with different musicians all the time, and after I moved I felt like I was really able to find myself and who I was in music. I was able to distill it down a bit more.

PAN M 360: The new album has a lot of sax and a variety of string instruments. Which ones did you play?

Jay Crocker: The sax playing on “Particle Riot” and “Hagiography” are samples from recordings I made about 15 years ago of a large ensemble I had. The player was a friend of mine who passed away. I got a few samples out of that. The other sax parts are done by a person out here who got me back into playing jazz. Her name is Nicola Miller. She played the alto and flute on this record.

PAN M 360: One of the songs has a long guitar lead, is that you?

Jay Crocker: Yeah, that’s me [laughs]

PAN M 360: So will the sax parts be played via samples when this is performed live?

Jay Crocker: Actually, this time I want to try to play the tunes, not the production if that makes sense. In Ottawa, I’ll have a sax player; in Montreal, I’ll have a violinist who will sit in for a few tunes. I want different musicians to be able to flow in and out of it. It’s a pretty jazz approach as far as the live stuff goes.


PAN M 360: Will the string quartet ever make another appearance with you live?

Jay Crocker: Before the pandemic, I had a whole tour planned with a string section in each city. It never happened but it will at some point.

PAN M 360: What is the primary synth that you use live?

Jay Crocker: It’s a modular synth, so I’m actually playing guitar and controlling the synthesizer with my guitar. Very Metheny, but maybe a little more stoned-out, a little more of a stoner rock vibe to it. With the modular, I can control the pitch and speed of my guitar, depending on what register I’m playing. So the higher I play on the guitar, the faster the tape (playback) is.

PAN M 360: Your new music video “Familiar Science” has some choreography. Was this your doing?

Jay Crocker: I had a friend come over and she did some improvised dancing while wearing a morph suit. I rotoscoped it all, took pieces, and looped it to create the choreography. Same kind of idea behind how the music is made: a physical interaction and then a digital manipulation, or sometimes vice versa.

PAN M 360: The name “Familiar Science” – what does it mean to you?

Jay Crocker: The idea is getting back to what is familiar to me. That’s why I reached out to a few of my old colleagues in Calgary, fellow improvisers that I came up with. Also, diving back into playing guitar and practicing a lot.

PAN M 360: What is a graphic score?

Jay Crocker: It can be whatever you want to use to create a different interpretation of what the music could be. The scoring system I use is something I developed called The Planetary Music System. It’s an elliptical system based on gearsets. The easiest example is probably like a 2:1 ratio. where one part is being played twice as long as the other. Imagine a circle where the diameter is 150cm. This could be a phrase of 150 quarter notes.

PAN M 360: I, therefore, have to ask, are you a fan of Steve Reich?

Jay Crocker: [laughs] Yeah, that kind of phased sound for sure. Harmony can build in different ways as the piece progresses, and it can even reach a point of no beginning and no end.

PAN M 360: Where in Nova Scotia do you live?

Jay Crocker: On the south shore. An hour and 15 minutes southwest of Halifax.

PAN M 360: How would you say Alberta compares to Nova Scotia?

Jay Crocker: [Audible cringe] There’s no comparison. I’m glad to be here, that’s for sure. [laughs] It’s really beautiful here. I’m close to the ocean, and at certain times of the year, especially around this time until late September, it’s kind of a paradise. When we moved out here, I was able to really find myself as an artist. I definitely would have come to a different place had I stayed in Alberta.

Kee Avil dropped her debut LP on Constellation, Crease, back in March, and it’s still melting and contorting minds in the experimental scene. At times, Crease feels like nails on a chalkboard or diving in a pool of alabaster paint. It feels like tiny microscopic lacerations on the mind as Vicky Mettler, quietly takes you on her darkened, obscure journey with buzzing electronics, frenetic guitar, and intimate vocals. It’s an album where you pick up different sonic parts with every listen and it’s unexplainable, sometimes sounding like Frank Zappa’s ambient phase or Bjork binging on methadone.

Kee Avil is playing Suoni per il Popolo alongside the psychedelic backdrop of Myrian Bleau’s moving painting visuals on June 17 at La Sala Rossa.

We spoke with Vicky as she was on tour across the pond about creating Crease, her affinity for creepy imagery, and always evolving her sound, even after the album is out.

PAN M 360: Hi Vicky. How is the tour going so far? You’re in the UK right now?

Vicky Mettler: It’s really good actually. I feel like I didn’t know what to expect. And we were present pleasantly surprised. It’s it feels like it depends on city by city, But definitely, some cities were really interested in the show. We’re doing a bunch of shows with Suuns and then Vienna, Prague and Brussels, and Antwerp and then back home.

PAN M 360: I know lots of these songs on Crease were kind of built from experimental guitar sessions and then recorded and put together within the album. But what about live? Is it pretty like close to the album? Or is there still some kind of like improv or experimentation?

Vicky Mettler: I’m touring solo right now but in Montreal, I usually play with Sam Gougoux on drums, the electronic drums. We built a setup that is like half electronic, using a bunch of sounds from the album. And also he uses a snare, like an acoustic snare, that he runs through pedals. It’s much more reactive, in a way. So it’s like half acoustic, half electronic. And it still like maintains the sound of the album, but I think we’d bring it it pushes it a bit which is cool for live. It’s all pretty close to the album, but now we’re building the sets with transitions and to like kind of build it as a performance of itself. So you know, it’s a work in progress all the time. The idea is to present something a bit different, but that keeps the sounds you know, of the album, so I’m not exactly sure how to do that, but I’m trying things.

PAN M 360: That kind of goes with the whole heart of it too. Like the songwriting on the album was just trying things and building songs over some of the weird sounds?

Vicky Mettler: Yeah, totally. But it’s not necessarily like improvisation, but it’s like … there’s a bit of it … but it’s more like how do you how to present it? How do you make it stronger, basically interesting to watch? And to listen to that in a different context, like a live context. It’s not the same kind of listening at home.

PAN M 360: Your vocal style on Crease, that kind of sinister whisper, always seems to physically pull me in towards the screen when I’m listening on headphones. Where did that approach come from?

Vicky Mettler: Yeah, I guess it wasn’t very intentional. I mean, we did work a lot on the vocals, but it also comes to the fact that I’m not a singer … like I’m not a trained singer. So I don’t sing loud in general. But I was trying to find a way to make it intimate, you know? Like it’s sung very, very quietly, but they’re produced loudly, in a way. And that’s, it’s kind of also what we’re trying to do I have to keep that set that sound live.

PAN M 360: And there’s a rhythm to the lyrics too. Like in “See, my shadow,” and “saf,” for example, the vocals play off the drums to give this uneasy feeling. We’re they written like that or kind of edited more in post-production?

See, my shadow by Kee Avil


Vicky Mettler: Yeah I kind of make demos with vocals and guitar and they are usually written like that. But we did work sometimes to make them very rhythmic as you say. Very staccato, to enhance that atmosphere.

PAN M 360: And are the lyrics stream of consciousness or is there a core theme you play off for each song?

Vicky Mettler: Usually it is very stream of consciousness, yes, but I try to present an idea or theme in an abstract way. It often starts that way. I guess it’s finding imagery and whatever, trying to find interesting words and also what words fit rhythmically. There’s no main theme on the album. It’s more each song is its own thing.

PAN M 360: And I suppose the listener can derive their own meanings song by song if they wish.

Vicky Mettler: Yes of course. It’s very abstract, like the music and sometimes it’s just because the words sound cool. I feel sometimes people miss-hear the exact words too which is interesting. I would be surprised if people actually sang along.

PAN M 360: The visual side of the music videos is also a huge part of Kee Avil. And you produce and come up with the concepts for quite a few yourself? Is that also lots of experimentation?

Vicky Mettler: Yes so for the visualizers I’ve been working with Myriam Bleau and she has her own experimental style and techniques. It’s kind of like moving paintings and some will be projected live for the shows. And then there is the “See, my shadow,” which is more of a music video. That was inspired by the artwork really and finding a way to use that mask again.

Drying by Kee Avil



PAN M 360: Yes and that mask is of your face right?

Vicky Mettler: Yeah exactly. I knew about the artist Ariane Paradis, and that is her technique. The silk paper printing and she did a series of the royal family and stuff like that. I saw it a year ago and thought it was pretty amazing. I got an idea to do it with my own face for the artwork.

PAN M 360: And in the music video you are taking pieces of the mask off … it’s quite creepy.

Vicky Mettler: Yes for the album artwork I was trying to avoid the creepiness. The biggest tendency for masks like that is to go for the creepy, horror aesthetic. The album cover could have been very horrific, but with “See, my shadow,” we just went for it. It’s a very creepy song so it made sense. The music has its own atmosphere and that one is definitely the most creepy.

PAN M 360: I feel like your music could work really well pairing with some sort of art installation or something.

Vicky Mettler: I’m actually starting to work on an installation idea. I don’t know if it will be in Montreal. It’s very early stages and researching what could kind of be done. It’s just brainstorming right now. I’ve never done anything like this before so I have to take time and do it well. I really need to start writing more music too, but after the album was released I felt like I had to do other stuff you know? I think I needed to play it live and I like to finish the process a little bit. Because before it’s played live, it’s not, I don’t know, I feel it doesn’t feel finished. It still doesn’t, I know it’s not finished, but it’s still gonna always evolve.

The 2022 edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal features a prestigious international jury of world-renowned singers, administrators and voice teachers. Chaired by former Montreal Symphony Orchestra General Director Zarin Mehta, the jury includes British baritone Thomas Allen, former Juilliard Voice Director Edith Bers, Dutch bass-baritone Robert Holl, German accompanist Hartmut Höll, Lanaudière Festival Artistic Director Renaud Loranger, former Metropolitan Opera Artistic Director Richard Rodzinski, and German soprano Christine Schäfer.

Sir Thomas Allen is an English baritone. He is considered as one of the best lyric baritones of the late 20th century. In October 2011, he was appointed Chancellor of Durham University, succeeding Bill Bryson. We understand that his expertise as a juror is highly recommended and then this interview will bring us interesting informations.


PAN M 360 : What motivates you being part of this jury in Montréal?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN : The need to help maintain the flow of serious singers. The pandemic has u doubted.y taken its toll and I feel this as part of a long rebuilding process.

PAN M 360  : How have you been selected?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: Always a mystery , but I was here some years ago and after 50+ years in the music business , perhaps someone remembered me.

PAN M 360 : What is your perception of Montreal classical music family and Montreal Intarnational Music Competition?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: We haven’t yet begun so I shall know better in 10 days ……but its reputation has always been high.

PAN M 360: How do you consider this competition among the international classical major music competitions?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: My memory of it is that it was very well organised and standards were high . It attracts the right singers and musicians because it is a very good showcase for them.I’m not familiar with so many other competitions but I imagine it is highly ranked.

PAN M 360 : Are those international competitions the front doors for an international career? Are the essential?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: There is no guarantee . Some artists do not do well in competitions and auditions but it doesn’t stop them from being fine performers when it comes to lengthy rehearsal and performance.There are those who thrive on competition but then disappoint when it matters .

PAN M 360 : Each member of a jury has a specific sensibility regarding the candidates, what is yours?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: Nature decrees that once in a while a Callas, a Sutherland or a Pavarotti emerges. For the rest of the time I’m looking to see and hear someone who can obviously sing but shows me that there is also a vital creative spark in them .

I’m not bothered about an occasional squeak if I think an artist is fully involved in what they are doing.

PAN M 360 : What are the objective criterias of your eventual choices ?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: Primarily, the sound, as this is an aural experience .

PAN M 360 : What are the subjective criterias that could make a difference between candidates of same value?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: It goes back to who can best convince me that they understand that as well as vocal technique we are dealing with literature, and the real secret is to interpret what the poet or librettist has set us for examination, and then to realise that singing is a melange of word and musical line.

PAN M 360 : Are there some cultural differences in the singing aesthetic that could divide the jury?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: There may be , but to say yes , would presuppose what May not there, and singers are not as easy to define as actors since they are a combination of voice , leaning towards being an actor , or indeed having little or no interest in that aspect of their work .Fo r them it is an entirely vocal experience.

PAN M 360 : Do you plan other activities in MTL during this process?

SIR THOMAS ALLEN: I just go from day to day and see what it brings.

Story was originally published in March 2022. Thus Owls plays Suoni Per il Popolo on June 4, 8:30 pm – 11:00 pm / Doors: 8:00 pm at La Sala Rossa, 4848 Boul. Saint-Laurent, Montréal, QC, Canada

Montreal’s highly praised Thus Owls officially released the material for their fifth studio album a few weeks ago. The first concert was scheduled last Thursday, but was postponed because some members caught the variant BA.2. No matter what happened with the virus, here is the interview!

Who Would Hold You If The Sky Betrayed Us is a collaborative project involving three saxophonists: Jason Sharp, Adam Kinner and Claire Devlin join the trio of Erika and Simon Angell and drummer Samuel Joly.

The Angell couple in question on PAN M 360 is one of several highlights of this new project.

PAN M 360: This album is kind of a normal follow-up, but this one is more collaborative. Can you tell me the context of this approach?

SIMON ANGELL: I think all of our albums have been collaborative in some way, to some degree.  We like to try to change each time, changing personnel, instrumentation, textures.  We’ve always strived for that, and this time we’re leaning more towards our roots as improvisers. In this sense, you want to give your collaborators all the latitude to be themselves, to bring their voice and their expression to our music. 

And to do that, you have to make sure that you’re dealing with people that you get along with, that you like, that you communicate well with, musically and in life. And so yes, in that context, the idea came to me to do some arrangements for the saxophone, thinking of Jason, obviously, at first, and then Adam and Claire, who are part of a new generation and creating new sounds.

PAN M 360: We know your high standards. You don’t compromise in creation and you always collaborate with excellent musicians.  

SIMON ANGELL: Yes, we always try. For this project, we started a little bit like we always start, which is to go our separate ways first to refine our ideas and then share them with each other, not necessarily together in the same room.  In February 2020, our plan was to be at home and compose, you know, in March, April, May. Anyway, We had to take a break from touring and stay home, and we could focus on that. We put together some arrangements, and then we decided what to do with saxophones, so we got in touch with the musicians. In that respect, I feel like luck was really on our side these last two years. We started, not by rehearsing, but by having conversations, zoom meetings, talking about all kinds of things, not only music, getting to know each other, discussing art, philosophy, life.  Yes, it’s a good source of inspiration, even if it doesn’t necessarily translate into music.

PAN M 360: Yes, it’s also food for creation.

SIMON ANGELL: Exactly. And it connects people. So we created arrangements for the saxophones, but we left a lot of space in those arrangements for the musicians to interpret them in their own way and also to improvise, to try new things. When we were allowed to go into rehearsal, fortunately it worked out.  We were well prepared, I think, but we always try to leave room for improvisation in the recording process. So, on stage, every subsequent performance of these recordings can be different.

PAN M 360: Let’s talk about improvised music, in a context where jazz, the form par excellence of improvised music, is not as popular as it once was. What does improv have to do with Thus Owls? 

SIMON ANGELL: Yes, it’s true that jazz doesn’t have the same impact. But we try to maintain the spirit of it in our own way because it’s the form that many of us have studied. Samuel Joly and Jason Sharp are great jazz musicians, for example.

PAN M 360: How do you see this new cycle in relation to the previous ones?

SIMON ANGELL: The fifth album, you know, is a long, hard road, a real challenge to stay true to our instincts, our beliefs, our idea of the creative process. But if you persist over time, you give yourself a chance to succeed. In this sense, we are happy with the position we have reached, with the choices we have made. We are happy where we are.

PAN M 360: You also have an almost ideal configuration: you are a couple, you have started a family, you are creative partners. 

SIMON ANGELL: Absolutely. You’re always with the same person, that can be difficult too. And it’s a lot of work for us to do everything to stay independent in our projects.

PAN M 360: Let’s talk about the song and the lyrics. It’s about isolation, about questioning one’s identity. Erika, you’re Swedish and you’ve had to go through a lot as a result, haven’t you?

ERIKA ANGELL: You know, this questioning had already started in my personal life before the pandemic. I’m an immigrant here…after five or six years here, I realized what it did to a person, what it really meant to change culture and territory. There are a lot of these reflections in that title. When you’re ripped out of your own context, and what you learn from that, the good and the bad, the challenges that come with it, with the pandemic on top of that, then it was very obvious that I couldn’t go home, reconnect with the Swedes. I was more isolated than ever, when a normal context was already difficult.  So the general theme of the recording is belonging or what it means to belong, or how we think about it through another cultural lens that I don’t always understand personally. Several reflections, exchanges, conversations finally allowed me to express it in the texts of this album.

PAN M 360: How does this is translated into the poetic text?  

ERIKA ANGELL: When I write, I write everything in a big messy book, and then I pick and choose and organize the text. Well, I gather words that speak to that belonging, through a relationship, through my 6 year old daughter and my duty as a mother who has to be away, about my relationships scattered across two continents or around the world.  I also wrote this during the Black Lives Matter events. I was wondering how to support the cause, how to choose the right way, and how to have the right knowledge to support it properly. It was another way of showing that misunderstandings are common when we try to connect or communicate, and that maybe we need to question ourselves more in order to be in communication and connect with each other. That’s the conversation I talk about throughout the album.

PAN M 360: And the title, Who Would Hold You If The Sky Betrayed Us, perfectly sums up the state of mind. It’s also a gateway to this world that is not just songs, but poetry set to music.

ERIKA ANGELL: I feel like our pieces have always had this structure, they’re parts that follow one another. But I think the lyrics and the way I sing the text may have changed more. But I still like to sing the earlier ones because they are so free. I can still play with those forms and I get a new energy from them every time I perform them. So I wanted to keep that same energy for the composition of the new material, because it makes the live performance much more lively. 

PAN M 360: How do you work with text through the creative process?

ERIKA ANGELL: I bring several texts to rehearsals. I sing them, sometimes with a melody, and sometimes I recite them, I do a bit of both. I never write lyrics after a melody, I always write the melody for the text.  Because the text comes first. And then I write, I write music and on demand, and I use my lyrics randomly. And they kind of find their way into the material. So yeah, it’s not exactly conservative or orthodox, this writing is an enterprise of my own. I’m trying to find the best relationship between the words and the melody. I also need to be able to say it from my heart. And to do that, any melody that comes, any tension in my expression can be the right one.

PAN M 360: There’s a lot of literature/poetic songs and a lot of music. It’s not totally a song, that’s what’s very, very good… and it also explains why it takes longer for some people to embrace your personal style. But it doesn’t matter, because time will tell that you were right all along.


ERIKA ANGELL: Simon and I make music, it’s for our own well-being but that music has to land somewhere, it has to speak to someone. It’s also about communication in the world. But for me, it’s all about writing the music that I like to listen to. And I’m intrigued by the evolution of texturally rich material that you fall in love with over time. I need to be challenged.

Frog Eyes, a fiery and beloved indie rock band from Vancouver, had their first release 20 years ago with The Bloody Hand, and in 2018, after the release of their eighth album, Violet Psalms, they called it quits. Two years later, original members Carey Mercer and his partner, drummer Melissa Campbell came back with another project called Soft Plastics but had to fold again due to a band in New Zealand just beating them to the punch for the name. So after dissolving two bands, they went back to the studio again with past collaborator Shyla Seller and created what would eventually be called The Bees, a new record from Frog Eyes that dropped at the end of April. The record started off in the same electro-acoustic vein as Soft Plastics, but they ended up somewhat going back to basics and making the record as they would as Frog Eyes.

“When we started making this record we didn’t have the intention of reforming as Frog Eyes, we were just making a record,” Mercer says. “It was like every cell in our bodies was saying ‘Go this way, go this Frog Eyes way’ with these songs. So we shrugged our shoulders and thought ‘You are who you are.'” And so now we have The Bees, a classic Frog Eyes album in many ways, with Mercer’s untethered vocal approach, indie rock hooks, and general weirdness, but also a new refreshing take on a band that should be as big as a band like Arcade Fire.

We spoke with Mercer on this new iteration of Frog Eyes, the legacy of the band, and some of his inspirations for the lyrical content in The Bees.

PAN M 360: So how did this new album inspire the comeback for Frog Eyes?

Carey Mercer: We started off with a very similar kind of Soft Plastics template, which would be an acoustic-electric hybrid. So you start with the electronic drums, which puts everything in a very structured grid, and then you add a bunch of things, including the acoustic drums, and you end up with this pretty interesting tension between the two. When it came time to learn the songs, Melanie and I just started playing them the way that Frog Eyes played them, which is just here’s the song and they’ll be great the drum beat.

PAN M 360: So kind of back to basics a bit?

Carey Mercer: Yeah. So we ditched the grid which was very, very freeing, to be honest. Not that I’m not reactionary. I don’t hate music that’s made on the computer. Of course, so much good music is made within you know, a structured tempo, using an electronic template. But for us, it really did feel like an important part of our … the language that we speak is being able to kind of move in and out of time together to create that sense of the flow of speeding up or slowing down. But yeah at the end we laughed and said ‘This sounds exactly like Frog Eyes.’

PAN M 360: So why not bring back the old band name I guess?

Carey Mercer: We just kind of shrugged her shoulders and thought, well, ‘You are who you are.’ You can be aspirational in other ways, I think it’s good to have a little bit of aspiration for each record, and kind of a little bit of acknowledgment of the past, but your art is still you, right? So, there’s various, you know, when you make a bunch of records, you can kind of see the 30% You and 70% aspiration, or if it’s 70% You and 30% aspiration. Each record has its own balance in that sense, I suppose. So at some point, we realized we were good at creating this controlled chaos of Frog Eyes and that it’s pretty dope. And we haven’t always felt like that. We’ve felt discouraged by looking at the financial success of our peers and been like ‘Oh we never achieved that,’ and thought ’cause were just not as good.’

PAN M 360: I don’t know I would say on the Canadian indie rock landscape, you have the talents to be as big as a band like say, Arcade Fire. Their music is just more mainstream for a bigger audience and Frog Eyes might be a little to weird and experimental for some people.

Carey Mercer: That’s actually a really important thing for artists, to process your own success of your project. And it depends on what filter you apply. So if you go based on what level of show hall you are playing, a 100 seater, 500, or 1000 seater. Like you can’t measure off of records anymore. So if you go off of the type of venue size, that could be a hurtful filter, because it equates to economic longevity, but it doesn’t necessarily always equate to an artist’s longevity.

PAN M 360: I think that at a certain point in a band’s lifespan maybe you make the decision to make music that is more easily accessible to a general audience or you don’t.

Carey Mercer: Even just how you make the music too. Like when I am conceiving of our sound from record to record, I suppose I do think about spaces. So I’ve kind of come to understand that actually, ours works best within, let’s say 100 to 200 person space. Kind of a small space where the instruments can sound like they actually are. So if you were close to us, when we’re on stage, you will actually hear the kick drum, for example, and you’ll be able to hear how it actually sounds, as opposed to being processed and magnified by a speaker. That’s kind of my jam, is that size venue, and I think if your setup is connecting to a kind of imagined or idealized space, it really does impact a lot of the decisions that you would make. I think that sometimes we can have a really big sound, but it’s not it’s never intended to be staged in a stadium.

PAN M 360: I wanted to ask you about your lyrics in Frog Eyes. They always seem dreamlike and sort of like short stories, but there is always something kind of off to them. They’re kind of like fever dreams to me.

Carey Mercer: Sometimes they are very specific experiences or very specific sense impressions. I mean, a lot of the songs on this record can be boiled down to telling you a story and the story makes sense. You know, if I was to say this song is about the night that my partner and I met. We met during literally the closing minutes of 80s night at this cheesy, kind of electro goth bar. As they were kicking us out she forgot her ID and then we walked home together. But I mean, if you were to read the lyrics, you wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, that’s what that song is about.’

PAN M 360: Which song is that?

Carey Mercer: That one is “Here is a Place to Stop.” So we were walking home at 2 am and she said ‘Here is the place to Stop.’ It kind of starts for me at that moment and then it kind of goes through the early moments of our relationship because I think a lot of this record was kind of looking back at what were some important very salient memories or sense impressions that I have from my life. When I think of making songs, it’s very painterly for me. Put a blob here, a blob there, and kind of move the paint around. And that’s how I painted too. I never had an ‘I’m going to paint the sunset on the ocean,’ moment but while I was painting, I might have just experienced a powerful sunset. And that might work its way into it. And so in the same kind with song. You kind of bounce your way into the heart of the song, what should we do usually, the heart of the song has kind of one line or anti line. Sometimes I’ll put a cliche right in the middle. Because sometimes the heart of something feels like a little void.

PAN M 360: I think my favourite song on The Bees is “He’s a Lonely Song.” It’s funny you bring up painting because Frog Eyes songs do feel like little abstract paintings. They change every time you look at or hear them. So when I heard that song for the first time, I thought it was someone telling the listener God is not dead. But after hearing it a few more times, I realized it’s a father telling his son. Is this a memory of yours?

Carey Mercer: Yeah I have a very powerful memory of my dad coming into my room when I was six or seven years old, and he said ‘Can I talk to you?’ and he sat on the bed with me he tried to explain to me using you know the language of his time, the kind of impact of colonialism on his life. And he grew up in the prairies, and he used the slaughter of the buffalo as an example. It was a different time so I’m sure he didn’t use the term, anti-colonialism. But he did talk about the European impact on the place where he grew up, and the colonial impact on Indigenous peoples. And I was six years old, and I was like, Oh, my God, whatever you’re saying is so important because he had never done this before. So I was all ears and I think that conversation had a big impact on me.

PAN M 360: So it wasn’t due to a specific event or anything he just decided one day ‘I’m going to teach my son about this?’

Carey Mercer: Yeah to teach my son about the horrors of our collective history exactly. So the very common reaction to learning about this horror was, ‘Okay, well, how can we be? How can there be an overarching intelligence that views all of this and is OK with this?’ I think it’s a very understandable reaction. And I know if, you know, I don’t know if I’d said, Well does this mean that God is dead? (laughs). But I can remember, you know, growing up having definitely feelings of like weight, you know? When we first learned about the Holocaust it was like ‘Well wait, how could this happen when there’s this overarching intelligence?’ It just seems impossible. So now it’s like I’m looking at my own son and wondering when I’m going to have this conversation with him. It’s an ongoing conversation. But that song starts in a pummeling rainstorm and came about when people started using drones to murder other people in different countries. It just seemed like this whole new level of nefariousness. But that song actually came about when people started using drones to murder other people in different countries. It just seemed like this whole new level of nefarious. Now, the direct reaction to it seems … like we’re actually in a transitional moment where technology is being deployed in really horrific ways. So thinking about that led me back to how to process the horror and that led me back to being six years old and my dad seeing me as a peer.

PAN M 360: Are there any plans to tour this new album and get on the road?

Carey Mercer: It’s just the environment is too chaotic to commit to live shows outside of our region right now. This is very frustrating because our region is extremely geographically isolated. The Pacific Northwest, especially Vancouver, Vancouver feels like a big cosmopolitan city but we are actually quite trapped by the borders. You incur, like 1000s and 1000s of dollars of visa processing fees before you even get in your van. And then, of course, it’s so competitive and intense to go into the United States. And then if you’re like, ‘Okay, well, I’m just gonna stay within my country.’ And you don’t want to fly for ecological environmental reasons and I mean, you have this basically impossible wall of mountains you can only get through in the summer. And of course, now, with the wildfires, that’s also kind of intimidating. So it’s an odd time for thinking of yourself as an international musician.

PAN M 360: Not to mention an ongoing pandemic…

Carey Mercer: Of course. You could devote intense energy, intellectual energy, to booking shows elsewhere, and then it can all be canceled by someone coughing at me in the wrong direction at a supermarket. Of course, we did play one show here in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago and it was one of the best shows we’ve ever played. So it’s a great, sad irony where you’re like, ‘We’re finally there. You know, we’re positive about our live performance.’ I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.

This story was originally published in July 2021. A Place To Bury Strangers play Bar Le Ritz on June 3, 8 pm

As for so many others, 2020-2021 was a pretty tough time for A Place To Bury Strangers and its frontman Oliver Ackermann. Covid, quarantine, the band disintegrating… Many thought it was the end of the road for APTBS. Yet the noise/shoegaze band, not new to upheaval, has used this crisis to better rebound, returning with the Hologram EP and two new members on board, bassist John Fedowitz and his wife, drummer Sandra Fedowitz. 

Formed in 2002, New York’s loudest band seems intent on continuing their sonic experimentation beyond 2021, with this new incarnation intended as a return to APTBS’ rawest and most chaotic efforts.

Reached at his Queens studio, cluttered with ramshackle guitars, all sorts of machines and cables of various colours, the friendly mad scientist Oliver Ackermann talked to PAN M 360 about this new release, his Death By Audio effects-pedal lab, and his new label Dedstrange. 

PAN M 360: There have been some changes in APTBS in the last year. Dion Lunadon, bassist with the band since 2011, and drummer Lia Simone Braswell have jumped ship, and John and Sandra Fedowitz have taken over. Would you say it’s a new beginning for APTBS?

Oliver Ackermann: Yes, I would say so. I grew up playing music with John, so these two are among my best friends. Every time I hang out with John and Sandra, we just have the best time. They have this very cool band called Ceremony East Coast which is sort of a similar band to APTBS. The know what APTBS is all about. It’s like we’re going back in time with the band. It’s like a pure form of APTBS. It’s really fun and natural with them, and I’m so excited with what is coming up with this new band. You know, you always have these kind of doubts like is this really gonna work out, what will happen? I’m super pleasantly surprised with what’s going on.

PAN M 360: When did they joined the band? 

Oliver Ackermann: It happened sometime in early quarantine. It’s been I guess for a year or so. We’ve recorded a lot of new material and we’ve worked on some stuff for future tours.

PAN M 360: Who are these two? Aside from being in the band Ceremony East Coast, they’re also cooks ?

Oliver Ackermann: Yeah, yeah. I grew up in Virginia with John. We were in a band called Skywave a long time ago. He was the drummer of that band and also an incredible songwriter, and stuck around Virginia after I left for NYC. He ended being the head of some catering place, working in restaurant kitchens, and also they started their own little sandwich business. So they still play music because they’re having fun doing it, and they can afford it in a way. Having built APTBS over the years, it’s sort of a company that can support itself and that’s some sort of a luxury in a way. I do this because I love it. It’s all about passion, the music that I want to hear, and do fun things with this music. So to have that opportunity to work with that kind of people, I think you don’t get into the sorts of conflicts you can get into with musicians who are making music to be popular or to make money… So it’s cool to work with people who don’t have these weird goals. You know, you sometimes play in bands where some musicians wants to be paid more, have more money for what they do. I get it, of course we all hope to make more money on some tours, but you can’t really garantee those kinds of things. I’d rather concentrate on creating something really awesome, so it’s good when you find people that share these same kind of goals. 

PAN M 360: Is it why Dion and Lia left?

Oliver Ackermann: It’s all sorts of reasons, stuff that built up over time, some unspoken things. I had a few conflicts with Dion and things kind of turned a little bit weird, I felt kind of let down by the whole scenario. Those things happen when you’ve been hanging out with people for a long time. You become good friends with them but sometimes, mixing friendship and work is not a good idea. You always hope to have the best of times with your friends in a band forever, but sometimes the relationship turns sour…  

PAN M 360: Well, you might be getting yourself into that kind of situation with your old friend John!

Oliver Ackermann: (laughs) Yeah… You’re right… Maybe the difference is that John and I knew each other before making music, whereas Dion and I met as musicians who wanted to collaborate on a project together. So with John it is more of a natural occurrence because we’re friends, first and foremost. I don’t think Dion and I would have been friends if we hadn’t done any music together. 

PAN M 360: Tell me about Hologram. It’s your 13th EP. How was it created? 

Oliver Ackermann: Well, we got hit by the quarantine, everything was shut down here in NYC, I got the corona virus, so all of this messed up my time cycle. I was up at 3 or 4 a.m., so I dived into writing music, recording… And at Death By Audio, we would do a few days at the workspace, then it would be someone else’s turn, so I had a lot of time to build circuits, playing and recording drums every single day, and recording all sorts of different things, just experimenting with stuff. The band had just broke up, I didn’t really know what the future held. So I recorded around 80 or 90 songs that I thought were really good, and then I assembled an album with that, and then I assembled an EP with some of the leftover songs. But with the new band forming, we were playing a lot and I thought it would be best to write a couple of more songs together. It was more exciting, it was fresh and new. So it all came about as a result of what happened, everything being messed totally up, New York being messed up, me being messed up, not knowing what my life was gonna be with the band breaking up… So you can hear that on some songs of the EP, these kind of pissed-off, contentious kind of songs, mixed with some more hopeful stuff. I guess its just music to put up to such a weird freaky time.

PAN M 360: The second song of the EP, “I Might Have”, sounds strangely like “Song 2” by Blur. Was this intentional, a kind of wink?

Oliver Ackermann: No, it wasn’t at all. That kind of things happened to me before. I did stuff that sounded like something else, but you can’t help it, you know? Someone told this story when they went on a long bike ride and forgot their iPod, so they had no music for a month. But he said that it was kind of cool, because eventually your mind just plays all sorts of music anyways when you’re doing stuff. I heard that comment years ago and since then I noticed that so much. It happens all the time! I’m walking around, going to the subway and I’m hearing all sorts of crazy songs. So I’m sure we all get influenced without knowing or noticing by all sorts of stuff. So yes, it’s difficult to avoid some sorts of similarities between a song and another. We’re at that point in music where almost every song or melody have been written. So similarities are kind of hard to avoid.

PAN M 360: The album came out on Dedstrange, which is a label you recently started with a few people. Was it something you’ve been aiming to do for a while?

Oliver Ackermann: Yes, this is something I always thought about. You know, when you’re working with record labels, there are all sorts of advantages, but also all sorts of disadvantages. We just wanted total freedom, to do whatever we wanted to do no matter how stupid it could be. I grew really tired of all these norms with the record labels, many times I think they make you focus on the wrong things. Often all this stuff is about promoting yourself and all this junk or releasing your record at some particular time because its more advantageous, or having someone tell you, “Oh, I don’t know if I really like that album cover”, I didn’t want to hear that anymore… I just wanted to get rid of all that influence. It thought it would be a more pure form of expression if we sort of doing things with our own label. And then, as we were starting this, we also realized we could help out a lot of bands that we really love who are in this sort of similar situation, or aren’t really getting some of the help they should get. We got a distribution deal with Red Eye, so that has been a real big help. So I started this with these two friends of mine, Mitchell O’Sullivan who’s from Berlin and Steven Matrick who is from New York. 

PAN M 360: So far, which bands have been signed on the label?

Oliver Ackermann: So far we’ve signed Jealous and Plattenbau from Berlin, Data Animal from Auckland, Wah Together (with an ex-LCD Soundsystem and a Rapture on board), and a few others we’re about to sign.

PAN M 360: You do remixes here and there, the latest being “Death Racer” by Data Animal, retitled “Death Raver” for the occasion, but you also did the mastering of Paul Jacobs’ latest album, Pink Dogs on the Green Grass. How did that happen?

Oliver Ackermann: We played some sort of a festival or something outside of Montreal, I don’t remember exactly but that’s where I saw Paul Jacobs, and I thought, “Oh man, that band is so wicked!” So we became slight acquaintances with them. And then we played another show with them, and that was incredible too. And then Steven, who’s part of the label, started helping out Paul Jacobs, trying to put up a tour with us and them, and he told me that Paul wanted someone to do the mastering of the album, and asked me if I wanted to do it. Paul even recorded some drum tracks for me that’re gonna come up in the future, I guess as a gesture for me mastering his album. It was a cool, fun record to master. I think he is an awesomely talented musician.

PAN M 360: You also have been very busy with Death By Audio. You create pedals but also synthesizers, it seems. 

Oliver Ackermann: We haven’t really focused on that but we have built a bunch of them that we use sometimes with APTBS live, they’re synthesizers inside cases or inside guitars, they’re basic synths, you can basically do what you want with it.

PAN M 360: What is the latest pedal to come out of the Death By Audio lab?  

Oliver Ackermann: We’re designing pedals for the Levitation festival, which is pretty cool. They have a super-crazy psychedelic sound! We did that with them a few years ago too. It started out as a joke or a challenge from one of the employees. I said, “It would be so easy to make this crazy sound by putting in this filter and a delay feedback loop,” and he said, “this is going to suck.” So I just wired it up and it sounded like a sick thing! I thought, “Oh, they’re gonna love this at Levitation!” It sounds like a psychedelic dream… People need new sounds all the time, so I think it makes sense to bring that. We’ve designed a lot of effects over the course of the quarantine.

ABSOLUTE DESTRUCTION

PAN M 360: I was wondering if you were familiar with Mile-End Effects and Soratone from Montreal. Two small local businesses, one owned by a musician and the other by a soudman. They create handmade pedals like you do at Death By Audio. 

Oliver Ackermann: No, never heard of them. That looks cool, I’m gonna write those two names down and look them up for sure. I always like new crazy stuff. You know, when you build effects, you realize you can build nearly everything you dream of, and have it work any way you want, so I think there is enough room for thousands of effects makers. What is useful to us particular artists is different than what’s useful for another particular artist. I love how those two worlds come together – the music makers and the instrument makers always pushing each other to try to make something new and crazy. If you like making effects, hopefully you like making music as well. 

PAN M 360: Any short- or medium-term plans for APTBS?

Oliver Ackermann: Yeah, we have a few dates in the US, a small festival, a show in Berlin and I’m also going to be playing by myself with Yonatan Gat, who is putting together a thing with Brian Chase from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Things are falling into place little by little, but right now I’m really looking forward to playing all the crazy stuff we’ve done with the band. 

(photo : Heather Bickford)

Ideas of Space, Tess Roby’s 2nd album that came out last April, can raise questions about the singularity of art. Where does this singularity come from? How can it be explained? Undoubtedly by the course of the artist. By her/his influences, conscious or not, to a certain point. Probably by her/his training and her/his musical mentors. One of the distinctive aspects of Tess’s music and lyrics is what they evoke: soft and fuzzy worlds, old and new, daydreams and daytime floating where no fears or regrets lurk. Pan M 360 was able to ask Tess Roby a few questions about the creation of Ideas of Space, the SSURROUNDSS label she created, what sets this new album apart from Beacon, released in 2018, as well as a circle of stones located in Stanstead, in the Eastern Townships.

Pan M 360: Hello Tess! Well, you really foiled the sophomore slump with Ideas of Space. Beacon was impressive, and Ideas feels stronger, even if only because it offers two more songs! Are you equally or more satisfied with this new album?

Tess Roby: Beacon was written and recorded in 2016. So by the time it came out in 2018, I felt like it wasn’t necessarily as representative of myself as a musician as I would have liked. I still really loved the songs and believed in them. As for the new album, the most recent song was finished last year, in the spring. So it feels more representative of myself, as a producer and a musician. It was four years between the release of the two albums, and even more, if you think about when Beacon was written and recorded. So, I feel confident about Ideas of Space.

Pan M 360: Did you have your own label then, SSURROUNDSS, or is it a new thing?

Tess Roby: It is a new thing, Ideas of Space is the first album ever released by SSURROUNDSS.

Pan M 360: Now about your voice. It is pure, and it is both very real and ethereal. It seems to come from times immemorial. What particular training did you have, and how do you train your voice still?

Tess Roby: Oh, I sang with the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, from when I was eight to 16 years old. We worked on operas and we did a lot of choral and classical music, which really gave me this introduction to voice and harmonies. And it also gave me this discipline of practicing and rehearsing. So it was a very interesting thing for me to do as a young person. And we would tour in Europe and I sang in the big opera halls in Toronto, with the Canadian Opera Company. I guess I got a lot of inspiration from that. And now I don’t sing with a choir or anything. I really just sing for myself and write songs.

Pan M 360: And I guess the listener can feel all that training behind your voice. And musically, you manage to create electronic sounds that feel mostly futuristic, both also vintage somehow, on some songs. How do you balance the usage of vintage synths and state-of-the-art technology?

Tess Roby: I’m still growing as a producer. I work with new and vintage synths. I’ve written a lot of my songs around my Roland Juno 106 for Beacon. For this new record, I added new ones, like the Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer. But I write and produce in this very intuitive way. Personally, I’m not taking influence from specific artists or specific songs. I listen to a lot of music. And I do listen to some new music, but I’m really not trying to chase anyone else’s sound. I use synthesizers in a way that is very unique, to carve a sound shaped or influenced by more vintage style stuff, but also just create my own art as I go.

Pan M 360: That’s true because usually, it’s kind of easy to pinpoint influences. But in your case, it’s quite hard, if not impossible. I mean, some sequences do remind me of stuff that I’ve listened to, but again it’s really hard to pinpoint anything.

Tess Roby: For me it’s the biggest compliment because my music comes from a very honest and intuitive place. We have this tendency to–and it’s not wrong–compare artists to each other. I’m making music, making art because I have to. It’s really like not to be chasing anyone else’s sound or anything. So I hope to keep going like this.

Pan M 360: These are hard times maybe not for everyone, but for a lot of people around us. Thus your new album comes out at the right time, because it possesses soothing properties. I’d be curious to hear what a musico-neurologist would say about it. I hope the word will get around! You’ve had quite a bunch of collaborators on Ideas of Space. Austin Tufts, from the Calgary band Braids, worked on the percussion side. Joseph Shabason took care of the woodwinds and some percussions. Ouri, who is a cellist but also a producer and many other things, plays the cello in one song. And there is guitar by an Eliot Roby on “Eyes Like Babylon.” Can you tell us more about these fellow musicians?

Tess Roby: Before this record, I had never collaborated with other artists on my own music. I was introduced to Austin–who was really my main collaborator on this record–by Sebastian Cowan from Arbutus Records. The first time we met, we were actually in his studio, listening to my songs with the intention of working on some drums together. And this was before the pandemic happened. So the first time Austin and I got in the studio together was February 2020. We did maybe three days of back-to-back recording for the drums. We planned our next studio dates, but then COVID hit. Then there was just this really big break from the record, completely. I really stopped making music. I stopped thinking about the record, everything was on hold for almost an entire year.

Because of this, Austin took on this bigger role. We found ways to go into the studio together, in January 2021. And then he started engineering more of the recording. We started doing more electronic drum work. Austin eventually said, “Who is going to mix this record?” I said I didn’t know and he said “Okay, let me let me mix a song for you, and tell me what you think.” He sent me the first mix of Ideas of space. This had me in tears, it reached this completely new level. So I invited him into my whole sonic world, which is not an easy thing for me to do.

As forJoseph Shabason, we were featured on a compilation together in 2020 And I love his music so I reached out and asked him if he wanted to collaborate. So we ended up working together. On the songs that he’s featured on, I think that he brought so much life. I’ve never worked with these acoustic elements before, like Ouri’s cello. It was really cool to produce these songs in a way that I hadn’t before. As for Ouri, we knew each other. I’m in awe of her, she’s a very, very inspiring person to me.

Pan M 360: Will they be there with you on stage, for your June 2nd concert at Phi Centre?

Tess Roby: Unfortunately not. I was trying really hard to get some people in. We’re back to touring schedules, everyone’s out in the world again. But I do have my brother, who’s flying in to play. It’s gonna be an amazing show and the band shows a lot of like power onstage.

Pan M 360: I’m looking forward to it. Just one last thing: I noticed the video for the title song was shot in Stanstead. My family had a cottage in Fitch Bay, a hamlet that has been incorporated into Stanstead. I haven’t been there in a long time, I didn’t know there was a Stonehenge-like structure in Stanstead!

Tess Roby: The whole video was shot in the Eastern Townships over three days, with a very small team of close-knit friends. I found all of the locations of the Ideas of Space video on my phone with Google Maps. So when I found the stones circle, I knew it was perfect. We were in touch with the city of Stanstead and the mayor to make sure we had that shooting location. So I got really lucky!

Pan M 360: Yeah, just about an hour and a half away from Montreal! Thank you so much for this interview, Tess. And congrats again for the album. Really looking forward to the concert!

Tess Roby: I really appreciate your kind words about the record and for the opportunity for the interview. I haven’t gotten much local Montreal press, I’m very happy to have a bit before the other launch at the Phi Centre.

POP Montréal Presents Tess Roby + Thanya IYER at Phi Centre, Thursday, June 2nd, 2022, 8 p.m.

Photo credit: Ryan Molnar.

Just “Try Again”

The building is vast and the outside looks like an abandoned postal office. Inside it’s a maze full of artist lofts, wayward businesses, and jam spaces. The hallways never seem to end and you can easily get lost in the space, as I did many times. After a bunch of rights and left turns, I open a door into a dimly lit studio. There are five musicians; two guitarists each with their own scattered pedal setup, one drummer, a bass player, and a vocalist standing near a synth. 

This is La Sécurité, a new art-punk outfit made up of members from other projects such as Chose Sauvages, Laurence-Anne (who is one of the guitarists), Silver Dapple, DATES, and Jesuslesfilles. I later learn that the drummer, Kenny Smith, has his own whacky new wave meets post-artcore project, Pressure Pin (read our review here.)

La Sécurité is in the middle of rehearsing a couple of songs—art post punk burners that sound a bit Blondie, Television, and Devo—they have written while a man in a funky black and orange short sleeve shirt, Philippe Larocque of Mothland, runs around with a vintage handheld camera. 

“So he’s filming us playing and then we are going to play it backward and that will be the video,” says the bassist, Félix Bélisle. 

He’s talking about the new DIY music video for “Try Again,” the second single, following up “Suspens.” This time, “Try Again,” is sung in English and led once again by vocalist/synth player Éliane Viens-Synnott.

The song has a curious atmosphere to it with its jumpy backing noise-rock guitar, smooth bass, and a playful synth line, as cowbells, woodblocks, and motorik drum beats. Much like the first single “Suspens,” “Try Again,” is full of cryptic wordplay, kind of a patchwork of phrases about euphoria and paranoia all linking back to a theme of conquering failure. You could derive your own meaning, but Viens-Synnott admits the lyrics are quite random and spontaneous. 

“I think I’m used to writing in an abstract kind of poetic way. I’d say writers like Jack Kerouac are an influence,” she says. “Eventually everybody is going to jump on backing vocals though. That’s the plan.”

La Sécurité started when Viens-Synnott and Bélisle started making a few bass and synth demos on Abelton. Eventually, they got guitarist Melissa Di Menna on board and found Kenny, who frequents and DJs at the popular punk rock underground dive bar, L’Escogriffe. 

“It was all kind of a vibe thing,” Viens-Synnott says. “I was a DJ back at L’Esco like two years ago and we started chatting about music, he showed me his insane solo project [Pressure Pin] and we just became buddies.”

La Sécurité is looking at recording the album in the Fall and for now, it seems like the group is up for any ideas to get their name out there and their music heard. Just check out their tongue-in-cheek Instagram stories that feature images of traffic pylons, exit signs, potholes, etc., all with the caption “Stay Safe.”

“We’re kind of just in a period of experimenting with everything right now,” Viens-Synnott says. “I’m not even sure how the live show setup is going to go and that’s why we wanted songs in French and English. I’m from the West so I want to be able to play things like Sled Island at some point.”

La Sécurité’s first show will be at Entrepôt 77 during Distorsion’s second concert series of the year from July 22 – 24.

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