Nathan Mots is based in British Columbia; Truant.J, his stage name, is a reference to the horror novel House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski. The tone is set: his techno is dark, raw and disturbing. TRUANT002, his second EP, is the result of a collaboration with JoeFarr from the UK, Krista Bourgeois who was born in the States but is now based in Berlin, and The GOAT from Canada. To release his music, Truant.J went as far as creating his own label. His goal: to put Vancouver on the international techno map.
PAN M 360: How did you get in contact with techno music?
Truant.J: I’m from Victoria, it’s sort of smaller on the music side of things. There is a really good sort of old folk scenes but not huge electronic music scenes. I kind of got exposed to house music when I started learning to DJing and through that learned about techno. The first time I went to Berlin with some friends, I was exposed to the club scene there and just absolutely fell in love with it. I just came home from that and was like this is the kind of music I want to really commit to.
PAN M 360: Is there an artist you saw in Berlin whom blown you away?
Truant.J: Yeah definitely, Stephanie Sykes! I saw her performing during the day at Berghain, I got there for the beginning of her set, and just stay straight through to the end. It was incredible and I actually got to open for her in Vancouver, which was pretty cool.
PAN M 360: What can you tell me about the Vancouver techno community?
Truant.J: There is this variety between what you’d call “mainstream” techno with labels like Drumcode, but there are a lot of labels more core to the roots of where it came from, and I think Vancouver’s got both sides. There’s an incredible queer techno scene in Vancouver and artists who are just doing really cool stuff, like groovy soulful techno that’s a bit dark but also fun to go and dance to. There’s people creating pop-up clubs that fit 100 people, just to try and accommodate that sort of “we’re going out at midnight and staying out until 6am,” which is really underground I guess.
PAN M 360: What are the places that gave you the opportunity to grow your career as an artist and a techno aficionado?
Truant.J: There are two clubs in Vancouver that are really important to me. The main one is Open Studios, which unfortunately closed over the pandemic, and there is Gorg-O-Mish nightclub. Both of them do a different thing, but both are super important. Gorg-O-Mish being sort of a mainstay in Vancouver, I think it’s over a decade old now, which in Vancouver and especially for underground clubs is unheard of. They open at two o’clock, they stay open till eight in the morning, and most of the time they book only one or two artists a night. They really showcase local talent and let those artists tell a story. Open Studios, just because they were bringing in tons of incredible international artists. I think one of the first shows I went to in Vancouver was Steffi playing there, and I got to see some of the local like Nancy Dru. It’s a family sort of club, but it’s also a space welcoming all sorts of different types of people, and for that reason that’s my favorite place to go and play.
PAN M 360: When I listened to some of your past works, I felt that, for example, The last sailing EP was a bit different from the rest. Did anything change in the way you make music today and, if so, what?
Truant.J: There is a track by SNTS, Origin of light and it’s just incredible. I remember going for a walk in Vancouver one night and just feeling physically uncomfortable listening to this song because it’s spooky, dark, raw and there’s noises that come in that almost make you jump… It can be things that have darker melodies too. There’s a song by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, it’s just somebody talking about this horrible dystopian world for three minutes and then the song comes (Editor’s note: The Dead Flag Blues). I love that kind of music. I want music that makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable, that makes me sit back and think.
PAN M 360: Is that what you wanted to do with Wicked Fervor?
Truant.J: I wanted to do something really aggressive. I focused on taking sounds and distorting them or putting them into interesting spaces, so they don’t sound like where they came from. Then I tried to bring some melody and feeling into that as well, without making it cheesy or anything. I’m trying to find balance. I love the 4/4 stuff but I also really want to explore darker ambient stuff.
PAN M 360: How did you get in contact with the collaborating artists on the EP?
Truant.J: I looked at artists within the community and around me who I really liked. Krista Bourgeois’ music is incredible, it gives you that raw, dark, pounding feeling. The GOAT I’ve known for years and I got to grow with him. He was one of the first people I wanted to approach. JoeFarr has so been supportive I wanted him to be involved and I wanted to get that word out outside our internal community to a broader audience. The dream would be to have Vancouver recognized more on an international stage.
With Le voyage de M. Lonely dans la lune, Montreal’s psychedelic rock band Elephant Stone presents a first release effort in French. The four-song EP is the follow-up to their 2020 concept album Hollow. On that record, Rishi Dhir and his band dealt with the destruction of the world and the potential survival of humanity, while Mr. Lonely’s Trip to the Moon focuses on the survival of each individual and its consequences on a community. The son of Indian immigrants, singer, bassist, sitar player, and producer Rishi Dhir, who has been at the helm of the band for 13 years, describes the conception of this EP and why he chose to perform it in the language of Gainsbourg, a gesture that characterizes his eternal quest for identity.
PAN M 360: Who is Mr. Lonely and tell us about this trip to the moon.
Rhishi Dhir: M. Lonely is for me an extension of my last album Hollow, a concept album that was about a catastrophic event that destroys the earth, and then humanity needs to survive but in the end, we destroy what we create. I guess M.Lonely was pretty much influenced by the pandemic; we’re all home all the time, not seeing anybody. My wife was having a hard time not seeing people or be around them whereas I was fine. I guess musicians are kind of introverted extroverts. We like our quiet time to think about things. Any artists are like that. I actually thrived in it because I got to create more but at the same time, it got me thinking about the storyline of M. Lonely who never wants to be part of society and he sees the pandemic as a mockery of his condition and everyone imitating him. I was also thinking of the movie Le voyage dans la lune from Méliès. So M. Lonely builds a spaceship and goes to the moon and he looks back on earth and realizes after a while that he misses the imperfections of humanity and comes back to live out his dying years. So in some ways, it was also about me.
PAN M 360: Why did you decide to do this EP in French?
Rhishi Dhir: The band was always mostly composed of francophones throughout its history. The drummer Miles Dupire has been in the band for 12 years… So we often talked about releasing something in French. What happened is that, when I started writing these songs, I realized that the gibberish I was singing, just to go along with the music I was playing, kind of sounded like I was singing in French. So I tried to add some more English-sounding words but it didn’t quite fit as well as the stuff that sounded like French. That’s when I realized that these songs had to be sung in French. In every band I was in, we always talked about doing some songs in French, going as far back as the High Dials. I had a storyline for that album but I’m an anglophone and writing in French is not easy for me. So I asked Félix Dyotte to help me with the lyrics. He is an amazing songwriter and we’re good friends. So we hung out, we drank a lot of wine, and I gave him the storyline of each song and he wrote the lyrics afterward. I explained that part 1 and part 2 are very much emotional, more driven, and the last two parts are much more introspective. I guess I was listening a lot to the album Parachute by The Pretty Things at that time. So it’s more Pink Floydian, very introspective. When I went to Félix, he first asked me if I already had English lyrics. When I told him that I hadn’t written anything and that he would be writing the songs, that convinced him. I didn’t want a translation from English to French and neither did he.
PAN M 360: One inevitably is people associating the sitar with Elephant Stone’s music, but here, on the four tracks of the EP, it seems not to have any.
Rhishi Dhir: I recorded and mixed the EP in my studio here at my house. I do everything here. I recorded a lot of sitar for the EP but in the end, as I was mixing it, I made the decision not to put it in. You know, I’ve been doing this band for 13 years and the sitar always was a big part. But what I’ve learned, is to get that magical thing the sitar brings, you don’t always have to add sitar. For example, the song “La fusée du chagrin,” I had sitar in but it didn’t really add anything, so why put it in just for the sake of putting it in? That was a great thing to mix this album by myself because I got to really decide what I want to present rather to just give it to someone else.
PAN M 360: Now that you have an album in French, are you thinking of eventually doing one in Hindi?
Rhishi Dhir: Hmm … Nah. I thought about it, tried to throw a few lines in Hindi but, no. Maybe in the early days. When I first started Elephant Stone, I wanted sitar and was very much into my Indian heritage. I really wanted to showcase that but at the same time it had to be true to me, so it just didn’t make sense (laugh). My parents come from India but I was born and raised in Montréal. I have much more connections to this world than the other world. It’s a big part of who I am, it’s a struggle of not knowing where I fit in. Sure, my parents are Indians, I went to the temple but they never actually spoke to me in Hindi. They spoke to me in English thinking I would learn this language better. I grew up in Brossard, went to an English school but learning French in an English school back then wasn’t very strong, it was not well done. So it’s just growing up, having to deal with expectations of my parents who wanted me to be a doctor or something and then becoming a teenager and discovering Rock n’ Roll through my older brother and trying to find my identity in all of this. Every Saturday, for instance, I watched 3 hours long Bollywood movies with my parents… So my whole life, in every step, I never really felt I completely fit in a scenario. I feel like a square trying to fit in a circle (laughs). I think that’s why I am who I am. Even with the French and English culture here, it’s also not knowing where I fit in Quebec! It’s my day-to-day existence, so doing this EP is me trying to discover this other side of myself.
PAN M 360: And after this first French experience, do you think you will do more songs in this language?
Rhishi Dhir: It was a lot of work! Singing in French is very different. I was surprised at how difficult it is. It was a big effort, I’m not going to rule it out but I’ve already written and demoed the next album, and it’s in English… It was a mind fuck. I’m happy my accent wasn’t so terrible. Luckily it doesn’t sound like an Anglophone trying to sing in French. It sounds like I have a Spanish accent.
PAN M 360: Can you tell us a bit about this upcoming album?
Rhishi Dhir: We’re doing SXSW and then we’re touring the US this spring and in June we enter the studio to record the album. I listened to a lot of Yes and Genesis before writing the album. So it will be a bit prog but I was also listening to some Frank Ocean. So it will be a mix of everything. I’m excited because I think these songs are the strongest I’ve written in a while.
Carrying a casualness worthy of a Courtney Barnett, a Kurt Vile, or a Mac DeMarco type, but less cynical, Angus Stone (a.k.a. Dope Lemon) doesn’t seem like an overly stressed guy. Before going solo, Stone proved his musical skills alongside his sister in the popular dreamy folk duo Angus & Julia Stone. In parallel to his work with Julia, he concocts undulating soundscapes, full of nonchalant voices, light melodies, and down-tempo grooves. During every one of his albums, Angus Stone manages to generate a soaring atmosphere in which it is easy to let yourself go.
Since Dope Lemon began a little more than five years ago, Angus Stone’s project has become a cultural phenomenon, especially in his native Australia. His albums (2019’s Smooth Big Cat, 2017’s Hounds Tooth EP, and 2016’s Honey Bones) have accumulated over 400 million streams, and the recently released Rose Pink Cadillac is likely to generate the same kind of excitement as the first three singles have already been streamed over 30 million times.
On this new effort, Stone quietly continues on his sunny psychedelic road with music that makes you want to do nothing but watch the grass grow (and maybe smoke it). In short, a guy who wears his last name well… In the middle of the austral summer, while it’s freezing here in Montreal, we joined the popular artist at his ranch—located in a small town on the east coast of Australia—a magical place where he has his own studio, vintage cars, animals and where memorable parties take place.
PAN M 360: Rose Pink Cadillac is your fourth solo album. Behind this title is a real pink Cadillac, which is the subject of a contest, but it is also the title of a song. Where does this pink car concept comefrom?
Angus Stone: It came from a dream of sorts. When it comes to the song itself, I guess it’s a thing about new love and being enamored by the little things the person you admire so much does. It’s really falling head over heels for someone and just loving the way they are. I guess the whole record sort of came about me wanting to put love back into the world with everything going on, the anarchy and dismay of the pandemic, and I saw it as something good to give back. The thing that I could do there is love stories with music.
PAN M 360: So did you actually fall in love with someone and did that inspire you?
Angus Stone: It’ll come from personal experiences and then it’ll also come from observations. And then the storytelling, it’s also things I pick up along the way, you know? I think it’s sort of universal, it’s like a perfect storm—you’re combining all the elements that make up a story. So it’s creative.
PAN M 360: There are two sides to the album. One is more a day side and the other one is more a night side. Can you tell me more about that?
Angus Stone: Creating a record, you know, the whole process of being in the studio, it’s a lot of work as a whole. You walk away, and it feels like you’ve written somewhat of a book. And it takes a lot of energy, and your heart and all your brainpower are necessary. And usually, when it comes to the finishing of a record, you’re pretty tired, you sort of walk away. And then you’ve got to come up with the art, which is another whole element. The artist has to create something that works with, obviously, the flavour and the emotion behind what you’ve been creating. And I’ve been working with this amazing artist [Tee Ken Ng] who basically does animated vinyl. He used to do DJ mats. I called him up, I said ”Is it possible to do that on vinyl?” And he’s like, ”I’ve never done it before. But let’s have a look at it and see what we can do.” And he figured it out. For your readers, there is an easy way to explain how animation works on vinyl. I guess it’s kind of like when you’re a kid and you draw, in the corner of your textbook, little stick figures on every different page, and then you crimp the book and flip all the pages and then the image moves as it flips. It’s kind of worked like that on the vinyl. And working with him was just an absolute pleasure. It’s a double album on vinyl, so we had this opportunity to create a different motive with where the music went. The first half starts off with two kitty cats driving around in a Cadillac on the beach. And then on the second disc, they end up in the mountains. And it’s a bit more moody. And you’ve got the mountains moving and pine trees swaying and very it’s cool. It’s a really magical thing.
PAN M 360: I read somewhere that you define this record as an epic frontier. Why so? Was it a difficult album to create?
Angus Stone: It didn’t take us too long. We started before everything happened in the world, with COVID kicking up dust. We were probably a month in the studio, and then we started to realize that things were sort of changing. Usually, when we walk into a studio, we throw away the keys and lock the door. And it’s what we do anyway, it’s basically what the world had us all doing. But we were already in that mode. So I think maybe it took us around four or five months to create this one. The length of time that it takes to make a record depends on how precise and pedantic you are. I think we’re a bit of both, you know. We think there’s like an ecosystem around and we’re immured in a story and we try to capture that as much as we can in the moment. And then deal with all the more technical sides of things. But every song is different, every day is different, you know? Some days you wake up and it’s a whole new thing and I think that’s when you start to get the different styles and genres coming through the music and also the storytelling changing. it all comes down to the environment, what’s going on in the world.
PAN M 360: And when you say we, who are you referring to?
Angus Stone: Me and the engineer, and then different musicians come and go. I also send a lot of the songs to people around the world. My pianist is in New York, and the guitarist is in Germany. My drummer is down in Melbourne. And another friend is in Sydney … I send all the parts out and we sort of create like that.
PAN M 360: But don’t you miss, maybe the feeling of rehearsing or playing with an actual band in the rehearsal space? All this energy that you can get with live musicians…
Angus Stone: Yeah, you know, I think if anything that this whole experience has taught us is to be adaptable. Clearly, it’s lovely to be able to look into someone’s eyes and you feel that energy across the room… that’s magic. You know, you’re always going to have that but you know, it’s a new age and sometimes you have to make compromises, and within those compromises, you find this new kind of magic and it’s a cool thing.
PAN M 360: Like most of your records, was Rose Pink Cadillac taped at your own studio?
Angus Stone: On my ranch, I have this beautiful old barn and I’ve always wanted to convert it into a big loft upstairs. So we went out and fully stripped it out and made a big open area with hardwood floors and hardwood walls, and we plastered the roof and put all these magical lights in and put a sunken fire pit with marble parquetry, a big river stone rock wall with copper around the fire and glass paneling. Then we built the studio just next to this sunken fire pit and it looks out over the field with all the horses and it’s a really magical spot. This album was the maiden voyage for that area and there’s a lot of good energy. Just the room itself is really magic.
PAN M 360: I felt that this album was groovier and more sensual, closer to Honey Bones than Smooth Big Cat but maybe I’m wrong. Would you care to comment?
Angus Stone: Like I said, every song is different. Every record is going to be different. You move based on the experiences you’re having in the world and in your heart. Things are never going to be the same and that’s what I love about music—you are constantly evolving, and I’ve always made sure that the most important thing is that my heart is free and that I’m open to new experiences and hopefully I can push that into my music. But I don’t know, I’ll leave that up to the listeners to how they view it
PAN M 360: “Howl With Me” … the beginning of the song… I know I’ve heard that somewhere. I think I have on some record but I don’t remember where it comes from.
Angus Stone:Ah yeah! So on one of the EPs we did a while ago, I did a song called ”Home Soon.” Maybe five years ago, I was playing Grand Theft Auto. And when you jump into different cars on the game, the radio station comes on and you can actually flick through the different channels. So I was flicking the radio stations and this song came on, I think it’s called “Stories” by The Chakachas. I instantly Shazamed it and found out the band’s name. And then I downloaded the song. And I just loved it. I just sat there and started singing to it because it’s an instrumental, they’re an instrumental band. So I started singing to it, and it just worked perfectly with what I do. And I called up the head of Sony. And then he called someone in Paris, and then they called someone in Germany, and they tried to find these guys. But all the band members, I think, had passed away, because it was an old song [from 1972] you know. But they tracked down this guy and they showed him what I’d recorded on top of his song and he said “Yeah, I love it. Let’s do it!” And then I did it again, on this new record, with that band but I changed the title and the lyrics.
PAN M 360: You’ve also put out an album with your sister Julia this year Life Is Strange. How do you manage your different entities?
Angus Stone: Sometimes I wonder about that myself (laughs). I take breaks in between making records. And make sure that I’m looking after myself and my well-being. But when it comes to making records, it’s something that I love doing. For me, it’s fine-tuning my craft. It’s something that I truly believe is inside me, it feels like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. And when I’m doing it, it makes me feel happy. And I get a lot out of life, the renewal of self … it sort of replenishes my soul. Just being in that style of creating something from a seed, or not even, just out of a thought that’s floating around in the back of your head, and then all of a sudden, it’s this tangible thing, which is music. I think it’s just different with Julia, it’s a cool thing. We’ve worked together for so long that we have a really special relationship and just a free-flowing energy when it comes to sitting down in the studio and making records. It’s that wisdom and trust. And obviously, we’re family and that goes a long way when it comes to getting things done. And, yeah, it feels like everything is in its right place.
PAN M 360: The record label was giving away this beautiful 1960 pink Cadillac to one lucky winner in Australia who would have pre-ordered the, aptly titled, album. So I was wondering, are you an amateur collector of vintage cars?
Angus Stone: Yeah! I collect cars. I have maybe 10 odd old cars. It’s been a bit of a fun hobby along the way. When Julia and I made a record with Rick Rubin in L.A. in 2014, I bought this old 1959 Morris Mini that I was driving around and when we were done with the record, I put it on a boat and shipped it back to my ranch. I have a ‘71 Cadillac Limo, a ‘69 Beetle, a ‘67 Valiant… what else we got… a 70’s Land Rover troupe carrier, a Ford F 100 pickup… there’s a few more… So when it came to the song “Rose Pink Cadillac,” the head of BMG rang me up. He said, “Let’s just buy this rose pink Cadillac and we’ll give it away.” And I was like, “Okay, let me sleep on that.” And I called him up in the morning and said “That’s the coolest thing.” You know, something to give back after all the years of having our fans be so loyal. It’s really a cool movement.
PAN M 360: You bet. Hey, maybe you would have liked to keep it for yourself?
Angus Stone: Yeah (laughs). It’s gonna be hard to let go. That’s for sure.
PAN M 360: So you drove it around a bit?
Angus Stone: Yeah, I have it registered under my name so I can drive it around in the meantime. So yeah, it’s one of my cars at the moment that I go down the road in and go get a coffee.
PAN M 360: Was it originally pink or it was painted over?
Angus Stone: Yes, it’s the original colour. I think it had two previous owners. It’s one of those cars that have been left in the shed, under a cover. I would love to be able to do this kind of contest in every country, have an iconic car drawn. What car in Canada is cool?
PAN M 360: Well, a Cadillac like this would do it! They make cars here but they are American brands. And having a classic car here is more complicated because of the winter; the car has to be stored half of the year.
Angus Stone: Indeed … So I’d say we might as well draw something solid and all-purpose like an old Jeep Willys, wouldn’t that be cool?
Traditional Christmas songs and baroque instrumental pieces intertwine and plunge us into the atmosphere of Christmases long ago. Soprano Meredith Hall, an excellent interpreter of these ancient repertoires, joins La Nef and its period instruments to evoke the Nativity this Tuesday in Bourgie Hall. This material includes a recent recording by the singer and La Nef, “Oikan Ayns Bethlehem / Celtic Christmas Songs”, released on Atma.
PAN M 360: The program on the Bourgie websiste says « vocal and instrumental music from France, England, Ireland and Scotland ». Can we be more specific? Is it the repertoire from “Oikan Ayns Bethlehem / Celtic Christmas Songs “?
Meredith Hall : Some of Celtic songs we have recorded previously on Oikan Ayns Bethlehem, but much of this program, (including all of the french repertoire) is relatively new for La Nef and myself. We recorded it last year for a European broadcast but this is the first time we will present this program to a live, in-person audience.
“Noëls Anciens” is quite diverse. It includes traditional folk carols and instrumental tunes from France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England and the Isle of Man. Some of these are quite ancient -their earliest origins are unknown but most were assumed to be in existance by the 1600’s.
The audience will also hear French Noëls drawn from the rich organ repertoire of French baroque composers Pierre Dandrieu and Louis-Claude Daquin. Sylvain Bergeron has re-arranged these keyboard works for the bowed and plucked instruments of La Nef, along with baroque flute. The result is a magically transparent and luminous sound in pieces that range from deeply contemplative to sweet playfulness. Another unique addition to this program is the haunting “Eesus Ahatonnyah” which we have created in a new arrangement in three languages, Wendat, French, and English. The words were writen in 1642 in Wendat by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit priest who learned to speak Wendat as part of his mission to convert the Wendat people. Brébeuf included elements of traditional Wendat spirituality in his poetry, and I was very concerned to present this piece in a way that was respectful to the Wendat people and culture. The magnificent poet and singer Andrée Levesque Sioui, who lives in Wendake and is part of the strong and continuous tradition of Wendat culture, generously taught me the Wendat pronunciation for 2 verses of the song. She also helped me to slightly rewrite the better known French and English versions to help them better reflect Wendat spirituality.
PAN M 360 : How were those songs found and selected?
Meredith Hall : Before the internet, we spent a lot of time in the music libraries of McGill and the University of Toronto, searching through old collections of folk music like Playford’s “The English Dancing Master”, and the “Scots Musical Museum”. Sylvain Bergeron is a good detective – he has a great instinct for knowing which deceptively simple tune from the 1600’s or 1700’s, will hit the ear in a fresh way, or will touch your heart, or make you laugh. I am very word oriented, always looking for the story or the link to traditions. And I like to play around with texts, sometimes matching familiar words to a less known tune as is the case with the 19th century lyrics of ” What Child is this?” which I have paired with an old Irish tune, “My Lagan Love” ( it is normally sung to the tune of greensleeves). And many of the instrumental tunes suggested themselves for a winter program because of their titles, like our “cold suite” which contains traditional english dance tunes with names like”On the Cold Ground”, “Drive the Cold Winter Away” and “Cold and Raw”.
PAN M 360 : Have you already performed live this repertoire with La Nef?
Meredith Hall: I have performed about half of the songs with La Nef before -including one of my most favourite pieces that I have ever sung “usheg veg ruy” ( little red bird) – a sweet winter lullaby from the Isle of Man, that depicts a cold little bird searching for a warm place to sleep. We recorded the full program for Euro Radio broadcast last December but this is the first time to perform the french and Wendat live.
PAN M 360 : What can we know about your artistic and professional relationship with La Nef? How came this actual project of recording and live performance?
Meredith Hall : I have had the great joy of collaborating with La Nef for more than 20 years. I first met the artistic director, Sylvain Bergeron when we collaborated on a Monteverdi project with the Toronto Consort in the late 90’s! After a few more collaborations in renaissance and baroque projects, we discovered that we both loved traditional celtic music. We began to explore this repertoire with La Nef, using a unique blend of instruments, from very courtly baroque instruments like gamba and theorbo and recorder, to more folky instruments like nyckelharpa, hurdy-gurdy, irish flute, and bagpipes. I guess you could call the approach baroque/folk crossover. I grew up singing folk music in Newfoundland, so for me, vocally and interpretively, it was just coming home to my roots, singing naturally, telling the story.
PAN M 360 : How will you approach those vocal pieces ?
Meredith Hall : they need complete sincerity and a straightforward sweet and warm tone. None of the athleticism or bravura sometimes neccessary for opera. My best singing moments are when the music makes me so happy I can feel a smile inside my eyes and it spreads to my throat and chest. And when I can feel that the audience is truly sharing the story as I tell it in song.
PAN M 360 : How did you develop vocal techniques, I mean baroque and more recent operatic music ?
Meredith Hall : I took bachelor and master degrees in Vocal performance at the University of Toronto, then studied technique with Laura Sarti at the Guildhall of Music in London, England. From my earliest studies my interest was always lieder, and earlier music, from the middle ages up to Mozart. The marvellous harpsichordistand forte pianist, Colin Tilney, was a big inspiration for me as I had the luck to collaborate with him often in my student days. Emma Kirby inspired me tremendously with her vocal clarity and expressivity. Also I learned rennaisance and baroque style on the job with the Toronto Consort and with many important roles with Opera Atelier and the Baroque Orchestra Apollo’s Fire. The Conductor Nicholas McGegan taught me a lot, through his always dancing, alive approach to Handel.
PAN M 360 : Do you consider yourself mainly involved in the baroque and ancient music repertoire? Do you prefer this ancient/baroque/folklore repertoire?
Meredith Hall: I can enjoy singing many styles of music ( including jazz!) But I am most at home and most myself in the ancient and folk music.
PAN M 360 : What are your next recording and live performance projects?
Meredith Hall: I am preparing a program of music with period harpist Julia Seager-Scott based around the life and works of the writer Jane Austen. And I am collaborating on a very important cycle of songs with Toronto composer Frank Horvat entitled Fractures, which explores the theme of Fracking ( an environmentally dangerous mode of Oil and gas extraction) and how it affects humanity. It is a very intense and emotional project, because the looming environmental crisis is so terrifying to me, especially as a mother.
PAN M 360: Where are you based actually?
Meredith Hall: Toronto in body (Newfoundland in heart).
MUSICIANS
Guest: Meredith Hall, soprano La Nef: Sylvain Bergeron, archlute, Baroque guitar, music director Robin Grenon, harps Grégoire Jeay, recorders and Baroque transverse flute Alex Kehler, folk violin and nyckelharpa Marie-Laurence Primeau, viola da gamba Andrew Wells-Oberegger, percussions
PROGRAMME
Vocal and instrumental music from France, England, Ireland, and Scotland
Have no fear, the queen is alive and well—Queen Omega, the impressive reggae artist from Trinidad, is back with a fourth project named Stars Align.
After a few years of silence (her last album, Together, We Aspire, Together, We Achieve was produced in 2012), Queen Omega finally had the time and the inspiration to come up with a new project. She was already known in the reggae sphere for her interesting vision of this particular genre. Even though everyone kinda “knows” it, it’s mostly no further than Bob Marley, the leader of The Wailers and a very influential figure of the Rasta movement. But for Queen Omega, reggae ought to be more than that and needs to change. With only eight songs, Stars Align is quite short and leaves us wanting for more! But with its engaging mix of dancehall, Afrobeat and reggae, this EP leaves you in a state of pure joy and enjoyment.
LMK and Stonebwoy both make appearances on the project, respectively on “Free” and “Number One”. In Queen Omega’s view, the two young men from Trinidad bring a new light and form to the project due to their own career in the music industry. “I want to help other artists to be known, to be able to play on the radio or to do festivals. I have to give back to them”, she says, revealing her motivation to see music change and evolve.
If you find yourself wondering, “what do I even know about reggae, I only know about Bob Marley…”, Stars Align is your chance to reconnect with the genre and to learn more about it. Or, if you simply want to listen to a good project from a talented Black artist, here’s your chance!
PAN M 360: You were born in Trinidad, a small Caribbean island often called “the land of the hummingbird”. What are some of your best memories about growing up there?
Queen Omega: My most candid memorieswould be with my family, you know? I was the only girl, all my siblings were born males, and being the only girl, I was always treated like a princess, like a queen, being treated with extra special care. And I had so many great moments with my family, I sang a lot with them, I enjoyed nature, and the get-togethers were always something!
PAN M 360: Would you be able to remember when and where you came to the realization that you had the wish to become an artist?
Queen Omega: Ever since I know myself, you know, consciously, I knew that I was a singer because my mom told me that from inception. I was born with a gift because my mom asked the superior forces. And when I started going to school, I was beginning to realize that my voice was beautiful… because I started to be requested a lot. I was asked to perform, to sing in a lot of shows and competitions.
PAN M 360: Stars Align is your latest project. Would you say that the star aligned during the pandemic, allowing you time and inspiration to create this EP?
Queen Omega: It was perfect. It was because of the covid-19 that I really got the opportunity to work on this EP. I took the advantage of the time being still for once, you know? With the lockdown and the curfew in my country—well, everywhere in the world, too!—I took the time to go to the studio, spent a lot of long nights there and before I knew it, the EP was produced! And it was perfect timing for me. My fans wanted more music from me, my promoters wanted more music from me…
PAN M 360: With Stars Align, were you trying to tell a story, or were the songs more individual?
Queen Omega: It is a story. Everything that I write about in Stars Align are experiences. Not always personal, but sometimes, experiences that I’ve witnessed, that I learned from, because we learn from mistakes, you know? Even if those aren’t ours. The story is really true and each song is a story and I think that’s precisely why I think Stars Align is a beautiful project; it’s true, it’s authentic, it’s real and raw.
PAN M 360: What are the important themes that you wanted to tackle?
QUEEN OMEGA: I wanted to talk about the future, the future generations, the children and how misled we can be today. And we have so much to blame, you know? With the elders, with the behavior of the adults… We must take responsibility and turn the page so we can be a better place for the future! So that’s one theme. And the other would be… a great love story. And you know, love isn’t always kind to us, sometimes, things just don’t work out the way you want them to, you know? So the love story in Stars Align talks about two people who really love each other but it just… doesn’t work out. But it’s hard to say goodbye.
PAN M 360: Stars Align would be far from the first time that you released new music. Destiny and Away from Babylon were the first projects you ever did, back in 2004. In 2008, it was the turn of Servant of Jah Army, and Together We Inspire, Together We Achieve back in 2012. What did you learn from all those projects?
QUEEN OMEGA: Yeah, that’s what makes Stars Align so precious. I kind of came out of the box of doing strictly reggae. I wanted to mix genres up a little bit because I’m so versatile, I can do a lot of things. The sound of Stars Align is more of a dancehall sound from Trinidad, we also have some Afro tones, some Afro beats. The one with Stonebwoy is very Afrocentric—you know, he is a king of the Afro dancehall!—so I’m really pleased with what we achieved with him. And the song we did together is called “Number One”! So, I would say pretty suiting.
PAN M 36: What made you think that Stonebwoy would be a good fit for the project?
Queen Omega: He knew what he was doing, I think. I knew about this genre and the vibes that come with it, you know? My previous manager would always tell me about the importance of collaborating with other artists from Africa, and so I did! He actually wanted the same thing as well, so I think the universe heard us and made it happen.
PAN M 360: This year will mark the 35th edition of the Festival International des Nuits d’Afrique. In your opinion, why are those shows important and why people should go, even though they might be unfamiliar with African music?
Queen Omega: It’s important to me to participate in such projects because I think I have to do my part, my purpose, you know? I am very well looked upon, I think it’s part of my job to spread good vibes. And the more people will do it, the more people will be interested and curious, the more it will bring! I love performing at festivals because it is so diverse. We can see so many people from so many cultures with so many stories to tell and I love that. I love reaching out to people, to connect with them through my mission, my gift of music.
PAN M 360: Do you think that reggae might be a genre a little forgotten these days?
Queen Omega: Yeah, I think it’s designed to be that way but I also think that everything is about evolution. I think we are in a stage where reggae is really evolving because music grows, you know? And as it grows, we have to fuse it and so, as a reggae performer, I like to continue to explore and learn from other artists. But I’m not worried; the first thing people say when you talk about reggae is Bob Marley, a figure that will never be forgotten.
PAN M 360: Before we know it, the year is coming to an end! What are your wishes for the upcoming one? Queen Omega: I just want to do more music. I am currently working on another album, so I’m just trying to see when I can get that wrapped up! I want to be able to go back on the road, to tour, get my label out so I can help other artists, especially in Trinidad to get the circle going. We have so much talent here and I can’t wait for people to be able to finally hear them.
Ariel Posen, a singer-songwriter/guitar virtuoso from Winnipeg—who spends his time playing with The Bros. Landreth and has been given praise from the likes of John Mayer—found himself with an idea and loads of time last year. Around the time of the rollout of his album Headway, Ariel booked some studio time in Montreal to record a few instrumental tracks and some video.
He ended up coming out with a full instrumental album called Mile End, a change of pace from his singer-songwriter sound. It’s an album that probably never would have been created if it wasn’t for the pandemic, but it expresses another flavour to Ariel’s rootsy blues sound and again, conveys how adept he is at song arrangement.
Ariel had some time to chat with PAN M 360 about his latest project before he opens for Bahamas in early December.
PAN M 360: What made you want to record a full instrumental guitar album?
Ariel Posen: I used to do a lot of demo videos for companies and I’m just used to just playing solo like that. Half of me doesn’t consider Mile End a record, because it’s not the amount of work and time that goes into writing songs like on Headway or How Long. But basically, what happened is that I had the time. On my first record, How Long, when I recorded it, I only had seven songs and I wanted a full 10 track record. So I actually just had three little solo pieces that I just recorded as interludes. So when I did that, people would reach out and say, ‘Hey, we really, really liked those solo pieces. Would you ever do something more like that?’ And I always just kind of pushed it off, but it always seemed to have a warm reaction.
PAN M 360: So the idea has been on your mind for some time then?
Ariel Posen: Yeah and this past year was weird for everybody. We all found ourselves with a lot more time than usual. I’d put all this time and energy into Headway and before it even came out, I hadn’t had some time to record. So my plan was just to go into a studio and record some video or have some content put out. There was no pressure of making a record. It was just simply see what happens, hopefully get some cool videos out of it. I went in there very casually, and had a bunch of pieces that turned out better than I thought. So it’s an album, but it’s also not.
PAN M 360: So the videos of you playing the album live on YouTube are those video recordings?
Ariel Posen: Yeah. It was all live-off-the-floor. All these songs were so improvised and it was very in the moment.
PAN M 360: I think my favorite track on Mile End is “Clawhammer.” Maybe just because of the name or the intensity, but do you feel giving names to instrumental tracks influences how they sound?
Ariel Posen: I have a really hard time giving names to songs that don’t have words in them. I just tried to think of a title that somewhat suited the vibe and the sound of the song. And for “Clawhammer,” I wanted a word that sounded somewhat aggressive, but also kind of cool sounding. I also have a lot of friends who play clawhammer-style banjo. The song has nothing to do with banjo playing and doesn’t resemble any kind of banjo-like clawhammer technique, but it’s just the word that came into my mind. And it’s kind of the same with all the other songs. One song felt like after a big rain, so yeah, I try to not be too precious or too deep about the names.
PAN M 360: And for the song and album name, Mile End, is that linked to Montreal?
Ariel Posen: The studio I recorded it in was in Mile End, but the phrase ‘mile end’ just sounds like the end of the road. Like you’ve been driving a long time and now the journey is done. Not saying my journey is done, but I wanted to gravitate towards that vibe for this record.
PAN M 360: One thing I find so refreshing about your playing is that you give space for every solo or lick on guitar. There are so many guitarists that just shred and hit as many notes as they can to show skill.
Ariel Posen: I’m always wanting to serve the song. So even if the song is a solo guitar interlude, I want to try and be in that moment and do nothing more or nothing less than what that piece needs. I just want to connect with whoever’s listening to it and to get someone else to connect to it, I need to connect to it. And shredding, as you said, doesn’t really fit. Like if you’re gonna play basketball, you don’t want to just dribble really fast or like spin the ball on your finger the whole time. It’s a bigger picture with making music than just trying to show off your skill.
PAN M 360: And when you perform, opening up for Bahamas, is it going to be the Mile End stuff or the more singer-songwriter stuff with your band?
Ariel Posen: So I’ll be playing the singing songs with the band the song and I might hint at Mile End in a few songs with a little solo or something. That’s why I say Mile End is such a side project, like a departure from what I normally do, for fun.
Editor’s note: The excellent album House Music was launched at the end of winter 2021 by Bell Orchestre. On March 22, PAN M 360 had posted a large part of this interview with Richard Reed Parry, which we have now enhanced with this symphonic complement! Our spring interview has additional answers provided by the musician in the run-up to the concert by Bell Orchestra with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, this Thursday at the Maison symphonique.
Richard Reed Parry is one of the main people in charge of Arcade Fire’s “research and development” section. House Music, Bell Orchestre’s new album released after a long recording silence, is another convincing example of this quest, which he generously tells us about here.
Recall that the album House Music was created from motifs around which Bell Orchestre improvised collectively and then improved the first takes by means of electronic treatments, filters, the addition of instruments, and various edits. Based on the piece “V: Movement” from this album, and directed by Kaveh Nabatian, the short film IX: Nature That’s It That’s All superimposes elements of archival films featuring ecstatic crowds at a carnival.
Working with sound engineer Hans Bernhard, Bell Orchestra wired every corner of a country house owned by fiddler and singer Sarah Neufeld in Vermont—hence the pun House Music. For this immersive recording, she welcomed Pietro Amato (horn, keyboards, electronics), Michael Feuerstack (pedal steel guitar, keyboards, vocals), Kaveh Nabatian (trumpet, gongoma, keyboards, vocals), Richard Reed Parry (double bass, vocals) and Stefan Schneider (drums). The ensemble spent two weeks exploring and refining the material: daily improvisations culminating in a conclusive 90-minute session from which the fine marrow was extracted.
The material was then arranged by Owen Pallett for the Aarhus Symfoniorkester, a Danish symphony orchestra under the direction of German maestro André de Ridder. An initial performance took place in Hamburg in August 2019 and… everything stopped, which explains the delay in the release of this superb album conceived some time ago. Montreal music lovers rejoice, Bell Orchestre and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra are reviving this wonderful material!
PAN M 360: After all these years, more precisely since 2009, the year of release of the album As Seen Through Windows, one could think that Bell Orchestre was dead, which is not the case. What’s up?
Richard Reed Parry: We didn’t record for over 10 years, but there was never an official stop. Life has been busy, too many projects, and Bell Orchestra has never been a full-time band. It won’t be but it still has vitality, there is a deep musical connection between us. Honestly, this album is the best we’ve recorded so far. It best realizes what the true essence of the band is. I’m very happy with it, we captured something that is overly conceived. But it’s not raw. The heart of the album is the spontaneous eruption of what the band is and what it is capable of.
PAN M 360: Unlike previous albums from the 2000s, this one is more singular, more mature, far beyond the indie trend of the time that you were part of and witnessed.
Richard Reed Parry: Thank you! And I couldn’t agree more! (laughs).
PAN M 360: What are the differences between the previous staff and this one?
Richard Reed Parry: Mike Feuerstack is now a full member of the band, he was previously a guest. Colin Stetson was also a guest, a wonderful addition at that time. Things have changed since then, he and Sarah got divorced… the only thing you can be sure of is change, right? If you survive the change, change yourself and it works, then… yeah! If not, it’s the same staff as before.
PAN M 360: If we try to pinpoint the changes between this album and the previous ones, what would you say from your side?
Richard Reed Parry: The main difference is that the foundation of this album is improvised, not planned, not premeditated, not discussed. This 45-minute recording is essentially an hour-and-a-half-long improvisation that we did after several other improvisation sessions. We listened back to everything we recorded during those two weeks of work, we identified several very good compositional ideas, but this 90-minute session was very clear, articulate, even if sometimes abstract. Between 65 and 70 percent of the music for this album was already there.
And then we reworked the material: fill in something here, take out this part, cut this other part in half. Figuratively speaking, it’s like a sculptor looking at a huge piece of granite and in his warehouse, there are other weird shapes carved in the stone. One of them would accidentally fall, resulting in a new shape that the artist would keep for his final sculpture. Literally, some of the accidents allowed us to access new shapes and see this work very clearly as a whole. At least, that’s how I felt.
PAN M 360: More specifically, what happened?
Richard Reed Parry: Some of the movements on the album emerged during the big improvisation, some occurred in the same order as the final recording, some evolved in the treatment of the raw material. Sometimes we agreed that we had to cut five minutes because it became boring and we lost the thread, we had to edit. The raw material was sometimes reworked with new ideas for compositions, arrangements, melodic insertions, instrumental additions, overlays, editing. So you get more shine on the raw material while keeping the original properties, the benefits of the first ideas.
PAN M 360: Were your best decisions unconscious?
Richard Reed Parry: This album would have been very different if we hadn’t had these ideas while we were playing and moving around together. I believe that the unconscious musical mind can be wiser and more connective than the musical mind that comes primarily from the intellect. Of course, some artists can take an intellectual concept to a high level of refinement and break down walls. The best, in fact, is when the “holy spirit” of music emerges from the unconscious and engages the intellect as well.
PAN M 360: Improvising, recording, reshaping, editing, filtering… Isn’t this album a metaphor for creation in the digital age?
Richard Reed Parry: Not quite. One of the big inspirations for the process of this record was Miles Davis’ famous Bitches Brew album. In the way they worked, he and the musicians who participated in those sessions were pretty close to what we did. They had recorded everything they could, for as long as they could, and then made changes afterward—cutting trumpet lines, adding a keyboard, shortening certain sequences, etc. They used the technology of the tape recorder to record the music. They used the technology of the time but with that same idea: capture the original raw energy, then rearrange certain parts and manipulate the recording to achieve an effect that was unattainable in the moment. We wanted to do something like that: improvise, record, fall in love with some of the takes after listening to them and then recreate with the freshness of the ideas we got from the improvisation. I’m very happy that it worked out so well.
PAN M 360: The Orb and Talk Talk, which have little to do with Miles Davis, would also have been major influences. Explanation?
Richard Reed Parry: The Orb Live ’93 is one of my top ten albums, all styles, and eras combined. The idea was to create in real-time, to use very simple but elegantly crafted musical ideas and let in fragments of recordings, sounds of nature, sounds of the city, chaotic energies, interesting in every way. Thus deforming, distorting, extending, adding, expanding. You float in this music, very strong ideas come out. That chaos was so alive! I was in high school, I wondered how they could have made such an album. I still listen to it today with the same pleasure.
As for Talk Talk, the last two recordings [Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock] are in a similar vein: beyond the structure of the songs, it was a matter of Mark Hollis trying to capture the energy flowing at a given moment, doing things unconsciously, inviting musicians to improvise in the dark around a single element of a song. In a way, to float and remain detached from any conscious decision making, and to welcome the sacred ghost that is impossible to find normally. You can’t demand that this ephemeral quality appear, you can only wish for it.
PAN M 360: As a composer and certainly the closest to contemporary music in Arcade Fire, what is your contribution to this new Bell Orchestre album?
Richard Reed Parry: What I brought to the table was mostly harmonic loops played on my double bass, with a visceral sense of movement. Really simple things that you could sing melodies over, play different chords… We needed that kind of gravitational pull at the center of the album without it being the centerpiece. So it was kind of a sketch, otherwise, it was a very open palette from this seemingly simple idea and it opened the door to other even more interesting ideas.
THE BELL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: INTERVIEW SUPPLEMENT
PAN M 360: Can you explain how the symphonic arrangements have been designed with the band’s music?
Richard Reed Parry: We tried to intertwine the band and orchestra in many ways —sometimes we are playing in unison, blending the parts that we ourselves are playing into what the orchestra play, sometimes the orchestra takes a single small element of what a band member is doing and magnifies it in this massive acoustic way. Often the orchestra also extends our own gestures far beyond what we ourselves are doing: enhanced and extended chords, sonic gestures that intermingle with our own, and occasionally adding new chords and textures that simply weren’t there in our album.
PAN M 360: So André de Ridder had to work with Owen Pallett, who wrote the arrangements.
Richard Reed Parry: Our dear friend and a longtime collaborator for many of us. He’s so gifted at orchestration and has supported us a lot over the years. In fact, the first time Bell Orchestre played in Toronto, it was opening for Owen‘s old band Les Mouches. Andre is also a dear friend and wonderful conductor and collaborator, and was the one who proposed we do this with the MSO! He’s wonderful at making crossover collaborations happen with orchestras and other artists.
PAN M 360: What is the nature of the dialogue between the band and the big orchestra?
Richard Reed Parry: Music, though it’s obviously a common shared language, has spent so much time divided into “separate” genres by varying combinations of education, semantics, class, and creative process. I am so happy to live in an era where the borders have broken down quite a lot and we can even consider doing such collaborations, and thrilled that an orchestra as great as the OSM is open to doing such a concert. Once we are all on a stage together, we are obviously united in purpose and it’s really just about finding the quickest way to best realize this large, slightly unusual musical beast/piece and bring it to life! I have a handful of friends who play in the MSO who come see various other performances I do, so there’s a nice feeling of interchange there.
PAN M 360:What about the relationship between Bell Orchestre and OSM and its conductor for the event?
Richard Reed Parry: Hopefully we will all be functioning as one giant synergistic organism. House Music wants to feel like a combination of spur-of-the-moment decisions and interweaving spontaneous ideas that emerge and vanish, along with well-organized, well-defined compositional threads, chaotic moments, groovy sections, and sonic interplay reflecting many different musical angles simultaneously. At a certain point, the whole orchestra and band will all be singing together, which is one of my favorite parts of the whole piece…
PAN M 360: Do you see some important differences between the way it was played in Hamburg and the way it will be in Montréal?
Richard Reed Parry: Mostly that we know the whole thing by heart now! Some of us were still using scores when we performed at the Elbphilharmonie and thankfully we have totally internalized the music now, which was quite a challenge for 45 minutes of music, much of which is quite asymmetrical, to put it mildly. So it will be exciting to just be playing music, without having to read scores. The orchestra isn’t quiiiiite as familiar with the music as we are, so obviously, they will still be using scores (laughs).
Montreal hip-hop wordsmith, Shailah L. Morris, who goes by the moniker SLM (pronounced “Slim”), has been in the rap game ever since her arrival in September 2019. She released a remix of Drake’s “Money In the Grave,” kickstarting a series of remix projects, titled SLM MX. A year later she dropped her full-length debut, SLM: The Complete Flex Season.
This year she added to her spitfire sound with the REAL TALK RADIO EP where she collaborated with two other Montreal artists, La Reina and YAMA//SATO. SLM’s sound features trap, R&B, and classic hip-hop beats as she delivers lines with catchy, poetic precision. She had some time to chat with PAN M 360 about her roots, approach to songwriting, and teases what we can expect from a whole new SLM sound, before her performance during M For Montreal presented virtually to the international delegates… because of her huge potential.
PAN M 360: What made you want to start making your own hip-hop?
Shailah L. Morris, a.k.a. SLM: I’ve always had a passion for hip-hop and I wasn’t hearing what I wanted to hear out of the music scene here. So I contributed my sound to it.
PAN M 360: What weren’t you hearing?
Shailah L. Morris: Something that was inspiring, something that was outside of the box, something that was unconventional and not typical. Something that was not recycled from somebody in the past.
PAN M 360: So how do you make songs that are not deemed conventional in hip-hop?
Shailah L. Morris: I definitely think that I have elements of my songs that can be deemed conventional to people, but the way I try to separate myself, is that every word that I say, I really mean and I live and do every day. So I think that’s one aspect that makes me different in itself, but also the elements of musicality that I choose to include in my beats. In my harmonies with things, adding layers, adding texture. And just making it a point and intention, every time I am writing a song or recording a new song, that I want it to sound and feel different and good to people and myself.
PAN M 360: Your song “RENT FREE” on the latest EP REAL TALK RADIO is so unbelievably catchy. I just love the concept of you living in somebody’s head “rent free.” Could you talk about the creation process of that one?
Shailah L. Morris: So “Rent Free” was one of those songs when I had felt like there was a lot of drama in my life at the time. I felt like my name, my spirit, my personality was, living in people’s brains and in their minds very heavily to the point where they were feeling the need to send some negative vibes my way. So I was like, ‘Damn, that sucks for you.’ I’m gonna write a song about it.
PAN M 360: So it was it in response to stuff you had done beforehand as an artist or in your personal life?
Shailah L. Morris: Yeah. I don’t remember exactly what I was that was going on in my head back then, but it was a little bit of both for sure.
PAN M 360: So did that affect your confidence as an artist? I mean, your music seems very confident.
Shailah L. Morris: Yeah, it is more to empower myself and people that listen to it 100 percent. But sometimes empowered people have their moments of being down and I feel like that’s important for people to notice. No one is 100 percent good all the time and anybody who claims to be is probably hiding the fact that they’re going through something. I don’t do that. That’s why I’m venturing into a more vulnerable side of music right now. Writing about things that make me feel upset or insecure, or just low at times. Especially living in Montreal, and it being a cold place. I’m not meant for the cold. And it being a place where I feel like a lot of people do not have open minds. And that’s just based on my personal experience. I do feel like there’s a lot of people who do have open minds, don’t get me wrong, but there are definitely people who don’t. And I’ve dealt with both, you know what I mean? So it’s more about how those negative feelings and emotions that have been projected onto me have made me feel.
PAN M 360: You have had a good number of views on your music videos in the past? Do you have any plans to do one for a song on the EP or anything you’re working on now?
Shailah L. Morris: Yeah I do have plans to do stuff for the EP. I wanted to do one for “JUST LIKE THAT” and “HEAVY” and “RENT FREE” as well. But definitely in the works, we’re doing one for “HEAVY” right now. And “JUST LIKE THAT” sometime soon. I have a vision for that one that can’t really be executed during the season. And for all the new stuff that I’m working on, I’m really taking my time with everything new that I’ve been working on, making sure that I have all of the video content before I actually release anything, just so that the rollout is complete.
PAN M 360: I’ve always felt it tough to listen to a modern hip-hop album front to back because nowadays with streaming, it feels like a singles game. But REAL TALK RADIO is very cohesive front to back. How did you achieve this?
Shailah L. Morris: First of all, all of the songs on that EP, and album [SLM: The Complete Flex Season] were made with the intention of making either an EP or an album. That’s the first thing I try to do is think, okay, what is the intention of this project, and does it fit with what I’m doing at the time? Also working with the same producer or primarily the same producer and finding beats that fit the vibe. For REAL TALK RADIO, I knew I wanted it to be something that made people feel like they could blast it out of their windows in their car while they’re driving on the highway, or play it out at a party. But you could also play it late at night by yourself in headphones to give you that energy boost. I also think all of the songs on the EP are in succession.
PAN M 360: Meaning they were written one after the other?
Shailah L. Morris: So the first two were produced by Keita [Saint]. He just kind of sent me some beats one day when I was still working on the album. So I went back and revisited them after the album was long out and I was ready to go back into the studio and make some new stuff. And those two beats really resonated with me out of like the six pack that he sent me. For “BIG BAG,” La Reina hit me up at like 12 and was like, ‘What are you doing right now?’, and we made that. We didn’t really know each other, but I like to just cook up with somebody new and just collab to see what happens. So yeah, that session became the start of “BIG BAG.”
PAN M 360: And how do you go about translating these songs to a live setting?
Shailah L. Morris: So for the M For Montreal thing they suggested I have some live instrumentation and a light bulb went off in my head. And the guys that I’m working with on my newer stuff right now actually are instrumentalists and they were super down to just help me out and work with me and do that show. We had a couple of rehearsals before and they had just listened to the beats and created a sort of composition based on that. I had nothing to do with composition at all. They kind of just were able to play it by ear and make it sound great. I love the live instruments sound and my newer stuff is definitely going to incorporate that. They’re pretty much still in like the demo, early mix stages. And I’m in no rush to release anything anytime soon because I feel like I’ve released quite a bit of things in the past two years already. I really want to refine this sound because it’s unlike anything anyone’s heard from me yet. It’s going to be a new SLM.
Whether through literature, music, or images, Mauvay is a storyteller of universal stories about love. Usually accompanied by his musicians, he will be alone on stage for his Montreal premiere as part of M for Montreal. The creator proposes a cinematic experience, mixing music, light, and image. In addition to the songs that made him popular, he will perform live exclusives and a selection of pieces from his next album to be released next year.
PAN M 360: You were born in Ghana and you grew up between the UK and Canada; How did those places shape you as a person, an artist and how did it shape your music?
Mauvey: That’s a really good question, I mean firstly it has really founded my music taste because I was exposed to afrobeat, 90’s R&B, soul music… just being able to experience different kinds of music is really valuable. Also just trying to figure out my place was the most difficult part, because other than Ghana, everywhere I’ve been I’m so different. I went to England being the only black person when I went to Canada just feeling different because you’re English, on top of that you are black. The journey of trying to fit in is why now my music stands out, at a certain point I was tired of trying to fit in and I just went to be me.
PAN M 360: Before writing music, you were writing novels and short stories, how did your creative process evolve from writing literature to music?
Mauvay: For me, they are all stories, whether it’s a novel, a feature film, or a song. The difference is a story that takes three minutes, a novel is longer, I approach the story the same. When you need to get to the top and descend to the end, how far is the distance? I started writing poems and then short stories and then essays, novels… so it was an easy transition to songwriting because I have got the accompaniment of melody which makes telling a story easier. When you have a melody that it’s compelling it makes writing the words easier.
PAN M 360: Music clips are also another way to tell stories, are you involved in some way in the creation of your music videos?
Mauvay: I actually directed the short films that will be released on Friday, I wrote the story, co-directed the film with a company called Amazing Factory based in Vancouver. It’s very much the same thing, being able to tell a visual story is really fun and the most exciting thing to me right now.
PAN M 360: On YouTube I saw you launched “9 days of flower”, an initiative to connect to members of your audiences, can you tell me more about it?
Mauvay: I just wanted to say thank you and celebrate the people who celebrated me. People who helped me, the first single that was released was “9” so it’s nine days of flower. I went to people’s houses, said thank you and give them flowers. My purpose in doing this is to distribute love. One of the easiest ways is to distribute flowers, you get a smile, you get happiness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFYJ-K6cm1E
PAN M 360: Can you tell me more about the Florist Film Series you created, did the “9 days of flowers” inspire you in any way?
Mauvey: Actually I wrote the Florist Film Series a couple of years ago. The character I created years ago and was the inspiration to go deliver flowers. Inspiration came for me that if in another life if we got paid the same for every job and I could just pick what I wanted to do, I would probably be a delivery man, it’s a really easy way to make people happy. That was my initial thought and I wrote the story of the Florist and I turned it into a film series.
PAN M 360: The character you created, the Florist, seems inspired by silent movies, comedy especially, I feel a bit of a Buster Keaton vibe… a mix of sadness, funny, and uplifting.
Mauvey: I love and I’m very inspired by silent films. This is something that maybe has nothing really to do with the Florist but there is a silent film called The Snowman and it plays every Christmas, it’s like a cartoon but the idea of trying to convey emotions without words, really inspires me, it’s actually more emotional. Of course, you listen to the music but if you are really looking at the images, the stories are quite heartbreaking, trying to explain different avenues of love and it’s quite emotional. I have got a lot of inspiration just in my life in general but there’s a few references to the Neverland world in the films. Other than that truly, all the characters are me in different ways and that’s why I play them, they reflect my real life.
PAN M 360: When we look at your EP covers, we can easily see the color mauve grew on you, going from details to full-on, does it reflectgrowing confidence in your music or in your personality as an artist?
Mauvey: The color mauve, obviously it’s my name Mauvey. I love all shades of purple and when I found this shade of mauve, it was the hardest for me to define. It’s a bit purple, a bit blue, a bit silver, a bit pink, a bit grey and when you would look at my music, it’s a bit pop, cinematic, hip-hop… that’s kind of why I connected to that color. I made a commitment, whenever I perform, it’s all mauve, I want people to see that color in a store, in nature and they think of me.
PAN M 360: What can you tell us about the music scene in Vancouver?
Mauvey: There is an incredible amount of talent here. It’s a phenomenal place for creation with the mountains, the water, the forest. The scene is very competitive but at the same time, I can say that I found some of my peers and we are working to support each other.
PAN M 360: What about your musicians, are they from here?
Mauvay: If I’m in Europe I will tour with the same band and when I’m here I will play with the same band. When I come to Montreal or even Toronto, I’m actually be playing by myself. With help from my producer we created a cinematic show, it’s just me performing. It’s a bit scarier to be on stage by yourself but I’m really excited to explore that as well. It’s a different type of energy when you are by yourself. I have included unreleased songs, sneak peeks of my album that will be out next year, songs that only play live and may never be recorded. It’s an occasion to showcase the different genres I explore.
Mauvey will play M pour Montréal on Friday, November 19th, from 8 to 11 p.m., with Jaywood and Naya Ali at La SAT.
Like a new planet revealed in the far-flung reaches of the solar system, Tokyo trio KUUNATIC are a fairly recent and eminently worthy addition to the constellation of Japanese psych-rock, and the exciting pan-Asian wave of alternative music immersed in the continent’s folklore, faiths and ritualism. Founded five years ago, the tribal-psych trio of keyboardist Fumie Kikuchi, drummer Yuko Araki and bassist Shoko Yoshida (all three also handle vocals) has given shape to a strange yet engaging auditory realm sewn together from elements of ancient traditions from around the world, the more exploratory music of recent decades, and their own uninhibited imaginations. Their latest release is the album Gate of Klüna, produced by Tim DeWit of Gang Gang Dance, and stepping through that gate leads to an entire world, one that’s equally familiar and mysterious. PAN M 360 connected with these emissaries from the planet Kuurandia for further insights and revelations, which they provided collectively.
PAN M 360: Gate of Klüna tells a specific story over the course of the record, an arc of the history of your imagined planet Kuurandia. Can you briefly summarize that story cycle?
KUUNATIC: Our first EP’s title KUURANDIA is the name of a fantasy planet we live on—like a prologue of a story, the last song of the EP, “Battle of Goddesses”, was about Armageddon of deities, and as a result, a new planet, Kuurandia,was born. So we extended the concept for our new album Gate of Klüna, which is inspired by ancient myths, and the story goes like this… Sacred bells ring at the dawn of a new era. Our new empress rises with magical refrains. As the planet prospers, Kuurandians hold a ball under the full moon and celebrate the richness of the harvest. The peaceful time seems to last forever… until a gigantic volcano emerges in the middle of the moonrise mountains. KUUNATIC chant enigmatic mantras like praying, to prevent its eruption. However, unidentified invaders appear from its roaming lava, and the war of predation begins. KUUNATIC fight and release their magical spells, and finally they win the battle. Then three pythonesses sing a mystic triumph song, leading their people to a deep, dreamy forest.
PAN M 360: You are not alone among artists in presenting to your audience your vision of a utopia, an imaginary land or even world (such as Kuurandia). Such an imagined place is not necessarily a paradise, but here is clearly a reward to exploring these ideas, for both artist and audience. For the members of KUUNATIC, what is the value in doing this?
KUUNATIC: For us, music is a surreal experience. You have your own reality, but you can escape to a different world while you create or listen to music. You know it’s a fantasy, but we would like to think that our music is something that coexists with your reality, a parallel universe you can experience. It’s very dreamy and thrilling at the same time. When the reactions from listeners come back to us, we can recall the surreal experience again as well.
PAN M 360: There are certainly uniquely Japanese elements in KUUNATIC’s music. I hear minyo, traditional festival music, in “Dewbow” and “Full Moon Spree”, for instance. But I also hear elements borrowed from other folkloric and spiritual traditions as well, from around the world. Can you offer some insights about this?
KUUNATIC: The image of Kuurandia is the ancient but also the future. There are no geographic borders on this planet. Probably, we are trying to picture a utopia by musically fusing cultures scattered all around the world. This always makes us realize that completely unrelated cultures can have very similar customs, and that the world is actually connected. Playing music with a primitive sense is also our main theme to embody mystical feelings that all human beings can have in common.
PAN M 360: Similarly, you use multiple languages in your lyrics, names and titles. Sometimes the languages are even mixed together. Japanese, English, Finnish, I think there is even some indigenous Hawaiian in the lyrics to “Lava Naksh”. What do you feel is the purpose of language in the art you make?
KUUNATIC: Each song we compose has a story and we like to adopt languages according to the narrative. Using and mixing different languages simply makes sense to us for colouring and shaping the tale. Some lyrics that you might think are Japanese are actually in our own language called Kuurandish, which is based on Japanese phonology. It is also a very fascinating experiment for us to find out how people will perceive our ideas, listening to our music and the languages.
PAN M 360: There are other current Asian musical artists mixing psych-rock with traditional and folkloric elements. Examples are Mong Tong from Taiwan, or Haepaary and TENGGER from South Korea. Do you feel a particular affinity or kinship with these bands? It sometimes seems that such music is more appreciated by foreign audiences than at home.
KUUNATIC: Our main concept is “fantasy”, so it might be slightly different from their styles, but we are big fans of tribal and traditional music, so we really like their music too. Music from different cultures often sounds very exotic and more exciting to people with other cultural backgrounds, that’s how we feel. But this fact also makes us cherish our own roots more.
Photo by Shawn Chao
Ghost Woman, a garage psych outfit from Alberta, is the alias of multi-instrumentalist Evan Uschenko. Evan has made a living on being a musician for hire, playing in Michael Rault’s band, and having the opportunity to tour with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, but in 2016 he decided to start writing and recording his own music. The result is Ghost Woman, a sound that sounds like the vintage ‘60s psych of bands like The Pretty Things mixed in with the more modern White Fence. He’s now on the UK label, Full Time Hobby, and is starting to plan his full-length debut.
Ahead of his M For Montreal performance, Evan spoke with PAN M 360 about his origins, influences, and future plans for Ghost Woman.
PAN M 360: Why did Ghost Woman start?
Evan Uschenko: Well I’ve always been, kind of largely, a hired musician for other groups throughout my life and just never really made anything of my own. And then, just kind of randomly, I was at a spot I think, emotionally or what have you, where a relationship ended and a bunch of shit started happening. And I was just like,’ maybe I should start my own stuff.’ So I just wrote a bunch of songs and then just randomly played a few shows. And lots of people liked it. And I liked it.
PAN M 360: Is there a story behind the name?
Evan Uschenko: It’s a light story but we were on tour in Portland. Oregon, I think we went to that Mississippi Records. It’s like a record store and they do like old compilations of old songs and stuff and they make their own records. I was just kind of like looking through and there was a blues compilation called Ghost Woman Blues. And I believe it’s a tune by … I can’t remember his name because I’m a little bit hungover.
PAN M 360: George Carter I think?
Evan Uschenko: Yeah I think so. So they made this compilation and I just kind of looked at it and thought ‘that’s cool,’ it reads well, and I just kind of wrote it down in my phone and thought ‘maybe we can use that one day.’ And then I just ended up using it. And so that’s kind of roughly the story. Then throughout the years, I’ve noticed that in any kind of like relationship I find myself in, everyone just ends up kind of leaving without saying a whole lot. So maybe that’s the common theme in my life—women who ghost, but I don’t know. You can make anything up you want to but basically it just sounded neat.
PAN M 360: I read somewhere that you want to live in a van at some point in your life. Is that still in the works?
Evan Uschenko: That’s like a two year goal. I got this van that I want to make into a livable situation. But that’s kind of on the back burner, something I would eventually do. I just got to get a little shop set up so I can work on it and stuff. If you check back in a year, something might be done. We’ll see.
PAN M 360: You have a few singles out and the EP, but are there plans to release a full-length at some point?
Evan Uschenko: So there’s a compiled proper album. I think the goal is to release it springtime next year. Okay, so we’re just like, like, we released that one song recently. And, like maybe a few songs released up until spring, and then they’re gonna release the record in its entirety.
PAN M 360: And the EP, Lost Echo’s, was more fuzzy garage rock, but this new single “Do You” is more laid back psych, like Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Evan Uschenko: So when the EP was written I was listening to a lot of stuff with a band and we were on the road with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. So that was kind of where my mind was at. I was like ‘These guys lay it down and their live shows were insane.’ So I was like, okay, maybe we should try something like that. I’m really into a band called White Fence, and all that kind of stuff. And then that kind of threw me into a whole bunch of older, like, garage rock compilations from the ‘60s and stuff. Throughout the years, I got more into Brian Jonestown Massacre and liked The Black Angels and decided that vibe would be cool in a live situation.
PAN M 360: Cool. So what is the live experience of Ghost Woman like?
Evan Uschenko: It’s a good time. I always try to keep in mind, when making or like recording a song is how is this going to translate live? Because I love a good live show. They’re louder, they’re harder and, and I actually kind of prefer how they sound with the band. It’s a little different. We try to emulate the recordings as closely as we’re able to, but a lot of times we just extend them and kind of screw around a bit. We got three guitars, bass and drums. So it’s been really rock ‘n’ roll.
PAN M 360: You must get some killer melodies with three guitars? Evan Uschenko: (laughs) Yeah man, it’s like Lynyrd Skynyrd.
When he’s not busy working as a producer, mixer, and engineer for various artists across Western Canada, Mario Lepage is working in the studio on his own indie-meets-psychedelic-funk project, PONTEIX. In the small, rural Saskatchewan town of St. Denis, Lepage went for a one-man-show approach to his latest EP Amélia, meaning he wrote and played every instrument, a first for his solo work.
Lepage is a francophone artist who sometimes incorporates English in his music ,and has always strived for a seamless, grooving bilingual sound. Language and the identity surrounding it has always been very important to him and for this EP, he co-wrote the lyrics with Anique Granger, a well-known francophone artist and audio-documentarian, who is also from Saskatchewan, and now makes her home in Montreal.
Lepage had some time to chat with PAN M 360 about the Amélia EP before his performance at Coup De Coeur Francophone, and talked about some of the lyrical themes on the EP and why he’s not a fan of birthdays.
PAN M 360: Hi, Mario. We actually spoke a few years ago at BreakOut West. Back then you had one EP out called J’orage, and now you have one full-length, Bastion, and this new EP, Amélia. So tell me, what inspired the Amélia EP?
Mario Lepage: Yeah, so every sort of release has had its challenges. I guess you could call them self-imposed challenges. So for this one, I tried to do everything myself, from engineering to performing every single instrument, to the entire production. With exception of the single “Les années” that’s out now. I had my friend Blaise Borboën-Léonard do an amazing string arrangement on it that really tied the song together. Having produced many francophone artists from Saskatchewan and Western Canada, I was kind of used to playing a lot of the instruments on records, and that’s kind of just always how I’ve done things. However, it’s really hard, or I find it really hard to have the exterior producer when you’re doing it for yourself, when it’s your own songs.
PAN M 360: So you’ve decided to kind of collaborate with producers going forward?
Mario Lepage: Up until now yeah. Collaborate with and surround myself with producers to do the project. So with this release, I think I really developed that bird’s-eye view of the whole work and trying to make it as a whole on all on my own. I co-wrote lyrics with Anique Granger, who is an amazing singer-songwriter from Saskatchewan who lives in Montreal. So yeah, I learned I learned a lot from people that have helped me over the years and I tried to to do something a little bit different this time.
PAN M 360: And is Amélia a pandemic album? That is to say, you worked on it during the pandemic?
Mario Lepage: No, I started working on it I’d say two years ago by just recording some some rough ideas, some rough demos. Maybe recording a guitar and a drum beat or something like that, and kind of leaving it for two months or something like that. It was all very sporadic. The pandemic all kind of felt like a blur and I did work on it then, so I guess you could call it a pandemic album, but not thematically.
PAN M 360: And so what are some of the lyrical themes on Amélia ?
Mario Lepage: Yeah, there’s a lot of love thematics, which I haven’t really delved deep on. Like “Les années” kind of talks about my undying love for the woman that I married over the summer and when I wrote that song, the moment I decided to marry her, or ask her to marry me, I didn’t know if she wanted to marry me just yet. The song “Amélia” is me reflecting on relationships, like friendships and family. It was about me missing people during the pandemic and remembering how genuine we can be with each other in the moment, but you never really know if you will see that person again. It’s a song that creates a story about someone who I never had the chance to tell them how much I appreciated them. And then by that time, it was too late.
PAN M 360: I think that’s a very relatable theme people felt during the isolating times of the pandemic. Like taking people for granted.
Mario Lepage: Absolutely. I always make a joke about how I’m not a super fan of birthdays because it’s putting that into practice of celebrating that person for only one day. Why one particular day when it can be everyday? Just be extra nice all the time.
PAN M 360: You’ve always had a bilingual aspect to your music. Most of the songs are sung in French but the odd one is in English, but “Les années” uses both. Did it just come out that way or was it on purpose?
Mario Lepage: I find that whenever I am writing a song or working on music, I tend to create phonetic words that that work well together. For this one, it just kind of clicked and worked with the rhyming scheme in French and in English and the phonetic meshing of them both kind of felt seamless and very natural. And coming from Saskatchewan, French is my first language, and our French has a lot of English to it. There we blend a lot of both languages. So it feels now like it’s kind of like a homage to the way that we kind of speak amongst each other. I think that people who are francophone from Saskatchewan tend to sort of blend both both languages together, and I find that that’s really beautiful.
PAN M 360: And that’s where your artist name PONTEIX comes from?
Mario Lepage: Yeah, so i’m in St. Denis and Ponteix is a town more near the American border. And it’s got a similar story to St. Denis. I would say, all of the francophone communities, small rural communities in Saskatchewan, kind of have all of the same story and are living in a sort of a similar situation. And it was, phonetically, the best-sounding French town I could think of. I chose the name because I wanted something that represented, maintaining your identity even though you are surrounded by something that’s different. Something that goes against who you are, what you believe in, your culture.
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