Quebec soprano Karina Gauvin has been named artist-in-residence of the Mécénat Musica program until 2022! The artist is a true world star in opera singing. There’s no exaggeration to say that, let alone an ounce of chauvinism. It’s the strict truth. Which makes this announcement all the more exciting because it means that Gauvin will be on our stages much more often than in recent years, virtually, or even physically, when the pandemic has subsided.
PAN M 360 spoke with the soprano. Here are her reactions to this nomination.
PAN M 360: Hello, Karina! What is your role as artist-in-residence at Mécénat Musica?
Karina Gauvin: I’ll be available to take part in concerts and fundraising events for the 40 or so organizations that are partners of the Mécénat Musica program.
(Note: The Mécénat Musica program encourages individuals to make a $25,000 donation in perpetuity to a cultural organization that is close to their heart (and $250,000 or $2,500,000 for families). Donations are matched by Mécénat Musica and then matched by matching funds from government programs. With the associated federal and provincial tax credits, the net cost to an individual is only a fraction of the amount invested (approximately $6,000 for a donation of $25,000). If an organization receives, for example, 10 donations of $25,000 from individuals, in the end, it could raise up to $2 million in a fund in perpetuity! This program is unique in the world.)
PAN M 360: Who will decide what kind of activities you’ll participate in?
Karina Gauvin: It will be on a case-by-case basis. Interested organizations can already contact me. We will discuss their needs together and how I can best contribute. Afterwards, we’ll decide on a musical program.
PAN M 360: In the context of the pandemic, how did you react when you were offered this partnership?
Karina Gauvin: Very happy! It’s a way of returning to my country and reconnecting with the audience back home, because I have spent most of the last few years in Europe. Having said that, it is also a breath of fresh air because I have lost everything because of the pandemic. It has been a clean slate for me. So it’s the best of both worlds, because I’ll be able to do what I love the most and at the same time, contribute to the sustainability of many music organizations that need it!
PAN M 360: How important do you think this programme is?
Karina Gauvin: Very! The pandemic has turned everything upside down, you know that. Artists have been hit hard. What else can we do but get organized, stick together, help each other, and develop new business models to survive? That’s what this initiative, unique on the planet, offers, which I hope will perhaps inspire some small ones elsewhere.
PAN M 360: Because elsewhere in the world, the situation is no better…
Karina Gauvin: Not at all! In Europe, I worked with several organizations that were already struggling before the arrival of the virus. What will it be like afterwards? Many will go bankrupt, I’m afraid. The repercussions of this tragedy will be felt far beyond any victory against the virus itself. It will never be the same again. Never. Many artists will give up the profession.
PAN M 360: That isn’t your case – do you have any plans in the pipeline?
Karina Gauvin:Yes, some exciting projects. I’m participating in the completion of the complete melodies of Jules Massenet, more than 300 of them, many of them previously unreleased, with the ATMA classical team. An all-Quebec production, with Marie-Nicole (Lemieux), Étienne (Dupuis), Julie (Boulianne), and nine other local singers. This project will be a world premiere! The irony is that the pandemic allowed us to accelerate the pace of the recordings, because we were available! I also have projects with Ensemble Caprice, among others. I keep myself as active as possible, even though I can’t remember the last time I spent so much time at home.
PAN M 360: Karina, the greatest success with Mécénat Musica, and in all your other projects. Thank you for your involvement!
Karina Gauvin: Thank you very much!
A suite in four parts – “Acknowledgement”, “Resolution”, “Pursuance”, “Psalm” – the music of A Love Supreme is considered the most outstanding work by John Coltrane and his famous quartet of drummer Elvin Jones, pianist McCoy Tyner, and bassist Jimmy Garrrison. Recorded in 1964 and released in 1965 on the Impulse! label, the album is without a doubt a great classic of contemporary jazz. The program includes melodic-harmonic and rhythmic explorations, incantatory and paroxysmal phrases, conducive to individual and collective expression. The saxophonist’s inspiration was the result of an intense quest, as different forms of mysticism and the discovery of new sound dimensions had led him to create this extraordinary work.
Guitarists John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana had tackled the first movement together in the context of the album Love Devotion Surrender, released in 1973. Since then, many musicians have given it a shot, and it’s a must for any self-respecting jazzophile. In recent years, guitarist Henry Kaiser and drummer John Hanrahan have been bringing together different groups and casting a new, electrified light on A Love Supreme.
An album finally bears witness to this ongoing experiment: the guitarist and drummer are joined here by saxophonist Vinny Golia (tenor, soprano, baritone), keyboardist Wayne Peet (Hammond B3, Yamaha YC-450) and bassist Mike Watt.
Reached in California, Henry Kaiser explained the process to PAN M 360.
PAN M 360: For the past few years, you and John Hanrahan have been performing electric versions of John Coltrane’s Meditations and A Love Supreme suites, with different musicians. I watched a few concerts by those bands on YouTube, with your explanations. Can you explain your relationship with this masterpiece?
Henry Kaiser: Actually, I never have listened to Coltrane a lot! The albums I enjoyed most and did listen to are Meditations, Ascension, Live at the Village Vanguard Again and the two Live In Japan albums. So the more free-jazz-type Coltrane, with Pharaoh Sanders also on sax, is what I relate to. I spend a lot more of my “free jazz time” listening to Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, and Albert Ayler. I see Coltrane as being an immensely important feature in the whole landscape of ’60s free jazz. I am not so much of a Coltrane fetishist myself. I’ve probably spent fifty times as many hours listening to Cecil Taylor.
PAN M 360: The Love Supreme recording on Impulse! is one of the rare modern jazz albums that had an impact on a very large audience, beyond jazz. Hippies and psychedelic-rock fans in the ’60s loved it, and the following generations loved it too. Up to today, it remains one of the rituals any music lover must undertake. How do you explain this huge impact over the years and decades?
HK: I think it is an amazing landmark in free jazz that appealed to a mainstream audience. A magic album in magic times! Now… I wonder why that’s so, in the spiritual sense? Of course, when he made his spiritual invocation on A Love Supreme, he was likely thinking of the God of Baptist Christians. However, a Korean traditional musician recently asked me why and how Coltrane could be playing gugak (Korean traditional music) phrasing on A Love Supreme. I took a look at discographies of Korean traditional music releases in the USA at the time of A Love Supreme and before — and there was nothing that Coltrane could have heard to get that from. My theory is that he unknowingly invoked the spirits that animate Korean shamanic music. Very powerful spirits, which I have experienced when playing shamanic music with Korean musicians. And that they led Coltrane down paths of musical expression that made the music so successful.
PAN M 360: All your life, you’ve never been a straight-ahead jazz musician. You’ve mostly been dedicated to improvisation in a general way, and a lot of experimentation. What motivated you to do this cycle of reinterpretation of Coltrane’s mid-’60s music?
HK: It seemed like both a fun thing to do and an interesting challenge. Also, the things I learned studying Miles Davis music in the 1973-1975 period, in my Yo Miles! band with Wadada Leo Smith, provided an intriguing key for decoding Meditations. I think Agharta and Pangaea have a lot more in common with Meditations than anyone who was not in the Yo Miles! band would realize.
PAN M 360: What are the music qualities of the music of A Love Supreme – harmonic structures, rhythm, interaction, solo or collective improv, etc. – that led you to make something different with this music that’s more or less considered classic today?
HK: It’s not the Western concepts of melody, harmony, and rhythm. It’s things like narrative, storytelling, timbre, timing, space, proportional rhythms vs. divisional rhythms, shamanism, the teleology of music, and the psychedelic qualities of music without drugs. Those kinds of considerations are what I was thinking about and acting on.
PAN M 360: This music is based on open structures, where the improvisational vocabulary and individual expressions are quite important. What did you want to add? Also, how did electric instruments change the music? About an electronic approach for the future?
HK: Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin pointed the way to an electric interpretation of A Love Supreme on their Love Devotion Surrender album. I saw that band twice, before I played guitar professionally on their promo tour. And that stuck with me. Meeting the drummer John Hanrahan led me to performing and recording the entire suite, and once I studied things more closely, I felt that A Love Supreme and Meditations were two parts of the same story. And that is something that’s essential for the listeners to understand in this release.
PAN M 360: When we listen to your personal versions, we feel a deep respect for the initial forms. So what is the tension between the original recording on Impulse! and your different versions?
HK: We don’t even think about it. There is no planning. The music just plays us. We don’t play it. I’m sure that was true for Coltrane with ALS and Meditations – the alternate takes support that. There is no road map or flight plan; it’s a different exploration into new territory every time.
PAN M 360: You’ve played with different musicians since you started the project. Can you describe the main ensembles, and explain briefly what you have achieved with each of them?
HK: Mainly, it’s me and drummer John Hanrahan. It’s different players most every time. You can see another band here by going to the Cuneiform Records YouTube page and looking through my Weekly Solo series.
PAN M 360: Why has this line-up been chosen for the recording? Maybe it’s just a matter of availability?
HK: We were playing A Love Supreme Electric gigs with different players every two or three months, and Wayne Peet, the organ player on the album, had his own recording studio, so it was easy to record.
PAN M 360: Playing Coltrane music puts you under a different spotlight: you could face different reactions from people that don’t exactly know your work and love A Love Supreme. Do you enjoy the challenge?
HK: There’s not much challenge. It’s become second nature to approach this music for us. And there have never been complaints from the audiences. We all just have a very good time.
PAN M 360: You’ve been always seeking new forms, new languages, new ways for composition, improvisation, playing. What did this project bring into your general musical language?
HK: Applying elements, both musical and sociological, from Korean shamanic music to the Coltrane material.
PAN M 360: Can you describe your other current and future projects?
HK: I am just now, today, mastering an album with Stein Urheim, Benedicte Maurseth, Danielle DeGruttola and myself for the Norwegian Jazzland label called Be Here Whenever.
Forthcoming releases in 2021 are: A new quartet album with Ray Russell. A trio album with Wadada Leo Smith and Alex Varty. A new solo guitar album. A fusion album with me, Andy West, Chris Muir, Lukas Ligeti, and Stephan Thelan. A free-improv quintet album with me, Danielle DeGruttola, Lisa Mezzacappa, Soo-Yeon Lyuh, and Nava Dunkelman. An ambient guitar duo with Anthony Pirog. A cover of Steve Lacy’s album THE WIRE with me, Bruce Ackley, Andrea Centazzo, Michael Manring, Tania Chen, and Danielle DeGruttola. A quintet album with me, Binker Golding, Eddie Prevost, N.O. Moore, and Ollie Brice. And I’ve probably forgotten two or three others in the pipeline…
With this third full-length album, the second since the Montreal trio found itself on the Montreal label Lisbon Lux, Le Couleur have decided to “open up the couple”, as its members like to say. After some twelve years as a ménage à trois, the synth-pop band wanted to change its formula by inviting several musician friends to participate in the album. The result was beyond their expectations, breathing new energy into the band. The fruit of its musical frolics in the studio, Concorde flirts with myth, loss, and death in a sexy, bewitching, and very aesthetic sound universe. There’s a bit of Michel Colombier in there, some David Holmes, Sparks, Air, and Stereolab, among others. PAN M 360 spoke with the trio – drummer and tinkerer Steeven Chouinard, his partner and singer Laurence Giroux-Do, and bassist Patrick Gosselin – on the eve of its webcast performance at the CCF.
PAN M 360: Tell us about the concept of Concorde, because there seems to be one!
Steeven Chouinard:Concorde was the first song we made for this record. Our music always comes before the lyrics. So Pat and I recorded the piece and then Laurence wanted to write something related to the Concorde. She was fascinated at the time by that plane and the tragedy that ended its history.
Laurence Giroux-Do: We felt that the whole aesthetic of Le Concorde was in line with the image we wanted to give to the record, that slightly vintage but at the same time quite futuristic side, the beauty of the object, the myth, the dream, the sensuality…
SC: It was still a sexy plane! It wasn’t ordinary, travelling at almost twice the speed of sound on top of that. So, from there, we started to compose other songs. The second one we did was “L’Aube du 3e soleil”, and given the mood of the song and what we heard in it, what it inspired us, that’s when the words came. It’s quite cinematographic, our stuff. In fact, for this record, we were also influenced by images, more than by other bands; a lot of porn films from the ’70s like Emmanuelle and Bilitis, the sensuality of Francis Lai’s music for example, Gainsbourg… All this slowness, this sensuality, this little lo-fi side that is also present in these films. So we realised that it was tragic, that it talked a lot about death and absence… That’s a bit like the concept of the record, without it being too explicit or too personal.
LGD: Take “Silenzio”, for example. This piece refers to the death of a mafia man who was shot, who didn’t respect the omerta. “Oiseau sauvage” is about a schizophrenic… So the record revolves around death, myth, and absence, those are the three main themes of the album. There is something fascinating about how we see death and how we see ourselves dying, I think.
SC: We’re all afraid of it, but we’ve realised, having a four-year-old daughter with whom we watch cartoons, that there are several ways of seeing death. In the animated film Coco, they talk about the Day of the Dead in Mexico, which is a very festive and colourful event. It gives another perspective on our perception of death in our society.
PAN M 360: You’ve chosen a good year to release a record with this kind of theme. Was releasing the album on September 11 also part of the theme?
LGD: We were supposed to release the album on April 18, but for reasons you know, we preferred to postpone the date. So we thought, why not September 11? The crash of the Concorde on September 11, in the middle of the pandemic at the end of the world…
SC: And we thought it was certain that the journalists would ask us about it when we did interviews. So there you go! (laughs)
PAN M 360: How does this record differ from the previous ones?
LGD: In the way it was recorded, I would say.
SC: The ideology was different for this record. It’s the first time we decided to open it up, if I may put it that way. We invited quite a few musicians. Because basically, it’s Laurence, Pat, and I who make all our records. It’s happened too often that it’s one person from the band who records a whole song, so we wanted something more collaborative. We called on people we know, friends. We wanted them to add their touch: a percussionist, a keyboardist, and several guitarists came by. We finally decided to do it live. I’d say that two thirds of the record is live. We were seven musicians at the same time. We’d never tried this kind of experience before and we really tripped. This sharing of ideas, this common passion… Just being in a gang, drinking beers together, submitting ideas… For me, it’s all very positive. It’s sharing, it’s love, it’s art. So that’s what makes it different from other records where I often found myself alone behind the computer or a synth to program everything. Pat would come and do a little thing, Laurence would put her voice down and that was it.
LGD: I didn’t think we could function this way. We had done our rounds, but with this record, it seems that it rekindled the flame, it gave us the desire to continue the adventure in a different way, a new way of emancipation.
SC: It was positive! It was fun to have the opinion of the other musicians. Even if I’m very directorial in the way I perform, I let them go and I liked their faults. That’s also why we hired them: the defects, the tics of people, all that can be heard on the record. There are things I’ve been doing for ten years, and we’ve heard enough of them, that the keyboardist we hired doesn’t do. He has his own way of playing and he’s a thousand times better than me, on top of that. It’s the sum of all these things that makes us still on our honeymoon with this record, one year after having finished it. It’s been two months since it was released and this honeymoon has continued because we’ve also managed to play it on stage.
PAN M 360: And who are these guest musicians?
Le Couleur: There’s Sheenah Ko, from Besnard Lakes on the organ, the gang from Paupières who co-wrote songs and did backing vocals, Louis-Joseph Cliche from Beat Market, Valence, Jean-Nicolas Doss from Wizaard, and Paul Hammer, who’s the son of Jan Hammer, the composer of the music of Miami Vice and an ex-member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
PAN M 360: You’re going to do another concert, this time as part of Coup de coeur francophone. How is that going to work, what are you going to present?
SC: It’ll be what we presented at the launch, as well as at the Festif and the FME. We’re among the lucky few who managed to do these little festivals towards the end of the summer.
LGD: We play mostly Concorde songs, but we’ve still kept some classics. We’re there now. We’re going to dig into our best-of and do them a little differently.
SC: The show is stronger. We are six musicians on stage. We toured with three at the very beginning, then with four for the last five years, but now, with six, it’s different. These are beautiful people who play, who get high, it’s really cool. And the comments we’ve received are very good. There’s energy flowing everywhere. There’s a segment that looks a bit like what we’ve done in the last five years, notably a 15-20 minute non-stop electro/DJ set, that we didn’t want to leave out. But otherwise, it’s more paused, there’s more staging, there are ballads, there are interruptions between songs, because before, it was 1-2-3-4 and we only stopped at the end of the show. There were no real breaks between songs. So now we adopt a more classical formula, mixed with what we used to do before.
PAN M 360: Do you have plans for 2021?
LGD: Of course! A tour in Brazil, another one in Mexico… ah no! it’s true, everything has been cancelled! (laughs)
SC: We had great plans for Latin America, Mexico, and the United States, and of course everything fell through. So, for the coming year, we will try to work on something else.
LGD: In 2021, it could be very difficult to play abroad. We’re going to try to turn to Quebec, which we’ve perhaps neglected a little too much. You know, we’ve played many times in Paris or Berlin, but we’ve never gone to play in Chicoutimi or Terrebonne. So, no doubt like all the other Quebec artists, we’re going to try to develop that. We also had the idea of releasing a small EP.
SC: We want to do the complete opposite of what we did for Concorde, all this sharing between musicians, and focus more on the three of us, something very spontaneous and minimalist, bordering on piano and voice, nothing fancy or too thoughtful.
Photos: Eldad Menuhin
Time heals all wounds. This includes the excruciating heartache and howling void in the auditory canals of retro synth-funk afficionados, who’ve had to wait eight years for a new album from Israel’s Group Modular, following their fascinating debut, The Mystery of Mordy Laye, in 2012. The core of Group Modular is Jerusalem’s Markey Funk, founder of the Delights label, and Tel Aviv’s Harel Schreiber, AKA Mule Driver, mastermind of the Confused Machines imprint. The two busy musicians, producers, and DJs share an intense enthusiasm for the strange and wonderful sounds of obscure (and often anonymous) soundtrack and library music from the glory days of vinyl. This they’ve channelled into the Group Modular project, which now presents its new album, Time Masters, created with contributions from numerous friends. PAN M 360 corresponded with the pair to talk about Time Masters, and everything else they’ve been up to lately.
PAN M 360: Group Modular is a celebration of older-generation, analog electronic musical instruments. There’s still so much love out there for the sounds of those devices – so familiar, yet exceedingly strange! Why do you two appreciate them so much?
Mule Driver: When I started on my way with electronic music, VSTs or software synth sounds weren’t as good, and were too heavy on the CPU, and midi controllers with assignable knobs were not as available as today. So in order to have real-time control over the instrument – I always liked to play live – and have more decent sound, I bought my first synth, a Roland SH09. Back then, vintage synths were less expensive than nowadays. I also like the limitations in some of them – it allows you focus and squeeze more from the machine. As for that old-school analog sound – today it can be achieved with digital or modern instruments (or software), so the most important thing to me is an intuitive instrument that I could start playing straight away.
Markey Funk: I think that to me, it’s a matter of a certain aesthetic that I gravitate to. And yes – a certain amount of nostalgia too. There’s something very unique about the sounds of the Space Age era, this romance and anticipation of how far the technology is going to take us in the not-so-distant future. Besides, I tend to believe that there’s still a lot of unrevealed potential in all these instruments. I mean, over the last 60 years, a lot of great ideas, sound- or genre-wise, had been abandoned long before they’d been fully explored – just for the sake of progress and changing trends. And now, we can take a few steps back and follow those old paths again a bit further – and from a very different, broader perspective.
PAN M 360: Even though this is an album about retro electronics, the key element is the drummers – the “time masters” of the title – who build the foundations of the pieces. They include Matan Assayag of Afrobeat powerhouse Hoodna Orchestra – who hits hard, as expected! Tell me about that creative strategy, and what the different drummers brought to the table.
MD: Since you’ve mentioned Matan, I must admit that I wanted to work with him for a very long time. I met him at a dinner with his brother and we had an interesting talk about polyrhythm, African and electronic music. So, although we still didn’t get to play together in the same room, and only created tracks based on his drumming, it’s great to finally release something in collaboration with him. For the main question: each drummer brought his own feel, energy, and style – which later had an effect on what Markey and I overdubbed in the studio.
MF: After finishing the Mordy Laye album, we realized that drums are very much a driving force behind our creativity in the studio (both cuts on our 45 started off as a drum recordings by our friend, Sagi Sachs). Now, given the Audio Montage connection, we were literally surrounded by the crop of Israel’s finest groove drummers – that’s how the idea of working with more than one drummer on the next album came along. We didn’t have particular parts to record, only a small bunch of genre references that didn’t really impact the recording. After all, every player just brought his distinctive style, picked the BPM for each take and played along with the metronome (and sometimes, without it as well).
Everyone approached the session differently. For instance, Ori Lavi was switching patterns every few bars within the same take, Sagi recorded a lot of five- to six-minute loops, and Matan had come up with a very clear song structure in each take – A and B parts, a solo/drum-break part, a beginning and end – all made up in the moment. So yeah, every stickman had his own unique character, which was setting a backbone not only for our playing, but for the whole arrangement.
PAN M 360: In addition to the drummers, you have a vocalist on just one track of the otherwise instrumental album. No lyrics, just celestial atmospherics on the final part of “The Phantom Mazone”, care of Zohar Shafir. I think that’s my favourite moment on the record.
MD: Thank you! Zohar, AKA Nico Teen, is a very interesting and talented singer. I would recommend checking out her releases, and if possible, her live shows. Over the years, I had worked with her many times – from releasing her music on my label to mixing and playing live – but I think it’s the first time we’ve been actually recording something together. It was Markey who suggested that she do the vocals on “The Phantom Mazone”, and apparently it turned out good.
MF: As we were making progress with this tune, Harel suggested adding vocals – and Zohar was my immediate candidate! I had no doubt it would turn out good and I’m glad she agreed. I guess we’re both big fans of her work.
PAN M 360: The title is a tip of the hat to French animator René Laloux, whose films were so representative of a certain psychedelic science-fantasy sensibility of the late ’70s and early ’80s, which goes hand in hand with the sonic aesthetics of that era’s electronic music. Any thoughts on that – and on your amazing cover artwork, by Nick Taylor of Spectral Studio in the U.K.?
MF: Actually, the project got its codename “Time Masters” at the very early stage, when we were still scheduling recording sessions with each drummer. The title refers to two different films: first, of course, is René Laloux’ 1982 animated feature of the same name, Les Maîtres du temps, which deals a lot with the topic of time travel. And the other one is the 2000 documentary by B+, Keepintime, which focuses on the drummers behind classic hip-hop breaks. So basically, our “time masters” were the drummers, because they set the time for each track – but also the leading rhythm behind our own journeys in time, exploring sounds of the past.
As much as library and early electronic music is a meeting point between us, it’s also clear that we both grew up with certain sci-fi references, which include plenty of animation. In fact, more than half of the track titles on the album are taken from the 1970s and ’80s animated films and series.
Both Harel and I are strongly attached to visuals. Harel is a full-time designer, while I’m more of an amateur with a strong aesthetic vision. We’ve been both fans of Nick Taylor’s work for years, so when Polytechnic Youth, whom Nick often works with, offered us a deal and confirmed that he would be doing the artwork, our excitement was through the roof! Working with Nick was a pure joy – it took us a few days of ping-ponging references until he came up with two options, the second of which is what you see on the cover. Our sync was immediate – it was like finally meeting someone else who speaks the same obscure language as we do.
PAN M 360: Sticking with the theme of time, it’s been eight years since Group Modular’s first album, The Mystery of Mordy Laye. Since then, you’ve only released one single, on Markey’s Delights label, for International Synthesizer Day 2018. You’ve both been busy with other things, of course – what are some recent projects of yours that PAN M360’s readers might dig?
MD: Eight years is really a long time… we’ve been working on Time Masters for the last few years. Since The Mystery of Mordy Laye, I’d done quite a lot – played a lot and released an album with my industrial band, Mujahideen; launched a label called Confused Machines, which focuses on the raw side of electronic music, from less functional club music to other electronic experiments; and had a few releases (and many live shows) under my Mule Driver moniker, including an EP on the infamous Creme Organization last April. Recently, I’ve also dropped an album under the name Max Schreiber, which is more about experimental and improvised electronic music
MF: As you’ve already mentioned, I’m running my own imprint called Delights, where I release 45s by contemporary artists inspired by ’60s and ’70s film and library music. This year, we’ve dropped the second seven-inch by London-based Project Gemini, which was followed by SimfOnyx (my own collaboration with a super-talented artist and good friend from Haifa, Shuzin), and a new title is dropping right now, featuring two of my remixes for local bands. In general, 2020, with all its madness, turned out to be my collabs year: besides SimfOnyx and Group Modular, I’ve also released a limited cassette of a library-themed improv session with two friends in Berlin, called Aquasonic Research Society, and a whole bunch of other collaborations is in the pipeline for 2021 (fingers crossed!).
Photo: Yo Yang
Since 2010, Taipei-based quintet Prairie WWWW have explored the complex and often obscured roots of Taiwanese identity with their haunting, electro-mystical art-rock. Not long after the early-October release of their new EP Formosan Dream, the band premiered a filmed performance of the material at Audiotree International, the American concert-streaming platforms’s wing for interesting indie music from around the world. The session is embedded below, for the gratification of your eyes and ears.
PAN M 360 corresponded with Prairie WWWW (the four Ws are silent, by the way – “serving as a pictogram for a waveform, as well as the imagery of the grass that blowing in the wind,” the band explains), and learned more about the live session and the EP from drummer White Wu, percussionist Yi-Zhi, and bassist Apple.
PAN M 360: What were the circumstances of this live session? Where was it filmed, and why was that site chosen?
Apple: We wanted to capture a certain atmosphere and the colours of the summer sun, so the shooting had to be finished before noon. Because it happened to be the hottest month in Taiwan, and always raining in the afternoon, when taking a break, we had to use many umbrellas to let the equipment dissipate heat. Many difficulties needed to be overcome during this video shoot.
It was located at a traditional building called a sanheyuan, owned by our agent’s grandmother. Sanheyuan are really rare now, and that fits well with our new songs. We stood in a circle in order to shoot everyone playing their instruments, also to show this beautiful building from all angles.
White: As Apple said, before the shoot, we had worried about the heat and sunburn. (I can’t stand the heat – no joking, summer in Taiwan is killing me!) In fact, the front yard of the sanheyuan is designed for farmers to dry crops, so the direct sunlight there was actually fierce for people. Once finishing one take, we had to go into the shade, drink water, and cool down our equipment. Although almost everyone had heat stroke after shooting, it went more smoothly than I expected, an unforgettable experience for me. Fortunately, we finally did it.
The traditional sanheyuan is considered to be quite a representative architectural style in Taiwan. In my opinion, it seems that few Taiwanese bands shoot live sessions in such venues; that’s why we chose it. We also want to show the uniqueness of Taiwan’s traditional architecture to fans overseas.
PAN M 360: How would you say Formosan Dream is different from Pán and other, earlier Prairie WWWW recordings?
Yi-Zhi: Half of the songs from Pánhad been written and edited for about 10 years, and they tended to be composed with strong rhythms and beats. The story in Pánis also more complicated, combining the life experiences from the five members.
However, Formosan Dream is a new beginning for us. We began to re-collect and investigate Taiwanese folk tales, legends, and the context of traditional music, trying to reorganize these stories buried in Taiwan’s colonial history and politics into our own creation.
Photo: Yu Jhu
PAN M 360: The lyrics and music of the track “Formosan Dream” both strike me as being about the past, or more specifically, about all the futures that didn’t happen. Maybe they still could?
Apple: The lyrics of “Formosan Dream” are about the disappearing ethnic groups of Formosa Island. They are all part of Taiwan’s forgotten history, and this is how we dream of the island. We live for our past, for our ancestors, and for ourselves. Only when we understand our past can we have a future. We think our future is about national and territorial identity. Here’s a translation of the prologue from The Mystery of the Dwarf, by Taiwanese historical novelist Wang Jiaxiang:
“People said there are still mysterious and invisible tribes living on mountains, completely isolated from civilization. In archaeology, ethnography, and the oral history of Taiwanese aborigines, they have existed so truly; this is an excellent source and subject matter for fiction authors. One day, I hope that Taiwanese teenagers can start to use the power of imagination to look at Taiwan. Only a Taiwanese is able to imagine their own land with honour, pride, identity, and sense of history to impress people; only when the Taiwanese begin to understand ourselves can we walk into the future.”
PAN M 360: “Whales’ Bones” is an interesting interlude, a bridge between the two main tracks – but that bridge goes over something deeper and bigger than the story of human beings.
Yi-Zhi: The sound effects from “Whales’ Bones” are a foley of the mountains and jungles in ancient Taiwan. “Whales’ Bones” is an abstract space-time passage between the two songs, “Formosan Dream” and “Shells”. You can imagine “Whales’ Bones” as an archaeological layer, like the memories piled up by various historical events. This song was also inspired by Taijiang Inland Sea, the place where whales once gathered in ancient Tainan.
Photo: Yo Yang
PAN M 360: “Shells” is, to my ear, about memory, both to be cherished and to be wary of. How would you explain it?
Apple: Every time I think about myself and my soul, I start to wonder: where my soul will go after life? Will my consciousness still exist? Is it like falling asleep without dreaming, nowhere to go? The only thing left of life is bone-like objects, or like fruits, turning into mud. Life in shells disappeared, but they still flow around the world with the current. No one remembers, no one knows their past, only shells themselves can prove their being.
Yi-Zhi: “Formosan Dream” symbolizes the lost ethnic groups, species, languages, culture, and the environment. The past history of Formosa Island cannot be fully reproduced or proved. “Shells” stands for that which still faintly exist today, like remains, bones or memories.
Photo: Keith Marlowe
It’s with a rather worried Lance Phelps that we spoke the day after the American presidential elections. The drummer of the Kalamazoo, Michigan band The Spits didn’t hide his distress at the unsettled situation in that key state, where numerous extreme right-wing militias lurk, armed to the teeth. Rather than holding his breath while waiting for the official results, he talked about VI, The Spits’ new album released nine years after their previous one, V. The 10 songs on VI, most of them under two minutes long, are a panoply of pleasure, pure, dirty, lo-fi punk-rock in the vein of what the band has always done since their debut on record in 2000. Produced by the prolific and versatile Erik Nervous on a simple four-track, VI proves in just 17 short minutes that no, The Spits haven’t changed one iota… and no one will complain.
PAN M 360: Well, first of all, is this really your sixth album? There are more than that on some pages about you.
Lance Phelps:It’s probably more like the eighth, really. If you count 19 Million A.C., which was a bunch of singles and stuff that hadn’t been widely released, and also Kill The Kool, which is also the same format… so if you add those two, it could be the eighth album! Those two have names and the others have numbers, so VI is the sixth.
PAN M 360:VI is your first full-length studio album in nine years. Why did it take so long?
LP: To be frank, everytime I leave the band no songs get recorded. A couple of years ago, Erin (Wood) and I started talking about a new Spits record. He wanted to know if I would be interested in working with him again. I said I was, so we started trying to work on it and get some material together. It wasn’t going very well and we took a little break, and later came back at it and then things seemed to come together. But Shawn and his brother Erin have a difficult working relationship (laughs). Maybe I’m saying too much, but they have a hard time getting along, so my job over the years has always been some sort of intermediary between the two of them, to smooth things out. They have a hard time getting things done, just the two of them, too many differences. It doesn’t take them very long to start fighting if you leave them in a room together. It’s kind of a cliché. Anyway… At least we got together and we were able to accomplish something and we’re actually very happy with how it turned out. So far the feedback seems to be very positive, it’s selling very well [at the time of writing, the album is out of stock, a few days after its release]. It’s like a shot in the arm because now we have a couple of ideas as far as putting out a couple of EPs, some shorter releases in the next year. So we’ll do our little spurt of creativity and probably all scatter to the winds again.
PAN M 360: I read that you recorded this record in a basement. So where and how exactly did you make VI?
LP: Normally our records are recorded over months and they’re never recorded completely in one place. So we’ll go to two or three different studios, but this is the first album that we recorded 100 percent ourselves in Erin’s basement in Michigan. It was pretty much a DIY labour of love.
PAN M 360: But didn’t you record it with Erik Nervous?
LP: We started recording before he came into the picture. Erik is 30 years younger than the rest of us and pretty tech savvy, especially compared to us. So having him there to command, and press buttons and all the technical side of stuff was super helpful, and we get along well. Sometimes, when you go into a studio and you go to really established engineers, they want to put their stamp on it, but we didn’t have to deal with that at all. Erik is a talented kid, he knows a lot about computers and software and recording. So even though we weren’t using big, state of the art, 64-track recordings boards and stuff, we don’t need so many overdubs anyway. It’s a new era, I don’t think bands need to use these middlemen anymore. There’s so much software stuff available for recording that you can learn by yourself to use these devices. I’m not saying you’re gonna be Phil Spector at the end of the week, but our needs are not that sophisticated, you know.
PAN M 360: Do you always record with such limited means?
LP: No, we’ve worked with some really good producers in some really good studios. But we would always try to find a studio that still recorded on two-inch tape, and used a lot of analog stuff. But for that one, I really insisted on recording it ourselves, I didn’t wanna go in a studio. So that was something I had to negotiate because nobody really believed that we could pull it off ourselves.
PAN M 360: It’s clear that the production of your records is something very important to you. You have your own sound and style that seem to have worked well from one record to the next. It’s pretty impressive. So how do you get such a distinctive sound?
LP: I think that just like anybody else, we’re standing on the shoulders of giants. We have our influences, our tastes, so it’s simply a matter of what sounds good to our ears. So if things are too clean, if guitars don’t have enough distortion or they sound cheesy or overproduced, it’s not what we’re looking for. It’s really a song-by-song thing, how we want it to sound, trying to dial in the sound we have in our heads. But it always comes out to be the same thing: kind of muddy, shitty sounding (laughs). I guess that’s our signature sound!
PAN M 360: In the press release for VI, it says that the group’s returning to its roots. It’s a bit strange because it seems to me that you have never strayed very far from your sources, have you?
LP: I don’t think we could even if we tried. I think we said that in an interview a year or two ago. Maybe that was the intention that we had, but once you go down the path of actually writing and recording songs, they kind of turn into whatever they turn into. We may have intended to go back to our roots, whatever that means. But this is what we ended up with and we’ll just leave it to the audience to decide. It’s very hard to write and to play in any style that’s not your natural voice. Every time we try to do something that’s outside of the box, it still ends up sounding like us anyway, so I don’t know why we bother.
PAN M 360: With all the social unrest you’ve experienced in the United States, your dangerous president and the pandemic affecting us all, would you say that the year 2020 is a punk year?
LP: We’ve been writing songs about the decline of civilization since we started, it’s kind of our schtick. I think it’s punk in a dystopian way, but it’s not very punk as far as having fun. If it’s punk, the punk revolution doesn’t seem to be getting much traction. I wish it was more of a punk year. I wish they were storming the White House and dragging the president out across the yard, that would be punk. What I see in America is not such a punk year. The worst traits of the American people are on display. It’s now been normalized to show what a racist, sexist, bigoted, ignorant piece of shit you are, and to take pride and wave that flag for everybody to see. Hopefully there’s going to be more people and artists being punk and being more vocal, organized, and fighting back against this sickening trend. I’m getting to a point in life, and I think we all are, where it’s very hard to figure out what punk is, or if it’s even a thing, you know?
Photo: Romain Garcin
Did you know that the cactus produces a flower – and that Sofiane Pamart plucked one from the tree of rap? He’s the go-to pianist for this musical genre, working until now in the shadow of names such as L’Or du Commun, Scylla, and Vald. And even if his flow has no words, his new album Planet Gold speaks to more than one, here and there. Pamart spoke with PAN M 360 about this and more.
PAN M 360: Why this album?
Sofiane Pamart: You see, Planet was released last year, and we added six new songs to reach 18 with Planet Gold. I’ve been playing piano since I was very young, it was time for me to make my solo piano album. I decided to do it to talk about my relationship with travel. This album is both my first solo piano album and at the same time, it represents my love for travel and for this country.
PAN M 360: Your ideas flow from rap music, no?
SP: Yeah. I find rappers super inspiring because of their lifestyle, their way of representing themselves in relation to the world, their spontaneity. My lifestyle as a pianist is much more like a rapper’s. I play the piano, but they are the ones I feel most comfortable with, even in the videos, in the things we have. My style of communication is comparable to a rapper’s, because of the similarities in taste. More than ideas, we do the same thing. I’m a pianist, but I’m treated like a rapper among rappers.
PAN M 360: What are two decisive influences for you?
SP: The first is travel. Otherwise, it’s also a family story. I come from a non-musical family and I’ve been playing the piano since I was a child. For me, it’s a strong symbolic gesture, and a pride in the accomplishment of all the work we’ve done since we were very young. Today, I have a life as an artist, centered on the piano, and this life is possible because since I was a child, we have had a whole organization around music. It is a first strong founding gesture that I have towards my family, to pay them back and pay tribute to all the efforts that my parents and grandparents, who never made music, had to make for me.
PAN M 360: Often, people who’ve just left the conservatory tell me that naturally, that their parents are musicians.
SP: In fact, you see, when you come from that milieu, you already have the right references, the codes. We didn’t have them and we went about it differently. So, for me, it’s even more of a source of pride. Coming from a family of non-musicians, at the conservatory, that means a lot.
PAN M 360: What is your view of the conservatory sphere and its elitist side?
SP: It’s true that going to the conservatory means understanding its codes and the big competition that’s played out both in terms of your level of music, but also in terms of your more classical cultural references. Something that you have is one type of person more than others at the conservatory. As for me, I managed to go all the way to the conservatory, but living in an environment that has nothing to do with it, I’m very comfortable, in my life, to move from one world to another. I take the good things from both worlds. I create a kind of link between them. My audience would not have taken the step of listening to a solo piano album. Around me, a lot of people were interested in the piano because I played it, but even more so now that I have visibility. They like this approach because they have the impression that they would have done like me.
PAN M 360: How do you respond to the classical purists, who remain unconvinced?
SP: The relationship to music in criticism and analysis, which is meant to be very cerebral, I find boring, really boring. That’s my personal approach. I don’t want to frustrate people who want to have an intellectual approach to it, but it’s not my temperament. So I’m quite happy not to be in that environment. I’m happy to evolve between several worlds where we see things in a more positive way. First of all, you see things from a cool angle. The important thing is to touch, to be moved. That goes beyond the technical repertoire. That comes later. It’s interesting to understand how an artist creates, but that comes later. I’m very happy to move away from that. If it does you good to tell you that there are winks at Debussy, I’m very happy, and if you have no classical references and it makes you think of film music or something else, I’m very comfortable with that.
PAN M 360: For the track “Madagascar”, what did you have in front of you and what did you think about?
SP: I love Madagascar, it was a really incredible experience. I loved going there. Even if there were moments that were a little sad. The country is beautiful, but there’s a lot of poverty, and you see some things that really mark you. But in fact, what I tried to translate in this song is more the wonder I had. You see, it’s a cascade of notes, because in fact I think it’s really a magnificent place, imposing by its beauty. It’s very magisterial for me, the theme of Madagascar, you see. Because that’s the impression I had when I arrived, and I wanted to communicate that. I was in Madagascar and also in Nosy Be, which is a bit more “paradisiacal”, but I did both.
PAN M 360: Overall, rap is a rich compendium of a multitude of horizons, what do you intend to bring through the piano?
SP: It’s broader than just rap. In my way of working, I bring together people who don’t have the codes of the piano, but I talk to anyone who’ll be moved by the music. I like it when someone explains to me that they learned the piano young, and that it makes them want to play again, or start playing. I like it when they make a personal story out of a track. Either it makes you want to go further, to play, to create a reproduction, or you’re just in the process of escaping. That’s why I have an album about travelling. I think it’s something we can all have, escape through the imagination, it’s an inner journey. Since there are no words, it leaves room for you to make your own story.
PAN M 360: A gold medal from the Lille Conservatory, a rich rap repertoire, a cutting-edge style, a company, YouPiano, a law graduate in Lyon, an MBA in management – what are your flaws?
SP: (laughs) Well, no, afterwards, you know, it’s normal that as an artist, you show your best face, your best assets. You’re going to keep your flaws secret. Being very emotional is sometimes a quality, sometimes a flaw. For me, my flaws go hand in hand with my qualities. Being very emotional can turn against you, and you’re less in control of what you want. Being very productive makes you obsessive about working, which can be a flaw. Moreover, I really enjoy life, travelling. I can’t hold on if I stay in one place for too long. We have flaws in our qualities, it goes hand in hand.
PAN M 360: Are you a bit hyperactive?
SP: Yes, very much so. Especially as a child, now I manage better, but as a child, it was too much.
PAN M 360: Does the piano channel your energy?
SP: The piano channels it in a serious way because at that moment I’m focused, I forget everything.
PAN M 360: Do you play other instruments?
SP: Only the piano. On the other hand, what’s good, and what I do a lot with beatmakers, is to go from the keyboard to many other types of instruments.
PAN M 360: What is your mood for future musical projects, and do you plan to have guests?
SP:I haven’t yet thought about inviting other pianists. The most natural thing for me would be with my sister, Lina. For me, she would be the first guest. My sister has chosen a different path, she’s a diplomat, but on the other hand, she’s at a very high level on violin. She’s younger. She also does a lot of concerts with me. Recently, we composed together the music for the commercial for [the video game series] Assassin’s Creed.
PAN M 360: Just the family so far?
SP: Just the family.
PAN M 360: Who are your favourite pianists at the moment?
SP: I love Chilly Gonzales. He’s a character! As a pianist, he breaks codes, with his humorous, joking side, it’s really something of his own. That and Tigran Hamasyan, and Henri Barda, a master I had in classical music. He plays Chopin like nobody else.
PAN M 360: And YouPiano, what is it?
SP: Before, when I still had time to teach piano, I had developed a way of learning the piano without going through solfège. My preoccupation was an approach to the piano that everyone could work with, and that’s reflected in my music. My relationship to learning is the same, learning without going through music theory, with rewarding results. In a short while, I’ll be posting lessons linked to my pedagogy. I’m very close to the start-up ecosystem, ideas are flowing from everywhere.
PAN M 360: And what about your scores, do you release them?
SP: Not yet, but it’s in progress, I’m asked for them every day.
PAN M 360: Anything to add?
SP: I can’t wait to come and play in Canada. I already played two years ago in Montreal. As soon as the borders open. There, everything is on hold, the Olympia is still closed, we’ll see. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Last March, Dakka Dembélé was due to launch his album Petit bateau on the Nuits d’Afrique label, but COVID 19 decided otherwise. Here we are, nine months later and in the red zone, and the launch show finally takes place without an audience, though an audiovisual recording allows us to attend remotely. On Petit bateau, the singer fully plays his role of reggaeman and decries the very risky journeys of migrants on overloaded boats, which can lead them to drowning rather than to the promised land. On the other hand, Dakka Dembélé offers us a most convivial roots reggae cruise, with a mix of West African colours, a worldly sound system imagined in Montreal.
PAN M 360: How do you explain the importance of reggae in Ivory Coast, where you were born? After Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly, other reggae is emerging in West Africa, as it is also the case in Mali, where your parents come from. We could also mention the late South African Lucky Dube among your influences… Explanations?
Dakka Dembélé: Alpha went to Jamaica, where he met Bob Marley and was inspired by reggae music. He then returned to his country, Ivory Coast, where he made a first album, very inspired by his Jamaican experience, and he was the precursor of this style in Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast is also a country that is very open to the world, unlike other, more conservative African countries, so it was a fertile breeding ground for becoming a hub of African reggae. My main influences in African reggae are definitely Lucky Dube, Alpha Blondy, Ismael Isaac, and Koko Dembélé. These are the reggae artists that rocked me throughout my childhood and adolescence. Tiken Jah arrived a little later, and he’s also a source of inspiration.
PAN M 360: How do you place yourself in relation to Jamaican legends? Who are your favourite reggae artists from Jamaica or the Jamaican diaspora?
DD: My favourite artists from Jamaica are Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Culture, Burning Spear, Gregory Isaac, etc. They are music that I listened to as much during my childhood and adolescence. For me, they are really the founding fathers of reggae, and I have a lot of respect for them.
PAN M 360: Before migrating to North America, how did you learn the profession of musician, author, composer and singer?
DD: Although I was born into a family that was opposed to my musical career, music has always been present in my life. At the age of nine, my family was struck by poverty; I continued school, but I went to shine shoes at the train station. The songs of Bob Marley and Alpha Blondy accompanied me during this period, and I felt the need to denounce injustice and discrimination. I started to compose and write in secret. As a young adult, I founded my first successful group, DakkaGounga, in Abidjan. But in 2003, I was forced into exile in Mali because of the civil war. Thirteen years after my arrival in Quebec in 2007, the release of the album Petit bateau marks a major milestone in my journey as an artist.
PAN M 360: How would you describe the African touch in your reggae? Is there a link with your more specific cultural origins? What ethnic communities do your parents come from?
DD: My parents are Dioulas, so I sing in French and in Dioula. The Dioulas are descendants of Mali. They are generally traders and have always travelled throughout West Africa. My reggae is definitely part of my African history. For the most part, I deal with themes related to Africa, but also to my experience as an immigrant here in Quebec. I make reggae with West African sounds and mixed influences.
PAN M 360: How do you distinguish yourself from your predecessors and contemporaries?
DD: I’m part of the tradition of francophone and Mandingo reggae. I want to offer a voice to the marginalized and the most disadvantaged, wherever they live. I deal with issues related to inequalities, I sing about peace, hope, and the contrasts between my Africa and my Quebec. My Canadian reality has profoundly transformed my identity, and it also colours my current compositions. I distinguish myself from other African reggaemen by a very personal touch to my compositions, that comes from my own history and my personal rhythm.
PAN M 360: How would you describe your creative process?
DD: My creative process is unique in itself. I always start as a solo artist; I begin by working on the lyrics and melodies. As mentioned, I write in French and Dioula, and as Dioula is a tonal language in which the pronunciation of the syllables of a word is subject to a precise tone (at a specific pitch or a characteristic melody), when I compose, I base myself on the melody and the word inseparably. Once the skeleton of the song has been built, I play it back to my collaborators, who work on the composition and arrangements.
PAN M 360: When you arrived in Quebec in 2007, you were working as a shoemaker. Where did you receive your training, and do you still work as a shoemaker, to make ends meet?
DD: I started shining shoes in Abidjan train stations and then I became an apprentice to a master shoemaker in Trechville, Abidjan’s red-light district. One thing leading to another, I mastered the trade. I have always practised the trades of shoemaker and singer at the same time. I opened my own shoemaking shop in Montreal in 2011 (Cordonnerie Dakissa). I’m located in Plaza St-Hubert.
PAN M 360: Since 2013, you’ve played with Abdoulaye Koné, the Rootsteppers, David Mobio, Namori, Ons Barnat and Solid Ground. How has the Montreal scene changed your musical approach?
DD: When I arrived in Montreal, I discovered a musical scene of such richness as I’d never imagined, where cultures and styles mix and mingle. The Montreal scene and its diversity have always inspired me. This scene has helped me to further perfect my stage presence and my composition work. I have collaborated with all these artists at different levels and they have all brought me new learning and a fresh look at my compositions.
PAN M 360: Is the musical direction of your concert the same as that of your album? What about the contribution of guitarist and producer Guy Kaye, the contribution of bassist and producer Apotcho Strong? Can you describe the musicians in your team?
DD: The musical direction of the concert is provided by the Ivorian arranger and producer Apotcho Strong. It was he who set the guidelines for the interpretations. Guy Kaye only worked on the album, in collaboration with Apotcho Strong; Apotcho brought all his expertise in the sounds of African reggae, while Guy Kaye brought all his experience and expertise in world music and funk. Guy was also the mastermind of the mixing. For the band, I went looking for musicians with extensive reggae experience: Ons Barnat (keyboards), Botty Pottinger (guitar), Sylvain Plante (drums), and David Sergeti (guitar), as well as Apotcho (bass). The backup singers, Mélissa Pacifico and Mélanie Charrier, also worked on the album.
PAN M 360: Your team is multicultural and Montreal-based, how has that changed your music?
DD: Yes, indeed, I have a mixed team (Quebec, France, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, etc.). Everyone really brings a very special touch to the interpretation, which creates a unique overall sound.
PAN M 360: What is your link with Montreal, Quebec, North America, the West? Has living in Montreal transformed you? And if so, in what way?
DD: Yes, living in Montreal has completely transformed me. It gave me a different view of the world. Especially multicultural Montreal: I’ve gotten to know other cultures and I feel really good about it.
PAN M 360: What do you plan to play at the Nuits d’Afrique on Thursday, November 5?
DD: Thursday’s show is also the launch show for my album. I was supposed to do this launch at the Ministry on March 13, but history has dictated otherwise. So this show gives all the space to Petit bateau’s compositions with three compositions from my repertoire that are not on the album. There are also several guest artists: King Shadrock, Emde, Slim Samba, and John Kerkhoven.
PAN M 360: What are your plans for the future?
DD: I’m working on an acoustic video project that will be launched on social media in the autumn. I’m already working on a second album. I will enter research and development in the winter of 2021, with the goal of releasing the next album in the fall of 2021. Of course, I’d like to plan tours, but it’s rather difficult in the current context.
Fuzz. With a name like that, fans of noisy rock know what to expect. When, in 2011, Charles Moothart and Ty Segall decided to form a band in the image of their idols Black Sabbath and other similar acts, the name Fuzz was a natural choice. Why complicate life unnecessarily, when you can keep it simple. The fuzz pedal is undoubtedly associated with a plethora of bands – especially guitarists – of hard, acid, stoner, and sludge rock, and that’s exactly what the two school friends wanted to make: noisy, heavy rock, with no other pretension than to have fun, one fist in the air and a beer in the other.
Drummer with Ty Segall in some of his many projects, Charles Moothart finds himself at the front of the stage with Fuzz, in charge of the six-string. This band is his idea, his baby. Five years after the double album II (like we said, this band doesn’t overthink things), the California trio, completed by bassist Chad Ubovich, comes back with… III, a more concise and precise album, on which Fuzz assert themselves more and more. Charles Moothart tells us all about it, at length.
PAN M 360 : When and how was this third album conceived and created?
CM: We recorded this album in August, 2019. It’s interesting because the record has certain songs that have some social aspects but nothing was reacting to what’s currently happening. So the album wasn’t affected by everything that’s going on right now, but we are affected by the fact that we can’t tour it. We recorded here in L.A. at this studio called United Recordings, that is unfortunately closing down, which sucks, because it’s a legacy studio that’s been going on since forever [the studio opened in 1957]. We had Steve Albini come out and record us.
PAN M 360:That was precisely one of my questions… Why did you choose to work with Steve Albini?
CM: We’ve worked with him a few times in the past with Ty. We’ve developed a good working relationship with him. He’s so good at what he does! It’s nice to know you can trust the person who’s commanding the whole thing, and just go to a room and get live takes. The last album wasn’t really like that. For this one, there is a lot of live playing, but we kind of went a little farther out with post-production and stuff like that, so I think we just really wanted him to try to do something that is as close as possible to what it feels like to be in a room with us. What it feels to watch us play a show, how we feel when we’re playing our songs… There’s obviously a few guitar overdubs and the vocals aren’t live, but we just wanted to be as true to the sound of the band as possible
PAN M 360: Did Albini record and produce the album?
CM: I guess he doesn’t really like to think of it that way, but the whole time he’s working, he’s kind of tweaking sounds. He tends to keep things pretty minimal. I would do a guitar harmony and ask what he thought of it, and sometimes he puts his foot in but generally he likes to stay out of that process. He likes to let the band figure out what they want to do. I’ve heard him say multiple times that he doesn’t want to voice his opinion and accidentally put band members against each other, so he is very conscious of that. We’ve gotten pretty comfortable with him, so I think he’s also comfortable voicing his opinion, but I don’t think he likes to feel like he is entering a conversation that should be between band members. It can be really intimidating at first. Like the first time we recorded with him, I asked him about his opinion on a drum take I was doing, when we were recording with the Freedom Band. He said he didn’t want to give his opinion and I thought, ‘Whoa, this is really intimidating’, but when I figured out why he felt that way, I came to respect that, not wanting to disrupt the creative dynamic within a band. He’s interesting, the way he draws that line, but that energy is not for everybody.
PAN M 360 :What does III have that your other albums don’t? What have you corrected or improved?
CM: For me, it’s more a mental thing. I did put a lot of pressure on myself on the previous album. Where I was at mentally in my life, five years ago… I was touring a lot, my mind was still in a younger place… So I had a lot of expectations. It’s not that I think that we didn’t achieve them, it’s just that I had unachievable expectations. I put a lot of pressure on my guitar playing and how I wanted people to receive the record. Which I think affected how I interacted with Ty and Chad as a band. We still had a lot of fun making that album, but it was a double album, it was really long, it was a huge undertaking. So I think that for this album, we wanted it to be fun and natural. And of course we wanted to practice a lot, we wanted to feel really prepared and just go and get our takes. We wanted that to translate on the tape, you know, that we’re having a good time making the record. To me, I think that’s the most standout aspect. Obviously the production is very high quality, so I think that for the listener, it’s a totally different experience. And I love these songs – a lot of these songs were written over the last five years, at different points in time. I do like that the album spans five years of songwriting. It feels like a pretty collective, focused effort. To me it feels like its very connected between the band and the listeners.
PAN M 360: And why did you take five years to make this record? With Ty being hyperprolific and everywhere at the same time, it’s probably difficult to have him for a while, without him having to do something else?
CM: Yes, it’s mostly because of schedules. It’s an interesting thing, because I love to work with Ty on some different projects, I feel lucky. We’ve known each other for so many years, we’ve done a lot of cool stuff together. Every now and then we would kind of pick up Fuzz and be like, ‘is it time?’. For me, this is obviously a very important band, so I’m always down to do it. So it’s kind of waiting for it to feel right, to feel it’s the time, because as you know, Ty always has a lot of things going on. So you gotta wait until it feels right, without forcing it. It still has to feel natural getting in a room, writing songs. We can’t be like, ‘oh now is our six-month window to write a record, we have to make it happen now!’. It was two or three years ago that we took some time to write two songs and ask ourselves, ‘are these Fuzz songs? I don’t know!’. And next thing you know, we have three, four, five songs more. Once we felt that the pieces were in place, then it was like, okay, now let’s write the rest of this record. So it happened the way it had to happen.
PAN M 360: When you started Fuzz, you were just trying to see if you could make some big hard-rock riffs without it sounding cliché. Today, do you see Fuzz differently? Do you think the band is somewhere else ?
CM: I think it’s somewhere else. The first Fuzz song I wrote, I think it was “Fourth Dream”, I literally wanted to see if I could write a riff that doesn’t sound totally cheesy. Fuzz is obviously a nod to ’70s rock ’n’ roll. So yeah, I think it’s different. Because you would like to think that you don’t stay in that same cycle, doing the same thing over and over again, so I do think that we’ve exited that mentality, we want to do something that feels specific to us. We obviously love Black Sabbath, but we don’t wanna be a Black Sabbath worship band. But at the same time, we don’t want to walk away from that so much that we end up disappointing the people who like the music. We still looove that music, I still listen to Black Sabbath all the time, I still listen to the Stooges all the time. So we’re still making high-energy rock ’n’ roll that’s meant to be fucking loud and fun to listen to. But we try to mature away from just feeling like, can I write a Black Sabbath riff… that was seven or eight years ago.
PAN M 360 :You mention Black Sabbath, and with Blue Cheer, I think these are the two most obvious influences that come to mind when listening to your music, but we feel a few jazz spikes here and there on the record… Are there other influences you’d like to talk about ?
CM: It’s a constantly shifting space. I think over the last five years or so, I’ve gotten more into jazz, listening to Art Blakey, Miles Davis, and stuff like that. Not just picking the record to listen to it, but listening at how they play their instruments and how they play together. And of course there are always records that come in and out of cycles, and there are the staples that stay in there, like The Groundhogs and stuff like that.
PAN M 360 :You play drums with Ty Segall and play guitar with Fuzz, whereas it’s Ty who plays drums in Fuzz. Do you guys switch instruments sometimes, or you just stick to the guitar?
CM: Guitar, that’s my place, that’s my home, spiritually. I love playing drums in Ty’s band, but guitar will always be the best way to express myself. So with Fuzz, it’s always me on guitar. You see, that’s the thing – when I first met Ty back in high school, he was a drummer. He was the best drummer back then. He’s always been one of my favourite drummers. That’s also why this band started back then, it’s because he wanted to play drums and I wanted to play guitar.
PAN M 360 :Can you shed some light on the lyrics? They’re often rather nebulous or abstract, even cryptic.
CM: Each song is different. For example, I feel “Spit” is a really abstract one. There is, like, a story happening, but it’s very loose. For the most part, Ty and I are writing the lyrics. So when we write together, it’s a really interesting thing because he tends to be more abstract and I’ve always liked to tell a story. So we always kind of end up landing somewhere in the middle. I think Ty, over recent years, has come back to wanting to be more specific with the lyrics, but there’s an interesting combination. I like poetry, so I always kind of think that way, but Ty is also really good at being more focused on the sounds, like he can say, ‘I can’t sing that word because it doesn’t work well with the way that the vocals go’. So we end up finding these weird balances, where it’s like, ‘I wanna say this but we can’t say that… ’. So we have to change this last word to make it work and then we end up with that kind of a weird Frankenstein of a sentence, and then we’re like, ‘oh, that’s really cool!’. Every song is different. Some are much more straightforward, and it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, us not wanting to abandon what this band is, we want to keep certain songs fun, like pump your fist and yell at the show, you know? We’re a rock ’n’ roll band, so we want to keep it primitive, and other times be a bit more heavy. But I agree, there are times where it might just not make sense!
Montreal’s musical ecosystem is home to an authentic Senegalese griot, a kora virtuoso from a long Mandinka lineage. Established in Quebec for more than 20 years, Zal Sissokho has been experimenting with hybridization while continuing the transmission of his age-old culture. Launched on Analekta last February, his album Kora Flamenca is a stylistic fusion with guitarist Caroline Planté, double bassist Jean-Félix Mailloux, percussionist Miguel Medina, oud player Mohamed Masmoudi, and singer Marcos Martin.
Celebrated on Wednesday, October 28, during ADISQ’s 2020 gala series, where Sissokho took home the award for Album of the Year – World Music, the material of this opus is once again highlighted in the context of a concert recorded and webcast at the Nuits d’Afrique.
PAN M 360 contacted the lucky winner for a conversation.
PAN M 360: You are a kora virtuoso, singer, and songwriter, you left Senegal and settled in Montreal in 1999 – how has this relocation changed your music?
Zal Sissokho: Yes, I am a kora virtuoso, singer, and songwriter. About a third of kora players also sing, that’s my case. I was first trained by my late father, Diéourou Sissokho, and I continued learning with other players. For me, living in Montreal allowed me to continue what I had started in Senegal.
PAN M 360: Sissokho is a griot’s name. What was your role in Senegal, and how do you see this role since you have been living in Canada?
ZS: The role of griot is still within me. A griot is a storyteller, a family mediator, and a musician. Through his words and music, he helps people become aware of different issues. I continue to assume this role here in Quebec.
PAN M 360: Will your children follow in your footsteps?
ZS: My daughters are very interested. Traditionally, griot girls sang and did not play instruments, which was the way it was done in the Mandingo Empire. Today, however, it’s more open and girls can learn to play the kora. My oldest should start next year because the size of the instrument requires you to be 12 or 13 years old to learn it. My task is to pass on my traditional knowledge to my daughters, after which they will decide if they want to continue.
PAN M 360: In Quebec, you worked with the Diouf brothers, with Celso Machado, Constantinople, Fakhass Sico, Lilison di Kinara, Richard Séguin, Takadja, Muna Mingole, Caroline Planté, and Cirque du Soleil (the show O), to name but a few. Are there any outstanding collaborations among your encounters, in Quebec or elsewhere?
ZS: All these encounters have left their mark on me because they have allowed me to give something and to receive something too. Going towards another culture is a way for me to not limit myself to my own.
PAN M 360: In what way have these encounters with non-Senegalese artists transformed your playing and your vision of music?
ZS: In my opinion, music has no borders. These encounters have helped me to push back the limits of my kora by playing scales that were not familiar to me at first. If I decided to move to Montreal, it was to find a greater opening, new horizons, and not to limit myself strictly to my traditional learning, which I nevertheless perpetuate when the context lends itself to it. It’s therefore important for me to study other music, other melodic scales, other harmonies, and to see how far the kora can go in these different contexts.
PAN M 360: How was your experience with flamenco?
ZS: As far as I know, only the great virtuoso Toumani Diabaté and the guitarist Ketama had ever done this fusion between Mandinka music and flamenco. Personally, I learned to play flamenco with Caroline Planté, a great guitarist. It was all new to me. I then observed that flamenco was close to Berber music… very different from Mandinka music! Together, we spent a lot of time exploring to see what was possible to create and what wasn’t. I was very impressed with the way the flamenco music was played. We then composed several pieces, and kept about 10 of them for the recording.
PAN M 360: How do you reconcile your attachment to the Mandinka tradition with your experiences of hybridization?
ZS: In my songs, I recount what’s around me, what I live and what I see, while keeping my Mandinka traditions alive. In fact, all my encounters outside West Africa have always made me want to compose. These experiences have also allowed me to get to know my instrument better. You never stop learning, and that’s what inspires me!
PAN M 360: There have been major technical advances in the playing of the kora, several virtuosos are now making their mark. What are those changes, in your opinion, and how has your own playing changed as you observe them?
ZS: I’m going to give you some names of kora players that I like to listen to: Toumani Diabaté, Ballaké Sissokho, Toumani Kouyaté. Their ways of playing the chords, of using them, of adapting the kora to different tonalities, all this makes me want to go further in my research. So the kora has become universal. My father and grandfather played traditionally in Senegal, at ritual events – christenings, weddings, etc. – and it’s still played today. Later on, younger musicians revolutionised the game. Today, kora players are technically superior, limits have been pushed back.
PAN M 360: What’s the game plan for Thursday’s concert?
ZS: I’ll present the music from the album Kora Flamenca with Caroline Planté, Miguel Medina, and Jean-Félix Mailloux. We had toured a little after the release of the album last February but the pandemic stopped us. Even though this concert will be presented without an audience, we will give everything we’ve got, to make sure that people enjoy watching it.
PAN M 360: What are your plans for the future?
ZS: A new idea is running through my head: kora and jazz! But I also plan to tour with the Kora Flamenca project… when COVID is a thing of the past.
PAN M 360: Congrats for your Felix award, “Album of the year -World Music “!
ZS: Thank you ! I am very happy, it is a recognition of my work done for more than 20 years in Quebec. I feel fortunate to have such a great team around me. This is my country now, I spend more time here than in Senegal, I’m happy with this welcome, I feel like I’m part of this society and this music industry. And we keep up with the good work, we are not giving up!
The artist Saycet, whose real name is Pierre Lefeuvre, has created the original soundtrack for the French Netflix series La Révolution, an ambitious project for both Netflix and himself that earned him the privilege of working with a symphony orchestra for the first time. As a composer, musician, and producer, Saycet has been able to evolve thanks to his influences, collaborations, and concerts. Somewhat involuntarily, he’s recently turned to composing music for moving images. This large-scale project has turned out to be a titanic work that’s given birth to 240 minutes of music mixing modern, powerful electronics with adaptations of works by classical composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Lully, and Handel. Saycet reflects on this great premiere, crowning his 15-year career.
PAN M 360: How does one go about composing a soundtrack for a Netflix series?
Saycet: Well, first of all, you do a casting like an actor, with a file that you send in (via an agent). Then we make a demo tape, like the other composers, and then we wait. Then one day, you get a call. But, of course, that’s without mentioning all the upstream work that has been going on for several years for documentaries, films, and advertisements. [NB: the recent soundtrack to the wildlife documentary Le Roi Bâtard, which he composed with Laurent Garnier]
PAN M 360: What were your visual, audio, or other inspirations for composing the soundtrack for such a project, revisiting the history of France?
Saycet: My inspirations were mainly the series itself. I arrived very late in the process, the editing was almost finalised and I was lucky enough to be able to compose directly on final cuts. The showrunner Aurélien Molas [creator, author and producer] had absolute confidence in me. As a result, it was done very instinctively. He had a reference before I met him, it was the soundtrack of the film Sicario, by Jóhann Jóhannsson. So I tried to get the essence of it and take it elsewhere.
PAN M 360: Musically, was the inspiration of artists such as Beethoven, Handel, and Bach, to name but a few, obvious to you?
Saycet: It was mostly a big coincidence. It all started from Handel’s La Sarabande (the version in the film Barry Lyndon) which was in the edit (on another scene). It was at the debriefing that we asked ourselves whether we should leave it as it was, making it a synchro (with a strong tribute to Kubrick), or whether we should remove it and replace it with a score.
The music supervisor for the series [Pierre-Marie Dru] then challenged me to my interpretation of it – something I had never considered. So I did it very instinctively, the producers really liked it, and then I tried to find other songs to interpret that would fit into that universe. Through this process, which was absolutely unthinking and done rather in a hurry, I didn’t have time to ask myself questions about inspiration or what was obvious, to be very honest. If I’d had the time to intellectualise it beforehand, I wouldn’t have done it, for lack of self-confidence.
PAN M 360: How was it to work with a symphony orchestra?
Saycet: It was a big first for me. It was quite impressive, because I don’t speak the language and I haven’t mastered the codes of an orchestra. Everything is in some way opposed to the other, and quite naturally, I was very quickly satisfied. We were able to really communicate, and I was able to let myself go towards more and more personal intentions.
PAN M 360: Will the composition of this soundtrack have an influence on your artistic future, and how would that translate?
Saycet: I don’t know about that! (laughs) I hope so, thanks to Netflix, which has a global reach. La Révolution will have an influence on my future already, by making public my artistic project. I also hope that my work will interest producers or directors from new countries.
Pierre Kwenders’ international career regularly takes him to Europe. His many Parisian stopovers have been punctuated by an artistic collaboration with Clément Bazin, electronic musician, songwriter, and percussionist by training. In addition to his solo projects, which keep him very busy, Bazin was notably part of Woodkid’s international tour a few years ago. Together, the Parisian and the Congolese-Montrealer planned an intercontinental flight on Classe tendresse. It’s a bird’s-eye view of the landscapes these two citizens of the world create, revealing their respective journeys through this EP, with remixes, on the Bonsound label. Pierre Kwenders sums up this trip in all courtesy.
PAN M 360: How did you get to know Clément Bazin, to picture Classe tendresse together?
Pierre Kwenders: My manager had met him in Montreal when he performed there, and told me about him. I finally met him in France two years ago. He then invited me to his studio, made me play some sounds I liked, and I came back to Montreal with them. At first, they were tracks to work on my next album, and… Clément and I worked together again later, when I went back to Paris. The connection came very naturally, after which we thought, why not release an EP together? All the songs were recorded there, when I was working with Moonshine or for my own shows, we always had a session. The last one was recorded in February 2020, just before COVID. The EP was for all intents and purposes finished, we added three remixes of the four songs to the program. Time and circumstances finally worked in our favour.
PAN M 360: Except for the percussion aspect, isn’t this duo EP in the same spirit as your solo work?
PK: Absolutely, my identity is there. But in a tandem project, we have to find each other! I didn’t want to take up all the space, I wanted Clément to bring his flavour and identity too, and that’s exactly what he did with the steel drums that are on almost all the songs, except the song “Ego”, surprisingly. That’s really what attracted me to his work, this love for steel drums and Afro-Caribbean culture. At a very young age, Clément became interested in steel bands, and today he plays them very well. Incredible, this instrument! We agreed on this interest in Caribbean culture, which I naturally like, given my African origins. The steel drum was invented by musicians from Trinidad. This creativity of underprivileged artists also exists in my native Congo, and groups like Kokoko!, Fulu Miziki, Staff Benda Bilili, or Konono No. 1 play instruments they built themselves. I think it’s wonderful. The impossible can become a possibility, that’s the beauty of the human being.
PAN M 360: You sing in Lingala and French, your music has elements of Congolese rumba – your cultural heritage is once again resurfacing in this new EP, isn’t it?
PK: As they say, you can take me out of the Congo, but you can’t take the Congo out of me! To use another well-known expression, I fell into Congolese rumba when I was a child. When I started music, I wanted to do Congolese rumba, but I also wanted people to understand where I came from. For example, ewolo is a dance from the ’90s, from the group Zaiko Langa Langa. For me, the song “Ewolo” is a way for me to pay tribute to this group that I loved when I was 10 or 11 years old. We used to dance to it at family parties. I also remember my mother’s 35th birthday, it’s a childhood memory that I wanted to share. In the same song, there is also an extract from a street song that my parents themselves used to sing when they were little. It’s imbued in me, it’s part of who I am, and I’m happy to share it.
PAN M 360: Can you elaborate on the beatmaking on the EP?
PK: I had nothing to do with it! I gave Clement the freedom to take it where he wanted. The beats at the start were the result of his ideas, then I worked with him, suggesting that he extend such and such a sequence, and son on and so forth. He took up my idea and told his own story through composition and direction. He had ideas, so I could add things here and there. Clément and I inspired each other. And everyone brought what they could bring to the final product.
PAN M 360: Was there a common goal from the outset?
PK: The basic idea was to make people dance, and touch their emotions. While writing this project, I myself was living important experiences in my life, I wanted to talk about them, but not in sadness. I also did “Ego”, a song in homage to Africa, which I had never done before. It’s also a nod to the Ivorian coupe-décalé style that I’m a big fan of, and also to DJ Caloudji’s song “Sentiment manquant”.
PANM 360: “Ego” is a tribute to Africa, a first for you.
PK: Yes, I wanted to pay tribute to Africa for the good things, for the big cities that see the birth and growth of so many artists, some of whom are becoming international, from Youssou N’Dour to Burna Boy, via Franco and Manu Dibango, whom I name and who left us during COVID. I wish he could have heard it! In Congo, for example, electronic music is becoming very present in the big cities, without dislodging rumba and soukouss for all that. It’s all part of what I like to do, which is to travel and pass on my culture, to make people even more curious about Africa beyond my own music.
PAN M 360: What about the next Pierre Kwenders album?
PK: It’s coming out in 2021, and what’s in Classe tendresse is not at all the material for the album. This EP is a nice interlude with Clément. It gives me great pleasure that this project can see the light of day, and that I can share it with my audience before looking to other horizons next year, after having worked with Clément Bazin and, before that, with Ishmael Butler from Shabazz Palaces.
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