Interviews

He’s made his name with his numerous albums, EPs, remixes and production credits, and through his popular Karnival, Bounce le gros, Sud-West and more recently Qualité de luxe parties. For 20 years, Ghislain Poirier has been bringing us with him in his carry-on luggage. His music is in the image of Montreal, cosmopolitan, colourful, multicultural and very often festive. With Soft Power, his brand new, 11th album, Poirier wants to bring people together even more. Here, it’s all about balance and delicacy without straying off the dancefloor. PAN M 360 connected with this most groovy of travel agents.

PAN M 360: With your first album Il n’y a pas de Sud released in 2001, you’ve been making music for 20 years now, and yet it feels like it was yesterday…

Poirier: (laughs) You noticed that, huh? I wonder if a lot of people know that. Even I find it hard to believe. It went by fast. When I started making music, just finishing a piece was a small miracle because I never thought I would be able to make it to the end. It was a dream, music was for me a kind of creative Eden that I couldn’t reach, but when I started to compose a song, I realized that I was able to create music. And with every album or song I make, I’m still amazed that I’m able to do that. Now I look at the record I’m releasing today and, 20 years later, I’m still as fascinated by what I’m able to achieve.

PAN M 360: Which brings us to your 11th album, Soft Power, an astonishing record, much closer to songwriting than dancefloor heat. What was the plan?

Poirier: I clearly wanted to do something more paused, more relaxed. I wanted to refocus my music more towards a “song” format, to establish the right balance of something you can listen to quietly at home, but that will make you dance if you hear it louder at a party. So I wanted to explore and master this zone between the dancefloor and the song. I wanted to position myself between the two, but above all I wanted this album to be easy to listen to; I wanted to give my music more delicacy, so for me it was a real work of restraint, both in the mix of sounds and in the structure of the songs. I still believe in the format of an album, I still believe that an artist can take us on a journey of 40, 50, 60 minutes.

PAN M 360: Soft Power is a rather diversified album, on which we find several collaborators and guests. Did it take you a long time to get there?

Poirier: It took me between two and two and a half years. Because it’s not the kind of record you can make by isolating yourself for two weeks in a chalet. It took me several months to get through it, over the course of my encounters, and also over the course of my own creative and artistic development. Some songs took a long time to germinate and mature. The more I progressed, the more it became clear. Because sometimes you set yourself a goal, but you don’t have enough focus, so it takes a while before you can get back into focus. So, yes, it took a lot of hard work, but in the end it’s exactly the album I wanted to hear and I’m really happy with it!

PAN M 360: Flavia Coelho, Flavia Nascimento, Boogat, Daby Touré, Mélissa Laveaux, Coralie Hérard, Red Fox, Samito… There are almost as many collaborators as there are songs on this record. How did you choose them?

Poirier: Well, there are collaborators for the vocals, but there are also musicians involved. There’s a lot of people involved. It’s something that comes about through crossing paths, and according to the songs. Sometimes it’s completely by chance. But I like to have a good base in Montreal in terms of the people I work with, even though there are a few foreign artists on there. There’s no science in terms of the people I work with. Sometimes they’re people I want to work with and the timing is right, sometimes it’s not, or what I offer them doesn’t inspire them. So it’s often a rather instinctive process, I would say.  

“Soft Power“ is a record that bridges genres and eras, it is also a record that bridges communities. It’s as if I was showing the face of Quebec today, how I see it, how I live it.

PAN M 360: The record goes in all sorts of directions. You’ve always been attracted to the larger family of soca and dancehall, but now you’re touching on Latinx, Brazilian, Mozambican, West African and Mexican music. Tell us a little bit about this tour of the world.

Poirier: I wanted to do not only a stylistic tour of the world, but also a tour of eras. I wanted the album to be timeless. There are tracks on it that could have been made 10, 15 or 20 years ago, just as they could have been made today and even 20 years from now! I wanted to find a kind of balance between periods and styles so that it all fits into a kind of great musical conversation. But at the same time, I didn’t want to ignore what’s happening today. My aim – and the future will tell me whether I’ve screwed up or not – is for these songs to be able to speak as much to people who know the music and the references I use as to people who don’t have the same references, maybe even no references at all, but let it all speak to them anyway. And also that it speaks to several generations. That’s what led me, for example, to collaborate with guitarists, to put more melodies on my rhythmic bases.

PAN M 360: Would you say it’s your most organic record?

Poirier: Yes, definitely. There’s a mix of acoustics and electronics, but I tried to do it in a subtle way, not to make it too obvious, to make it catch the eye. I wanted it to be a natural mix. I wanted a kind of warmth. And I wanted the voices to be in the foreground. 

PAN M 360: And if we had to catalogue this record, where would we put it?

Poirier: I don’t see this record as being part of the global bass movement, although it’s likely to speak to people who are. I see it more in the songwriting category, a very Montreal record, with artists from all sorts of backgrounds, but fundamentally Quebecois. It’s a very global record in its openness, though. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do since my debut in 2001, which is to be part of a kind of global musical conversation. That’s always been very important to me. So with this record, I think it’s even more convincing. You could almost say it’s pop without borders. It’s a crossover of a lot of styles. I’ve played all over Africa, Haiti, Cuba, Ethiopia, Dakar, Cape Verde, Mayotte, Reunion Island, Europe… I want this album to speak to a lot of people, but I haven’t compromised too much to get there.

PAN M 360: How do you intend to promote the album in these uncertain times?

Poirier: We’re doing what we can. It’s a difficult time, but the music is still circulating and it was out of the question for me and the label to delay the release of the album; it’s been ready since February. I’m not going to play in the immediate future and if I have to wait until 2021, I’ll wait. Because I don’t intend to do a live thing on the web either. I didn’t make a record linked to a specific and current fashion, it’s more timeless. I’m not worried about that. 

PAN M 360: After 20 years in the music business, what still turns you on?

Poirier: I’ve always loved the beauty of art for the sake of art, that the beauty of art can be enough. I like to think that there are statements in the records I’ve made. In 2003, I did Beats As Politics, I did Conflits, I had the Boundary project too… I think Soft Power is in the same vein. It’s a kind of quiet force of art and music that can hopefully change morals, or at least positively influence them. Because you could say it’s really a “living together” record. Just as it is a record that bridges genres and eras, it is also a record that bridges communities. It’s as if I was showing the face of Quebec today, how I see it, how I live it. This record is a musical and social statement. 

With Savages, Berthomier had built an artistic identity. But now…

“I needed to see how to enrich it, not deconstruct it.” she says. “I wanted to be a character you can draw in one go. In Savages, I made the choice not to say things about myself, no one was stopping me, mind you. I was the one who decided to restrict myself, to be clear, easily identifiable. I think that was very helpful in Savages; the band had a soul, we all agreed with that identity, we were all going in the same direction.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYcVIPQiOpU

The image on the cover of the album To Love Is To Live does not lie: Jehnny Beth wanted to reveal herself without deferring to others.

“For the album cover,” she says, adding to her explanation, “we decided to close the pores on the skin of the image. It’s an image without regrets that represented a certain strength, which is one of the recurring themes on this album, and also on my songs in general. I’m thinking of the album Adore Life.  So I do my own thing, even if I do it at a degree of removal. It’s a bit cliché to say it, but this album’s a way of revealing sides of me that I didn’t express in Savages. I figured this was my chance to do it. I had help thinking that way and making this album, from Romy Madley Croft, for example.”

Before beginning this creative process, Berthomier didn’t know what to do with her contradictory thoughts, the essential source of the lyrics in To Love Is To Live. 

“I was full of guilt and shame about thoughts that were passing through my mind,” she says. “I’m lucky enough to be able to make songs out of it, to get into a dialogue with myself. I’m trying to figure it out a little. So I started by exploring the thoughts that kept me awake at night. I was unable to make this album without talking about what was bothering me so much at home. The human being is imperfect, plagued by contradictory thoughts, we tend to not put this complexity forward. And I think that’s what art is for!”

Berthomier uses the example of her song “I’m the man”.

“The lyrics speak of the need to take responsibility for the evil that exists in the world, not just on the other side of the planet, but also in my neighbour’s home or even in my own. The man I’m describing in this song is also me. This responsibility is reflected in the context of our current failures to address racism. We have to look each other in the face, see each other without complaisance, and art is there to do that. So I don’t want to show just my good side. I refuse to draw a white line between good on one side and evil on the other, and put myself on the right side by saying that I have pure thoughts. No! We mustn’t have only a pure voice to allow ourselves to speak. That’s why I worked with Joe Talbot from IDLES, he has the courage to say I’ve been a jealous man and can be again, and I’m fighting with this violence inside me. And I say the same thing, except I’m a woman.”

It can be deduced that “self-doubt, apathy, and isolation” are key vectors in To Love Is To Live.

“But it’s not just that,” says Berthomier. “I juxtapose these darker moods with other states that break them up. It’s like we’ve been working towards a sense of happiness, going through all this. For example, the lyrics to ‘French Countryside’ were written in an airplane during an episode of harsh turbulence. I thought we were going to crash, I had started to take stock – I should have loved better, done better, been more generous, been better, etc. And then the plane landed,” she laughs, “I survived! The next few days, I really enjoyed life, the flowers and the birds… before I forgot. It’s important not to forget.”

In terms of gender, the image that the artist projects is clearly in line with queer pride and the diversification of sexual identities. She corroborates without going into detail.

“I am a woman making art in 2020 and reflecting what women are becoming in 2020.  I’m not doing this out of political envy, but I’m doing it anyway, I’m a woman. I never quite understood the tomboy label. People don’t necessarily realize… ”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8WMhLzBU94&feature=emb_logo

Flood, Atticus Ross, and Johnny Hostile co-produced To Love Is To Live, a visibly ambitious project given the reputation of the professionals recruited.

“Johnny Hostile,” says Berthomier, “has been much more than just my accompanist for 15 years. He’s notably the producer of several songs on this album. I like to describe him as my muse, because he inspires me so much. He’s always suggesting new ideas, he gives me a lot of freedom and gives me strength. It’s mutual, by the way. As for Flood, he came along to make things better, among other things to make me record without headphones, with the speakers open. ‘Tell me what you feel, don’t tell me what you think,’ he suggested! For his part, Atticus Ross added layers and layers of sound to the original music.”

Clearly, To Love Is To Live is not a pure rock album. Jehnny Beth didn’t draw from the ’80s and ’90s like she to obvious success with Savages. She has taken a different path and added arrows to her quiver, enriching a course that is atypical to say the least.

Originally from Poitiers, Berthomier had lived in London for over a decade where she co-founded the bands Pop Noires and Savages. She re-established herself in Paris for three years and pursued a multipolar approach. She was nominated for a César in the category of Most Promising Actress for the film An Impossible Love. She appears in Alexandre Astier’s Kaamelott, due out in a few months. She recently launched a new music series for Arte, entitled Echoes with Jehnny Beth. She also released a collection of erotic short stories, Crimes Against Love Memories (CALM). On Apple Music, she has been hosting the web radio show Start Making Sense for a few years now.

“Hosting Start Making Sense on Apple Music,” she says, “forced me to listen to a lot of music and led me to be eclectic. Which I’ve never done before. It really changed my life and connected me to what’s happening now. Take Bowie’s Blackstar, Beyoncé’s 2013 album, or Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly – these recordings mix genres and break the structural codes of the songs. Such albums reflect the fragmentation of today’s world, they command a discontinuous and destructured state of mind.”

This amply justifies the choice of his new poetic and musical orientations, one is tempted to add.

What about Savages? “I don’t have any plans right now. I don’t know what I’m going to want to do after the tours that will resume in a few months, at least I hope they do. My stage band is currently half French and half English, we did a concert in London shortly before the pandemic.

“What I’m most proud of right now? Just doing To Love Is To Live.”

Photos: Gaëlle Beri

PAN M 360: I discovered your work first through your recent Sans Mouvement, and worked backwards to 2017’s En Mouvement – reverse chronological order. In that spirit, I’ll start by asking you about the future before we walk back through the past. Does Sans Mouvement conclude the arc of the Mouvement works, or will there be further Mouvements in the future?

Angèle David-Guillou: My feeling, at the moment, is that Sans Mouvement will be the last of the Mouvement series. When I put out Mouvements Organiques, in 2018, as a response to En Mouvement, reworking some of the pieces of the original album for the pipe organ, I did have in mind a possible Mouvements Organiques Volume II. I got a lot of material from the recording sessions I did at the Union Chapel in London back in August 2017, and I do have more material, which arguably could make up a follow-up. Let’s see.

En Mouvement, to me, was very much about coming out of oneself and reaching out, I like the idea that if it is indeed a trilogy, it ends on being forced to retreat into oneself.  Also, I have a new full-length album which I have just completed, and should come out early next year at the latest, as well as an accompanying EP that is more conceptual, so there’s quite a lot on my plate already!

PAN M 360: Coming back to the present – my own interpretation of Sans Mouvement is that it’s a tiny, split-second moment of conflicting emotions, stretched out in slow-motion over close to an hour. That distortion of time seems very familiar in the current stay-at-home situation that most of the world is living with. How would you explain the piece?

ADG: Your interpretation is wonderful and I like that you mention conflicting emotions, certainly this is an aspect central to the piece. To me, Sans Mouvement is a wave, a sine wave, an ocean wave, a wave of sounds, of resonances, of contradictory emotions and motions. It’s also very extroverted and introverted at the same time. It is a sort of submerging that comes both from within and from without, both aspects either alternating or, yes indeed, being in direct conflict with each other. It felt incredibly apropos at this moment in time, when we have been feeling both very much cut out from the world, but also incredibly connected to it.

Photo: Gaëlle Beri

PAN M 360: The Mouvements works were begun years ago already, the first record was in 2017, long before the current pandemic – and yet their themes of time and movement are acutely pertinent right now. This brings in a consideration of timing, of random chance and the somehow preordained. What are your thoughts on that?

ADG: Mr. Jung would say that there is no such thing as coincidence. I wasn’t planning on releasing a new chapter to the Mouvement series now, but yes, the circumstances were just around us and when I suggested it to my record label, Village Green, they were just thrilled, which I am incredibly grateful for. It’s odd though because I haven’t been enjoying this lockdown at all. I have been feeling totally trapped, submitting to someone else’s rules in a way – I always long for stillness and solitude, but when they are chosen, not imposed.

Yet, indeed, there are definitely echoes of the current situation in my music and what I am interested in in compositional terms in particular. Certainly, central to my writing, perhaps less obviously in my less ambient output, but as fundamental to me, are the questions of change, repetition and stillness, which I try to explore in the stretching of sounds and textures, but also in experiments with time signatures, motifs, canons, etc.

PAN M 360: 2018’s Mouvements Organiques saw you migrate your compositions from ensemble performance to solo pipe organ – an instrument that has the strength and range to match a group of several musicians at once. At the same time, your compositions require a great deal of subtlety, and I’d guess that means tempering the force with which an organ can resound. What led you to that decision?

ADG: I was given the chance to perform on the organ of the Union Chapel in London, for a Daylight Music event organised by the London promoter Ben Eshmade, it must have been in 2015. He asked me whether I would like to play interludes on the organ, and I said yes, of course. One morning I was shown how to turn the instrument on and off and how to use the stops, and the next day I was playing it in front of an audience. It was a total discovery and I was amazed at how the instrument responded so well to some of my compositions.

It’s not just the instrument itself, it’s the room too. You are playing a room as well as keyboards. Perhaps this is why it is called an organ, it is as if you are inside a breathing organ that you are operating yourself. I loved that idea totally. It is very much a sensory experience, I love the physicality of playing the instrument. Especially if you play very repetitive pieces, it’s like being at the helm of a strange spaceship going through turbulence.

Perhaps you’ve played acoustic guitar before, resting your head on the instrument’s body? You can really feel the vibrations and resonances inside the guitar, not just the notes. It’s a similar feeling playing a pipe organ, but you are inside the actual sound. That’s really what drawn me to write Mouvements Organiques and later Sans Mouvement. I didn’t think of it so much as transposing pre-existing music, but as a physical experience.

PAN M 360: Now back to the first album, En Mouvement, out of which the later two records evolved. En Mouvement is more conventional, like an introductory portfolio. The presence of the ‘usual suspects’ is obvious – Philip Glass, of course, I hear Michael Nyman, and Steve Reich’s phase-shifting as well. But there are other sources of inspiration that are quite intriguing, like Gurdjieff and Cocteau, Sufi literature and Sumerian art. What insights can you share about that?

ADG: To me, these are all linked. They share an interest in illusion, in playfulness, while creating art that is profoundly serious. They also draw from the deeply personal, which is how they allow the reader, the viewer or the listener to look at the world and at oneself from an unexpected angle. Sufi parabolas are the most wonderful pieces of writing, they always seem so light at first sight, but they are so astute and shine a mirror directly at one’s soul – amazing.

Similarly, take Le Testament d’Orphée, possibly my favourite Cocteau film. There is an incredible joyfulness to it, humour even, yet it is extremely profound and never trivial, and the personal is expanded out into something unexpectedly universal. It’s not just in the writing or the story, it’s in the image of course.

Cocteau films are a huge influence on how I approach production, typically. Illusion in sound, not knowing what one hears, or being shown what we should be hearing but hearing something else, I am fascinated by all these processes, which in my mind are as much at the heart of Sufi writings as they are of Philip Glass compositions. I would need a full interview on Gurdjieff, but his writings have all these qualities and his music for the piano, deceptively simple, is just incredibly powerful and emotional. 

PAN M 360: My final question: if you could write a letter today and mail it to yourself, five years ago, what advice, encouragement, or frantic warnings would you include?

ADG: I would tell myself to get on with it, and to stock up on French wine.

Photo: Gaëlle Beri

PAN M 360: The way I understand it, the philosophy and practice of TENGGER is to visit new and unfamiliar places, not to document them, but rather to access your creativity through the heightened awareness and extended experience of time caused by immersion in a new environment. Is this correct, and if so, how does it inform your new album Nomad?

itta: TENGGER’s mission, or role, is to convey the various moments and places that have been consciously and unconsciously accumulated, through music. I think it makes me feel like I’m visiting “this space” because the moment it’s expressed, there’s a space shared by everyone who shares the moment. As for the new album, our identity means that in the presence of the two other countries of the 21st century, we would like to welcome the “we” who walk somewhere where there is nomadic freedom, where the life-bearing people of nature, can meet – perhaps not anywhere.

PAN M 360: TENGGER is frequently referred to as a duo, that of itta and Marqido. You are a trio, however, with your son RAII present and actively involved in your art.

itta: His name means “a person who is loved by all things and who knows how to give love to all things in the world”. He turned eight years old in May this year. We think of ourselves, as TENGGER, as being with nature and the environment that we see every moment, not limited to a duo or a trio. RAAI’s birth is what made us a family named TENGGER, and the change in our music also began at that point. RAAI accompanies us during our field recording and live tours, wherever possible and whenever possible.

This child also has the perception that he is a member of TENGGER himself. Yesterday there was a full moon, and RAAI, who had suggested we make a wish while looking at the moon together in the evening, told me his wish. “I wish I could live as part of TENGGER with my mom and dad for a long time.” 

His gestures and movements have a great influence on our music, especially when it’s performed live on the stage. We respond to the atmosphere and the space in the audience, but I think it’s becoming more organic after RAAI’s appearance.

PAN M 360: The music you create is meditative, inviting a more peaceful, reflective, and appreciative state of mind. The practice of meditation can be used to expel troubling and unhealthy feelings, but it can also serve to heighten one’s awareness – of both oneself and one’s surroundings. I feel there’s a sort of paradox there.

itta: I think meditation is important. You may get some enlightenment from meditation, and it begins by emptying your mind. Yes, as you said, it’s kind of a paradox. I think “emptying your consciousness” will help us when we are standing in front of an unknown forked road, to find the wind blowing from the narrow entrance to the next destination.

PAN M 360: You’ve explained elsewhere that you apply to your art the principle of shanshui. The term, which is generally applied to classical Chinese poetry and painting, but not music as far as I can tell, translates to “landscape”, or more precisely “mountain-water”. Can you explain this idea a bit more, as you perceive it?

itta: When it comes to shanshui, sansu in Korean, I think it’s important to show respect for nature, not to interpret the mountains, rivers, and seas that we see. It’s like feeling the majestic energy of yeongsan, which means sacred mountains, where temples or shrines are located, known to have a spiritual energy. We are making music to keep reminding ourselves that we are part of the natural. That attitude is the relationship between shanshui and TENGGER’s music.

PAN M 360: I appreciate remarks you’ve made to the effect that when we speak of our environment, the line between the natural – untouched by human beings – and the artificial – the spaces we create and alter to accommodate our lives – is not firm or absolute. You’ve also mentioned, in one interview, that you are “not trying to express paradise”.

itta: Nature is beautiful but dangerous, and it cannot be on its own. You can co-exist only when you rely on many other existing beings and are supported by them. If we face the fact that we are living with the help of all the beings around us today, it becomes pretty clear that the boundaries should be lifted. Yet we still have to experience boundaries in many ways. Boundaries between nations, racial discrimination, and the distinction between mankind and nature. I don’t think these things have ever existed, but they should be lifted from our consciousness as well.

PAN M 360: Your themes, ideas, and therapeutic music are of particular pertinence right now, in this time of collective isolation, distancing, and anxiety over our relationship with nature. What are your reflections on this? And of course, what art are you working on now?

itta: Boundaries only create anxiety, so we are trying to live today well and gratefully, and to continue to learn from nature. I think it’s the same as exploring humans. Compassion. I live preparing for what’s next with the mindset of identifying myself as the same as the object itself. Please look forward to the next work from TENGGER.

PAN M 360 thanks Jinsun Taylor Kim for translating this correspondence.

Reached in the hip 17th arrondissement of Paris, Ben Shemie didn’t return to Montreal when the pandemic broke out and the borders closed.

“I left Montreal in January,” he says “Then, in Paris, I started an artist residency, I’m there since, I decided to stay after the residence was cancelled. My girlfriend is here, so we are staying cozy in her apartment and waiting out the storm.”

Before crossing the ocean, the musician had finished recording his second solo album in as many years. Like A Skeleton, released in the winter of 2019, A Single Point of Light is another poetic journey into the land of synthetic minimalism.

“I recorded this material in Montreal at the beginning of the winter, so it’s been a few months that it’s been done. I mastered it here, and generally organized the whole thing from Paris, but the actual creation and performance of the record was done at home in Montreal. I’ve been working on other stuff here.”

What, exactly?

“I’m doing a collaboration with Chloé, the producer-DJ that’s here. I’m also involved in organizing a radio installation project, and in production with Suuns for an EP that will come out this fall – and we have a new full length coming out next year. Most of this stuff was supposed to happen now, but it’s all been pushed off.”

Since that’s the case, focus returns to the solo project. With A Single Point of Light, Shemie believes that he has strengthened his song structures, that he’s become more invested in this aspect.

“The songwriting is more involved. the actual ‘songs’ are more developed. I’ve spent more time on lyric writing, to be honest, than on the actual composition. I didn’t change my setup at all because I still want it to be mostly improvised and raw. However, it’s less lo-fi, and sonically deeper. I also tried new techniques on the vocals, the melodies. it’s more ambitious.. but not a lot more. I still tried to keep it simple, like the last record. It’s all done in one take – live off the floor, no overdubs. In a sense, the development in this record is actually the development of my live set.”

How was the composition considered, then?

“I think I put more time into writing the lyrics. Okay, but at the same time, the musical aspect is very important, you also have only instrumental parts. Of course, all the instrumental parts are made by feedback. So it’s entirely improvised in the moment. It’s a feel thing. I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to control the elements of the feedback, and getting interesting sounds. But it’s not actual composition, it’s improvisation.”

It can be assumed that modular synthesizers are involved, and…

“No, I don’t use modular synths. I still use the same shitty MicroKorg and the same cheap synths I have for years. I still haven’t gotten tired of what they are capable of, and still discover sounds that I like. It’s very basic, but if you know basic synthesis, you can unlock all sorts of sounds from a programmable synth.”

And that’s why we’re noticing new sounds in Shemie’s palette.

“Yeah. I’m always searching and trying new stuff. I suppose I will get into modular synths, when everyone else is over them. Maybe they will be cheaper then…”


And when this repertoire is played in front of an audience, do we see new improvisations to support the same lyrics?

“Not really. The instrumental parts will be very different, you know. It could go in any direction. The parts where I’m singing, for the most part, are just tunes. I can change the sounds around forever, but the arrangements will stay more or less the same. I’m trying not to mess around with the song parts too much live because those are the hooks of my live show. Also, I like the tunes to remain the same. If I get bored with them, I’ll write more… or use different tunes in my set.”

This way of improvising the music of the songs can come close to a jazz form – always the same structure, but with new variations in real time in front of an audience. What does Ben Shemie think?

“Kind of, but I wouldn’t ever compare my set to a jazz set. It’s not the same lexicon. I have a jazz background, so I get where it’s coming from, but when I improvise I’m guiding the feedback, I’m not ‘playing’ anything. Therefore, it’s kind of divine. Some nights it really doesn’t work, sometimes it’s great. But I don’t practice it, in the traditional and jazz sense of the word.”

Before keeping what’s in the final recording of A Single Point of Light, was there a lot of improvisation?

“I ran the set a lot and I toured the music. I had the transitions tight – which is kind of the hardest part, moving from one song or improvisation to another. but in the studio it all happened in the moment. I spent a lot of time setting up the right circumstances, so the feedback would react nicely, but I didn’t work anything out ahead of time. So, I suppose it is kind of jazzy in that way.”

Will the instrumentation chosen for these two solo albums be kept for the future? 

“I don’t know yet. I’ll keep doing what feels natural. Part of my decisions are also about what makes sense for touring. I’m not going to record on instruments that I don’t own or that are really expensive or heavy… because I would never take those instruments on the road. So parts of my decisions are being true to the live show.”

A Single Point of Light is more than a title, Shemie argues, pointing to its unifying intent.

“My records are centered around a theme. This record is about light and our perception of light. figuratively and literally. Some tunes are about light and in its literal sense, other tunes are about how we see the same things, but perceive them differently based on a whole array of different things. Our different points of view, our different world views especially make us see the same things differently. It’s like magic… there it is.”

Shemie goes further still.

“A lot of the songs use light as metaphor, or as an image to work with. ‘Magic Eye’ is all about seeing light bent by heat, like in the desert, from a different angle it appears differently. The single ‘Change’ is about changing one physical position to see how someone else sees the same thing – which is really meant to illustrate how you need to change your worldview to see how someone else sees things. Songs like ‘Single Point of Light’ are more celestial and use light to break apart into a spectrum, revealing things you can’t see normally.”

The album strikes a beautiful balance between thought and the emotion that accompanies that thought. This poetic project is linked to a philosophical vision of perception, which Shemie corroborates.

“I didn’t set out for it to be that way, but once you get an idea, you develop it more and more and things come out, different angles that you didn’t think of before. There are also a couple love songs in there too. Because that’s also how I feel. It’s a very personal project.”

As is always the case in his work, Shemie remains minimalist on the lyrical side.

“Simple ideas are always the most effective. My best ideas have always been transparent ideas.”

Beyond the disruption caused by the pandemic, Shemie’s solo projects extend the pause of Suuns, his flagship for expression. Pure coincidence?

“No. We changed things up with Suuns. We needed a break too. It’s been a very intense and backbreaking 10-year stretch. We’ve had some rest, so we are ready to try new ideas and it feels better now. I’m always writing new music and I’ve felt for a while I wanted to try a project in a singular voice. So it’s much more simplified than Suuns. I really didn’t want to try and recreate the sound, or even try to imitate the production of Suuns too much. I wanted a project that could totally crash and that I was totally in control of. Which is where the feedback comes in.”

After the solo experiments, Shemie announces, Suuns will be back in action.

“We have an EP coming in the fall. it was supposed to be a full-length but because of COVID, we couldn’t tour. So we’ll wait until next year for the album. In the meantime, we have an EP of some very vibe-heavy tunes. We have a record… just waiting… it will probably change since it’s weird to sit on music. So likely new stuff will come up and we’ll add to it.”

Another point of light on the horizon…

PAN M 360: Have you wanted to release an album in Spanish for a long time?

Oscar Souto: I couldn’t tell you how long we’ve been working on it, but it’s been a long process. The idea came from our manager Carlos Ponte, who realized while doing research that Latin America is a whole world to discover. We’ve already been to Mexico to open for Blind Guardian. Since we sing in Spanish and speak Spanish, we feel that we have certain qualities required to try and “conquer” the South American market, and even Spain. At the same time, I have to admit that I didn’t like the idea of taking a song already recorded in French or English and translating it. I thought it was weird because it reminded me of what Julio Iglesias and some Quebec pop groups used to do at a certain time! I didn’t like it, but sometimes you have to tell yourself that you’re not the only one with good ideas. You have to listen to others and make room for their ideas, and that’s what I did. 

PAN M 360: Would you have preferred to start from scratch and write new songs in Spanish?

OS: Of course I would have preferred that option, but like I said, it’s a work we started a long time ago. Maybe two years ago, we were in a bit more of a rush than we are now, with shows and everything else. Writing a song from A to Z is longer than translating one. That’s why we chose to translate them, to see how it turns out. 

PAN M 360: The translated songs are “Bajo Presiόn” (“Sous pression”, from Stress, 1997), “Bicho Loco” (“Vermine”, from Sacrifices, 2019), “Violencia Versus Violence” (“La violence engendre la violence”, from Sacrifices, 2019) and “La Bestia” (“Je suis la bête”, from État brute, 2010). Why did you choose those ones? 

OS: At the beginning of the adventure, we prepared a game plan. We want to conquer South America and the countries where Spanish is spoken. We said we wouldn’t go in with a weak hand. That’s why we chose the songs that were the strongest, that best represented Anonymus. We also wanted songs that spanned the years of our existence. We present ourselves as a Canadian band that sings mainly in French, but is able to sing in Spanish.

PAN M 360: Who is the target audience for La Bestia?

OS: The diehard Anonymus fan might want to listen to the songs in Spanish, but basically, we made this album for Latin America and even the U.S., because they speak a lot of Spanish. 

PAN M 360: While doing my research, I saw that the videos of the songs “Sobrevivir” and “Terromoto” have been shared on foreign sites, including MetalInsider, TheInvisibleOrange and Atanatos, a Mexican site dedicated to metal music. How’s the record’s promotion going?

OS: We’ve had feedback from Latin American fanzines, websites, a guy who’s doing promotion in South America, and so far it’s all good opinions. For us, it’s a new adventure. We don’t know where it’s going to take us, but we’re excited about it. Like I said at the beginning, I wasn’t too sure, but now I’m starting to get on board. 

PAN M 360: Was it harder for you, because you are the singer and bass player of the band? 

OS: Yes! At first I told the guys, you play the music and it doesn’t change anything for you. But for me, it changes everything! The phrasing is not the same, it’s like a new song for me. I have to split my brain in two and ask myself, “Are we doing the Spanish version or the French version?” Lately, we’ve only been doing the Spanish versions, so if you ask me to sing “Sous pression” in French, I’m going to mix them up a bit. It puts a lot more pressure on me than it does on the other, but if I have to do it, I’ll sacrifice myself (laughs). 

PAN M 360: Did you re-record the music for each song?

OS: We re-recorded “Bajo Presiόn” and “Máquinas” because we didn’t have the tracks from 1997. As for “Tierra”, we kept it as it was because Marco [Calliari, former Anonymus singer] is no longer in the band and because it was produced by Colin Richardson [Anathema, Slipknot, Napalm Death], which can get us interviews, you understand the concept. For the same reason, we kept “Terremoto” because it was recorded by Jean-François Dagenais from Kataklysm. 

I must admit that re-recording “Bajo Presiόn” and “Máquinas” after almost 21 years was quite weird. We wondered if we were playing them as fast as we did back then. We recorded “Sous pression” in our early twenties and we won a big award! When I listen to the songs from back then, I think they’re all too fast (laughs), but that’s okay. “Bajo Presiόn” is a bit slower than the original. In fact, it’s like we do it live now, and I think it’s for the best. I don’t think we’re gonna get tomatoes thrown at us for it. 

PAN M 360: Do you plan to do an online concert like other bands have since the beginning of the pandemic?

OS: Nothing’s for sure, but if the trend continues and we can’t perform live, maybe we’ll go that route. There is talk of reopening the venues, but to what extent? Another possibility would be to have access to a venue like Club Soda or Café Campus and film a live concert, to make it professional. A bit like Mononc’ Serge does with Le point de vente. He sells tickets and people watch the show from home. 

PAN M 360: You keep rehearsing – if not for a concert, then why?

OS: Because you get bored and you need to play. After a month without seeing each other and rehearsing, we thought we had to find a solution before we went crazy. Finally, we found a solution with the rehearsal space at the Boîte à Musique. We went into different rooms and played with headphones. It wasn’t ideal for old-timers like us, who were used to jamming in the same room at full volume. We started rehearsing again at Cité 2000 as soon as it reopened. After the first rehearsal, I felt good and it reminded me why I make music. It takes a lot of pressure off. It’s not just the musical aspect, it’s also the liberating aspect that it brings and I think I speak for everyone in the group. We were bored with our little routine.

Photos: Emma George

PAN M 360: I understand you already knew each other from the Brussels scene, but that schroothoop came into existence on a bit of a crazy impulse.

Timo Vantyghem (bass & clarinet): True, it all kind of started as a joke, nothing really serious. For several years, we have been playing together in La Clinik Du Dr. Poembak, a local brass band in Brussels. Last winter, I noticed there were still some open slots for a local jam session in Brussels. So I contacted Rik and Margo to see whether we could put together a small act or play some music. I knew Rik has been building homemade instruments from recuperated materials for many years. And coincidentally, Margo was constructing a drum kit from illegally dumped garbage at that same time. We decided to gather our junk and improvise our way through the night. We had such a blast during that jam session that we decided to play some more gigs. Since we did not have enough songs to fill one-hour concerts, we mainly played songs with lots of room for improvisation. That’s how schroothoop came into being.

Margo Maex (percussion): A few weeks after our first jam session, a couple of friends proposed to record some of our work, and eventually we ended up recording a mini-album, called Klein Gevaarlijk Afval – Dutch for domestic hazardous waste, like batteries, white spirits, or other chemical waste that cannot be discarded in normal garbage.

PAN M 360: Schroothoop’s music is basically, to my ear, mysterious but playful jazz, incorporating sounds and ideas from other global styles. How would you describe your recipe?

Rik Staelens (wind & string instruments): Living in a multicultural city like Brussels, we are exposed to all kinds of music. On the radio we mainly hear pop and rock, a bit of jazz, blues, and Western classical music. But out on the streets – or in our backyards – we can also hear Moroccan chaabi, Andalusian or Egyptian classical music, rai, Turkish melodies, Balkan, Bollywood songs, West African rhythms… It comes quite natural to me to try and incorporate these sounds in the music I play.

There is no real recipe, or rather, the recipe depends on the song. Sometimes it starts from a melody, at other times it could be a rhythm that we want to explore. Every so often, the starting point would be to create a certain mood or atmosphere. Or maybe we would just jam to see what comes out. But we do like a nice and sweaty party, so there’s often a danceable element that sneaks into our songs and sets our toes tapping.

MM: Apart from delivering grooves from around the world, I also like to bring in some more dark and atmospheric sounds – as you can hear in “sluikstort”. This song was inspired and driven by my obsession with leftfield electronica and experimental ambient music, with artists like John Also Bennett, Cucina Povera, Kate NV, Steve Pepe, Capitol K… Timo, on the other hand, uses his vast experience from his other band Sea (Peoples) to tie our songs together with basslines that bring a kind of indie-rock sensibility into the mix. Rik delivers elements of jazz and world music. Although Rik, Timo, and I have pretty different musical backgrounds and tastes, we turned out to be very complementary and easily agree on what direction a song should take.

PAN M 360: Something else I hear quite prominently is in fact music from a “somewhere else” that doesn’t even exist – 1950s exotica. That stuff is often dismissed as silly kitsch, but in fact was quite avant-garde, a pioneering style not only for stereophonic experimentation, but also for intercultural hybridization on a foundation of jazz.

RS: Good point on the exotica, but if it’s an influence of mine, it would be a rather subconscious one. I first heard some work from Martin Denny about 20 years ago. Although I liked it, at that time I found it a bit of a novelty thing. I never really dug into it and subsequently forgot all about it. When some friends of mine started an exotica big band, The Left Arm of Buddha, a few years ago, this music found its way into my life again. It’s certainly an interesting genre and I understand how our music could remind people of it.

But even before exotica, Sidney Bechet made a Haitian record in the late ’30s. Dizzy Gillespie already incorporated Cuban rhythms during the ’40s. At probably around the same time as Martin Denny’s efforts, Dave Brubeck explored Turkish rhythms. During the ’60s, John Coltrane, amongst others, explored Indian music, Yussef Lateef researched Middle Eastern and African music, Phil Woods made a record with Greek musicians, there is the work of Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri… I feel that a certain openness towards other cultures is somewhat inherent in jazz.

MM: I must admit I am quite the fan of 1950s exotica. I simply love the not-so-subtle and playful references to Oriental, Caribbean, Japanese, Andean, or Hawaiian music, spiced up with animal vocalisations and tribal rhythms. Over the past years, I have been listening to many of the exotica albums released in the ’50s by Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Yma Sumac, Frank Hunter, etc. So, you cannot imagine how happy I was when John Caroll Kirby released his album Travel in 2017. For me, this album felt like a little exotica revival. I remember John Caroll Kirby called his music “third-generation” exotica. Your question made me realize we might have unconsciously made our own third-generation exotica album. Hooray!

PAN M 360: The production work of David ‘Dijf’ Sanders is quite remarkable. He handles your sounds a bit like a good chef, carefully bringing out the flavours of the ingredients. What are your thoughts on what went into the Dijf machine, and what came out the other side?

MM: I did not know Dijf personally, but I certainly knew of his work – my personal favourite: “Retired Sportswatch”, from the album Moonlit Planetarium. One day, a friend of mine heard an iPhone recording made during one of our rehearsals. He knew Dijf Sanders well and asked him whether he would be interested in mixing our music if we ever got around to recording it properly. Apparently, Dijf was pretty enthusiastic. When I heard this news, I got super excited and convinced Rik and Timo that we could not let this opportunity slip through our fingers. I told them our music could not be in better hands than his, and we agreed to give Dijf carte blanche on our recordings. 

It’s nice that Dijf did not fundamentally change our recordings, rather he added the right colours, gave percussive passages more spatial depth, deepened and flavoured the bass and thumb pianos. He also added subtle effects, like panning, reverbs or pitch-modulated delays to the flutes, clarinets and violins. We are extremely delighted with the result!

Above: schroothoop’s instruments, including the “street-i-varius” tin-can violin (upper right)

PAN M 360: On to the instruments themselves – I imagine that the basic percussion and even the washtub bass were pretty straightforward to build. On the other hand, the PVC-pipe wind instruments must have been more challenging, especially with different scales to consider.

RS: Each instrument requires a specific building approach. Things that look easy at first glance can still meet with unexpected difficulties. Even basic percussion, like making a drum skin from plastic tape, is not as straightforward as you would imagine. If you would span all the strips in the same direction, you would get a bland and not durable result, whereas, when spanned diagonally they will reinforce each other.

The PVC flutes and clarinets are especially challenging. There is a lot to be calculated and a great deal of trial and error involved before you can get good results. By using tape to cover up incorrectly drilled holes, I found a way to make up to three or four experimental models out of one pipe, thus drastically reducing the amount of PVC that is ultimately wasted. In order to keep things as eco-friendly as possible, I am now considering building my future pilot models out of papier-mâché.

PAN M 360: You’ve also been making lamellophones, thumb pianos and such, out of discarded kitchen knives. You know, it just occurred to me… do any of you have any emergency medical training? I mean, just in case?

RS: I have basic first-aid training with follow-up sessions once a year. Since I lead workshops in lutherie sauvage [unorthodox instrument-building], it’s useful to have some basic knowledge of first aid. Luckily, I rarely have to put this to practice. Touch wood.

MM: Just saying, these knives hurt like hell when you play them a bit too long. But for now, never had a real cut.

Above: schroothoop’s “messenkalimba”

PAN M 360: Following consideration of unhappy accidents, let’s talk about the happy kind. Instrumentation built from found scrap must necessarily have limitations compared to those manufactured to professional specifications. However, I’d imagine they offer a lot of unexpected, and useful, surprises along the way.

RS: About limitations, I can’t state it better than Georges Braque did in his collection of aphorisms Le Jour et La Nuit – “Les moyens limitées engendrent des formes nouvelles, invitent à la création, font le style” [“limited means lead to new forms, invite creativity, make the style”]. Sometimes the idea is not so much to expand the borders but rather to obtain the maximum results within them. 

TV: Those borders or limitations are what I enjoy so much in this band. No complicated synthesizers to lose my mind over. You know, it’s a relief to only have a couple of notes and sounds per instrument. 

RS: An example of this can be found in the clarinets I make. Since I haven’t found a way to make a proper working keying mechanism yet, some of them are limited to a pentatonic scale. But on the positive side, this enables us to really dig deep into the possibilities this pentatonic scale has to offer, both melodically and harmonically. Plus it encourages us to maybe think more rhythmically about a solo. 

A very useful concept has been the idea of a slide clarinet, kind of hybrid of clarinet and trombone. These seem to have been commercially available during the 1920s but have been forgotten since. Our models are made with two pieces of PVC tubing of different diameters, but I have seen some alternative approaches to such clarinets by Ralph Carney and Bart Hopkin, which also spark my interest.

Another find was that certain imperfections in a violin bridge caused a loud and raunchy additional buzz, which we used to our advantage. We later discovered that this very same concept was already used in the medieval and renaissance instrument tromba marina. This was however used to obtain certain harmonics on the string, instead of creating a loud buzz. 

An advantage of the PVC instruments is that they can even be used in the water. Maybe we should try that out during a swim party in summer.

TV: In Canada?

PAN M 360: Rik, you have a long history of pedagogical music workshops, a very different musical practice from entertaining the public with concerts and records. Has that aspect of your collective curriculum vitae affected how and why you do schroothoop?

RS: Well, I was a performer – playing mainly the different members of the saxophone family – long before even considering doing the workshops. Regardless of playing in a professional band and touring internationally, I still needed a job on the side to make ends meet. So in the end, I decided that it would be nice if this day job could also have a link with music. That’s how I came to organize music workshops. 

The bands I play with and the workshops I host are really two different worlds. Schroothoop was created as a band of its own, not as a demonstrational orchestra to promote the workshops. But of course there are some links. The workshops have enabled me to experiment with many types of instruments and made it possible to build a big collection of working gear, some of which ended up being used in schroothoop.

Photo credit: Laurent Malo and Pier-Luc St-Germain

The following conversation is the result of a conference call with Jean Massicotte in Montreal and Arthur Comeau in Dakar. Comeau currently resides in Meteghan, Nova Scotia, and was in Senegal for family reasons. 

PAN M 360: Let’s start with the genesis of Doubleheader.

Jean Massicotte: Arthur had an appointment with artistic director and producer Denis Wolff in our shared space, so that’s how we met. I’d loved Radio Radio for a long time, and what Arthur had done with Pierre Kwenders. Denis introduced us, shortly afterwards we jammed on a track he had started, Samito was present at this session. We had managed to do something really viby. I liked doing something more beat-based because I don’t do that often as a producer. A little bit later, Arthur played me a Louisiana beat and I flew out to jam at his house in Clare, Nova Scotia. Over a few days, we recorded about 15 instrumental tracks.

Photo credit: Laurent Malo

PAN M 360: Doubleheader, isn’t it beatmaking? Explain your methodology.

Arthur Comeau: We record, we treat the music and the voice as samples, that is to say we take the best takes and we rework them, a bit like a DJ. There’s something chaotic in there, trial and error, let’s try this, let’s try that, let’s do the voice takes two or three times before we find what fits.

JM: The artists come to the studio, we make them listen to instrumental tracks, they choose one. While the piece plays in a loop, we discuss, ideas come out, the artists propose sounds stored in their phones. We try things out, then they go to the microphone and they sing. And then we take their voice tracks and make a song with them. We often put ourselves in danger a lot of the time. We want accidents to happen. It creates sparks and it’s a lot of fun because we force ourselves to do things that we wouldn’t normally do. If we’re hired to make an album, there are a lot of interesting things that won’t click with the client. Here, we bring out the overflow. »

Photo credit: Brigitte Henry

PAN M 360: How is Doubleheader a two-headed animal? 

AC: Yes, its two heads of production. I wanted to work with Jean, I wanted him to producer my music when those around me see me as their producer. The world comes to me and I go to Jean, we form a doubleheader. Two gravitational forces pulling at the same time, it’s even more powerful, right?

JM: Doubleheader is a train pulled by two locomotives. We also encourage collisions when we try to make the beats connect with artists who don’t usually sing on them. Dominique Fils-Aimé, for example, had never really done space funk disco. The Malian singer Djeli Tapa had never done reggaeton, and she was very happy to have had that experience. We like to juxtapose inspirations that don’t naturally go together, and make it work.

Photo credit: Laurent Malo et Pier-Luc St-Germain

PAN M 360: Samito, a Montreal artist from Mozambique, seems to be a little more than a guest with Doubleheader, tell us about his involvement.

AC: Samito and I work a lot together, I sometimes stay at his place when I come to work in Montreal. We’ve done great business with him in the context of Doubleheader. The vibe was good! For the past few years, Samito has been more interested in electronic music, he has worked in Portugal and France in particular. He has worked with a lot of people, notably with Djeli Tapa, he also introduced us to EIHDZ (pronounced Heidi). He brought us a lot of ideas and vibes.

JM: We wanted Samito to do tracks on keyboards, a bit in the spirit of what he’d done with us beforehand on the Wurlitzer keyboard during a first meeting. When he sang after choosing his beat, however, it gave another dimension to the project. It really did! We were off on a bit of a party vibe. When Samito did his vocals, we saw that we could be just as spiritual while maintaining the party and dance vibe. We found a way to present the sound so that we could appreciate it in a dance context, and also in a listening context. The vocabulary of the project was enriched as a result.

Photo credit: Laurent Malo

PAN M 360: You also worked with Caleb Rimtobaye, alias Afrotronix – a new electro direction for Caleb?

JM: With him, I was a bit intimidated because I have a lot of respect for his work. I had an appointment with him at my studio, but I wasn’t really ready for it. Caleb showed up anyway and I got him to play a beat, a big reggaeton beat. He plugged in his guitar, he played that beat. I was really happy with the result, I suggested he sing and he agreed. He also did some vocal harmonies. I sent this to Arthur who made us a very nice mix.

PAN M 360: We know less about EIHDZ and Quenton Hatfield. Who are these performers on the soul-pop song “Other Side”, which will released in the coming months? 

AC: Quenton is a guy from Weymouth, in my part of Nova Scotia. He’s been making music around here for a long time. He’s known in Halifax and he works with us, he’s part of the same group of friends as P’tit Belliveau. Quenton came into the studio, we wanted English voices and I really liked the contrast between him and EIHDZ.

JM: EIHDZ has every talent – she sings, writes tunes, draws surfboards, is part of a core group of songwriters in New York. She does a lot of business!

Photo credit: Laurent Malo et Pier-Luc St-Germain

PAN M 360: What’s the story of “Trumpet”, led by Arthur’s voice?

AC: It started on a beat from P’tit Belliveau, and then I recorded my voice over it. In Montreal, I went to Breakglass Studios to add drums, then I introduced the whole thing to Jean. who refined the sound, put his golden touch on it. Samito did the keyboards, Jean did the bass. A tour de force!

PAN M 360: Presenting such a considerable project with the release of the first extract, “Diamond Flake” with Dominique Fils-Aimé, isn’t customary. The material will be unveiled over the coming weeks and months – why?

JM: It’s a bit like the working method. The beats were created almost at once, and then we did the development. It took a long time to associate these beats with artists, but we’re getting there. Basically, we have an album almost ready and we have enough material for two. Apart from the sung parts, by the way, we have small instrumental episodes from a lot of studio jams. The artists to come? We won’t name them all but I’d say we’ve worked with Maya Kuroki from Teke::Teke, who recites a Japanese poem on it. There will also be the singer Sandra Luciantonio. Other artists will be recruited or revealed later.

Photo credit: Laurent Malo et Pier-Luc St-Germain

AC: I dream of inviting Paul Daraîche and trying something with him! We’ve already included country music, but it would be great to have him… The idea at the end of the day is to mix everything together. You meet a lot of artists, you remix their voices and instruments with the advice of Denis Wolff, without whom Doubleheader wouldn’t exist.

This series of productions will be launched by Ray-On, a Montreal-based company dedicated to artist development – digital distribution, synch, rights management, marketing, consulting. Denis Wolff, former artistic director at Audiogram and owner of the Maisonnette label, is the founder of Ray-On.

JM: The idea of our project goes very well with Ray-On’s concept, to find small niches in many different territories. In the meantime, of course, Arthur and I have to carry out other projects which are our livelihood. So it’s good that Doubleheader is born. We’d like it to last.

Above: Yukino Inamine and Harikuyamaku

PAN M 360: Your main intention as a musician is combining Okinawa minyo (folk songs) with dub reggae. This is a nice mix – the two music styles fit well together, even though their energies work at different levels. By the way, I think Okinawan minyo might be the happiest music in the world.

Harikuyamaku: Okinawa minyo is very unique music, different from other Japanese styles. It’s part of everyday life in Okinawa. In fact, until the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, it had been the popular music of the Okinawan people. I’ve heard that so many new minyo songs were being recorded and released on seven-inches every day, like in the ’70s Jamaican reggae scene.

Okinawa minyo is on the offbeat. That’s also like reggae music. But it doesn’t have bass. When I rediscovered my country’s music after traveling abroad, I was also becoming affected by ’70s dub music from Jamaica. I was a bass player, I like low-end sound. Then I thought to match Okinawa minyo with dub. I added bass, drums and other things, collected analogue mixers, a Roland RE-201 Space Echo and ’70s effectors like digital delays and phasers. Then, I dubbed.

The melodies of Okinawa minyo are very beautiful. As for the lyrics, there are many varieties. Classical songs to be played in the royal court have beautiful words, but many minyo have sad, suffering lyrics. There are many songs about the war in Okinawa. In addition, there are songs about changes in society and life. And also, there are many with dirty lyrics. I like that.

PAN M 360: On your first album, Shima Dub (2013), you mostly used samples from old records. More recently, you’ve started working with musicians in the studio. In fact, you have a new single with the sanshin player Yukino Inamine. Tell me more about her, and about “Ohshima Yangoo Bushi”.

Harikuyamaku: Yukino Inamine is a new-generation singer of Okinawa minyo. I think minyo singers are mostly so typical that they just sing in a faithful manner. Yukino is free and alternative. She plays live sometimes with bass, drums, and other things, and also makes new minyo songs, with words for our time. I had hoped to record with real singer for a long time. I just discovered her this year, and we’ve played live together three times. “Ohshima Yangoo Bushi” is our first recording. It’s a very old Okinawan song about Amami Island, and love. We consulted an old SP record.

PAN M 360: Your new album, Subtropica, is very different from your other work. The track “Subtropica” is almost an hour long, and it’s a soundscape, a sonic environment. It was originally a group of separate sound channels, for an installation of ceramic speakers by the Okinawa potter Paul Lorimer. I didn’t know that one can make speakers out of clay!

Harikuyamaku: Recently, I’ve become very interested in synthesizers, for making some sound effects or noises in dub. Potter Paul Lorimer’s precious presence in Okinawa, working with his original climbing kiln, gave me nice chance to express my synthesizer works. He made many different speakers, with ceramic bodies and Audio Nirvana and Fostex speaker units. Each has its own unique sound. For his exhibition, there were eight of his speakers in the space. I selected and located them, and chose what kind of sound would be suitable for each. It was super-surround!

PAN M 360: Part of Subtropica is also used for the video of Aki Bandō’s butoh performance piece, “Ninth Sense Invocation pō 2”. This is yet another context for your work, avant-garde theatre and dance.

Harikuyamaku: Butoh dancer Aki Bandō is my friend. She was looking for a soundtrack for her performance, and asked me. I like extreme expressions, so I gave her some tracks, and she liked my “Subtropica 2mix” demo. I hear she’ll present the video at some film festivals. I hope it gets some good attention.

Above: Harikuyamaku live in Tokyo with Heavy Manners Ryukyu

PAN M 360: There is also a live track at the end of the album, from the show bar Love Ball in Naha City, Okinawa. It’s from a 2017 set… can you tell me more about it?

Harikuyamaku: I did improvisation live using a Korg MS2000 and ER-1, a Moog Mother32, minyo samples and effectors at Love Ball. Sometimes I do improv live, I’ve done up to seven hours before. Improv with machines is my musical challenge. Love Ball was very important club in Naha, Okinawa, that was managed by Akazuchi, the local hip hop crew. But now it’s closed. I caught a lot of good music there.

PAN M 360: So what’s next? What are you working on now?

Harikuyamaku: Right now, I’m making another song with Yukino. Recording is done. It will be released on the Chill Mountain label, managed by my friend DJ Ground. To match the label’s colour, I’m making a slow house track for the dancefloor. I’m inspired by some slow house scenes, using traditional sounds from South America. I hope to join them, using traditional Okinawan music.

I’m in some bands – Angama is a dub techno session unit with KOR-ONE, we just released our first cassette-tape album view in April. Churashima Navigator is a four-person electronic Okinawan band produced by Sinkichi – he’s also great DJ – and we’ve just released an album, and a remix album. Isatooment is techno/house production unit with Sinkichi, we released a three-track EP on Chill Mountain last year. We also use Okinawan samples. And Gintendan is five-person experimental dub band that has released two albums. I have my own DIY studio, I always work with them.

Photo: Nathalie Deléan

During her travels between Toronto, Paris, London and Montreal, Camille Deléan always believed that she would never find an anchor point.

“When I arrived in Quebec, I didn’t know anyone. In my mind, my stay in Montreal was temporary. I was starting from scratch. I stayed longer than I expected. But it took me a few years to surround myself with people I liked. Finally, I met Michael Feuerstack [a multi-instrumentalist who had worked on the first album with Deléan and British musician Ben Walker]. He helped me finish Music on the Grey Mile. We’re now friends. Thanks to him, I managed to meet other artists in Quebec.”

Thus, the second album was conceived with a little more stability. By the singer’s own admission, she knew more about what she was looking for as a sound for Cold House Burning. 

Photo: Nathalie Deléan

On the other hand, she could count on her fellow singer Feuerstack, who invested himself even further into this new folk album, giving it a dose of rock. In addition to playing many instruments for the songs, he also took on the production. Most of the recordings were made at Breakglass Studios.

“I wanted the drums to be heavier, but the instrumentation to be more [refined] and sleeker. I also wanted to explore the backing vocals more. I wanted more than just vocal harmonies; I wanted to make them an important part of some songs. I used only necessary instruments. It was important to me that they felt like they were close to the microphone, like my voice.”  

In addition to Feuerstack, Jeremy Gara (drums, piano), Mathieu Charbonneau (piano, synthesizer), Philippe Charbonneau (voice, synthesizer), Joshua Zubot (violin) and Adam Kinner (saxophone) also collaborated on the pieces, which are more refined than those of the previous offering, released in 2017. And Deléan’s voice flows, imperturbable, like a beautiful, tranquil river.  

Earthquake danger zone

On the album, her voice is anchored in confidence, soft and very close. It’s as if the young woman reveals a part of herself, intimately, without hesitation. And yet she has had doubts over the years. A lot of them. And this opus with a touch of lyricism is precisely the artistic testament to a serious search for balance, both physical and emotional. 

That said, even if Camille refers to earthquakes to evoke the atmosphere of her work, this one reveals maturity more than fragility. 

During our telephone interview in times of pandemic, she recounted how her intimate story permeates all the material on her record. “Fault Line (Late July)”, in particular, is the epicentre song of the album, according to her. “Tread lightly! Think steady / Watch your jogging around the lines / Or you’re going down”, she sings.

“I’ve explored the theme of balance a lot, which doesn’t come naturally to me. In fact, it extends to everywhere and on all scales. … The lyrics of my songs are proof of this; so is the music. The music is a bit scary. Sometimes. I was in that spirit when I composed the album, which dates back to long before the pandemic. I’ve always been afraid of anchoring myself in one place. Plus, I’ve had health problems [dating back to childhood] that prevented me from moving around easily. I was afraid of possible danger. This fear fuelled my isolation long before the COVID-19 crisis. “The more you close yourself off, the harder it becomes to reach out to the other, to the unknown (the song “Afraid of People”).”

Ironically, at a time when she was feeling more assured in Montreal, a city where she’s now surrounded by her loved ones, her apartment had a fire at the end of May! Adds a bit of resonance to the title Cold House Burning.

Deléan, whose work is reminiscent of that of the Canadian group The Weather Station, may be fighting a few little fears (the sad and more serious “Saturn Gravity”), but they suit her very well as an artist. 

Worth a mention is that Camille Deléan is part of the programming of the Fun House event, organized by Pop Montréal. She plays on Sunday, June 7, at 1:30 pm.

Photo credit: Camille Gladu-Drouin

The kebamericanism of Laurence Hélie, who disappeared from the radar five years ago, has now largely been forgotten. One needs to recall the singer’s trajectory before the release of Late Bloomer, an excellent album under the pseudonym Mirabelle which has just come out on the Simone Records label.

“I come from the Beauce region, more precisely from Saint-Isidore. In high school, I was enrolled in the music program. I’m a teenager from the ’90s – in my gang, I was the music nerd who would go and chat with record dealers at the HMV in Quebec City. I was thirsty for music, I watched Musique Plus religiously, I missed classes so I wouldn’t miss anything else. I learned how to play the music of that time, I’m thinking of Mazzy Star, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Nirvana, Cranberries, and so on. I was very interested in the music of that time. I studied sound engineering at Musitechnic, but I made my living in the voiceover industry.”

Photo credit: Camille Gladu-Drouin

Laurence Hélie has a beautiful voice, which first led her to country-folk. 

“It was a quest for authenticity, I didn’t want any tricks. I had a lot of fun during that country-folk period, but I held back a bit. And… it’s not really clear what happened afterwards. In fact, I got a bit down after my second album. I didn’t want to play anymore, I couldn’t listen to myself strumming a guitar anymore. During that period, I had a child, I put music aside for a while.”

Time passed and her natural inclinations returned, first as a small step… then a steady trot… and then a full gallop.

“Slowly, I started writing songs again, and they came out different. I wanted to get to the bottom of my ideas, find out how to feel good, how to soak in my music. I don’t have a lot of self-confidence in life… except when I’m singing. If there’s one place where I feel perfectly at ease, it’s when I’m singing. I’m glad if I have the talent to go with it.”

The return to songwriting was gradual.

“It was not really premeditated, there was no plan for success behind it. I just wanted to make music for myself, I had to rediscover that pleasure. Nothing more. And I surprised myself – it’s fun, what I do! So I found the right team to work with.”

Photo credit: Camille Gladu-Drouin

For nearly 10 years, Hélie has known Warren Spicer, the central musician of the group Plants and Animals, whom she had met through mutual friends.

“He did the sound recording for my second album, he made me feel very comfortable. Warren has great qualities as a sound engineer and also as a producer. When I approached him to produce Late Bloomer, I knew he was very competent musically, but it was his empathy and his ability to create a great working atmosphere that motivated my choice. 

“It was really great to work with him! He’s super intuitive and he’s not afraid to try things, while I’m more modest with my ideas. But… during the recording sessions, I realized that I had more to say than I thought I did. I found myself making my point. Having someone like Warren, who gave me a lot of space in the creative process, was very cool and very infectious.”

Hélie thinks she grew up in this context of co-production. 

“I used to be intimidated by all these colleagues who were musically much more educated than me. But this time around, I wanted it to come from me 100 percent, so I pushed the songs as far as I could, both in execution and production. I knew what I didn’t want, it took me longer to identify what I did want.”

Photo credit: Camille Gladu-Drouin

Well beyond the working atmosphere, the exploratory spirit of these sessions led Hélie to explore unexpected terrain, a superb mix of ethereal wave, trip hop, space-rock, and ambient.

“I knew we were going to torpedo a lot to find our sound. It was a search and I was extremely stubborn. I wanted my voice to be central, and so I needed space… Fortunately, my producer was very open, without concessions. I didn’t have any particular intentions when it came to electronic music, and that’s where Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux came in, with synth sounds I fell in love with, perfect sounds for those songs with lots of space.”

Mirabelle’s lyrics, which are of a piece with the ethereal spirit, are extremely personal, a sort of rhyming version of a diary.

“When I started making music again, it was an all-or-nothing thing, and it reminded me of my state of mind when I was a teenager. I had so many dreams then – had I let my inner teenager down? Had I run out of steam after becoming a mother?”

Of course she didn’t. It was just a matter of waking up that inner teenager, who spoke in English when she sang. 

“For the French lyrics on my first two albums, I’d asked for help from writers. Before that, I always sang for myself in English because this detachment from my mother tongue allowed me to go out there with less restraint. That’s why I wanted to write all the lyrics on this album in English, so I could identify myself completely with it, feel whole, accomplish something I’d be very proud of. Yes, it’s a bit scary to be judged… and then, no! I’m happy with what I’ve done and that’s what’s important. I’m coming out of this just luminous.”

PAN M 360: In a few words, how would you describe your career path?

Jäde: My musical career started when I was about 10 years old. Actually, my sister was making music, she had a guitar, she was writing songs, all that. She’s a year older than me, we often hang out together. Our favourite activity was making music when we came home after school. Then we bought a microphone, we started recording, and then time goes by. I was doing my baccalaureate in Lyon, and I wanted to go to Paris, because I think it’s a bigger city and it might offer me more musically, and also just because I wanted to move around a bit. I arrived in Paris and met people who are in the same delirium as me, musically, there were a lot of events that I found cool, I met producers. So I made friends with these kinds of people and then, from there, they tell me, “hey, I’m doing production”, and I tell them, “I sing”, and, from there, I started the Jäde thing.

And then, voilà, I released songs on SoundCloud around 2016 and I started singing in French, something I didn’t do at the very beginning. From the very first song, I started getting feedback, even from record companies and so on. After that, I put out a first project on SoundCloud, which is two years old, then I was offered concerts, I even had a group, we did small shows for a year, there were five of us on stage, I’ve got a guitarist, really, it’s cool. And then I signed to a label, the label where I am today, called Entreprise, which works with the label Sony Als+O. And now we’re working on a new EP that was released last week.

PAN M 360: Why Jäde?

Jäde: The umlaut is just for SEO, there’s no story, it’s just a name that I like, it’s a nice precious stone.

PAN M 360: Why the title Première fois (“first time”)?

Jäde: First of all, for sure, I arrive with a kind of mini-calling card, you know, where I try to show the different sounds I can do, the different universes I like, and I think because it’s the first time I do a project where I have people helping me in the studio, for the mixes and so on, it’s the first time I do a something solid. That was the real beginning, the ‘first time’ for that. And also because there’s a delirium, ‘first time’, in the sense, as I often talk about relationships with boys, love and so on, there’s this thing, when you think about the ‘first time’, you think about your own first times, and there’s this delirium in the lyrics of the EP.

PAN M 360: Where does this vintage pop universe that you’ve built yourself come from? 

Jäde: So, ‘vintage pop’, I don’t really get it when people say that (laughs), but I think I understand a bit!

PAN M 360: Actually, it sounds like you’re a mix of Kali Uchis, Ravyn Laena and Tengo John.

Jäde: It’s true, Kali Uchis, I listened to her a lot and watched all her videos because she’s had this crazy identity, for a very long time. I’m an artist and I think she’s been a good influence for me. I like anything that’s a little bit rosy-picture, sweet stuff, because it reflects the clichés of love, all that, so it speaks to me, but on the other hand, I’m not too smooth and too into it either, so I try to counterbalance with other things so it’s not too vintage, too rosy and so on, but it’s still a facet of my personality.

PAN M 360: Your lyrics are worthy of the French language, rich in alliterations and double entendres, and your strength lies in the fact that even when sung, they have a rap feel to them. So what are your influences in hip hop?

Jäde: So frankly, there’s all the rap today, French rap anyway, I listen to a lot, it’s everywhere. I used to listen to a lot of artists from Lyon, like Jorrdee, Lyonzon, all those are people I see, people I know a bit and who have a great vibe, I think, a bit different from what’s being done, it speaks to me. Then, honestly, all those who do like PNL, Hamza… I don’t listen a lot but I like it a lot. As for the United States, I’m a bit lost, even if I know it comes from there.

PAN M 360: What about rapping, do you do it or would you like to do it?

Jäde: Well, as you say, there are rap ideas in there, it’s a bit like I like this delirium, but it’s true that I couldn’t just do a rap project, or really get into a “I’m the latest new rapper” mode. It would be weird for me because I’m really a singer, I love to sing, so it wouldn’t be like that. On the other hand, as I have songs, sometimes, which are more in that direction, more trashy songs and so on, I still want to be given that credibility, you know. When I try to do things a bit more in that direction, I want people to say, yes, it’s trap. Not just an R&B singer, if the sound isn’t that way. But people have a hard time with that, you know, because it’s easier to label everyone, they don’t really know where to put me, they’re a bit lost. 

PAN M 360: That’s exactly what makes your work so rich.

Jäde: Seriously.

PAN M 360: Who’s behind the music of this EP? How do you make a track?

Jäde: These songs, honestly, I built them at home first. Usually I get beats, beatmakers or friends of mine send me beats by email, and I record and write at home. Once I’ve got a demo, I go to the studio, and if I can, I bring in the guy who did the production, so we can revisit it a bit, I re-record my own vocals, if need be, I rewrite the lyrics a bit and we rework the track, we make arrangements. Sometimes we’ll call a guy to play drums, to play bass, that kind of thing, I’ve done a lot of that on this project. All in all, it’s not the best process to make songs. Now, looking forward, I try to change a little bit, to start everything in the studio. I’m afraid I’ll lose the initial thing, the vibe of the moment. But the truth is, because I’ve got my microphone at home and I’m at home a lot, I often write at home first. 

PAN M 360: You sing, “I want five stars, what’s wrong with that, I know what I’m worth and it’s a lot”. Is this second degree just playing with clichés, or do you think there’s something really meaningful in your lyrics? 

Jäde: (laughs) There’s a purpose in the lyrics, because there are clichés about girls needing men to buy them things, that kind of thing, you know, and it’s boring because it’s bullshit (laughs)! That’s why you need a guy who’s going to buy you clothes, cars, restaurants or, I don’t know, hotels. So, me, I want that kind of thing because, of course, it’s always nice to have nice things, but I can have it on my own too and that’s better. 

PAN M 360: You address boys in a very uncomplicated way, is that you in real life?

Jäde: (laughs) It’s so funny, but it’s so much like that, I have to say that word in all my songs at least 100 times. But yeah, I have to admit I’ve got a serious lack of complexes, I’m not crazy or anything! What’s weird about my songs is I’m really open about certain things, like sex and stuff, and the truth is, I’m a totally normal girl – in other words, I’m not, like, obsessed or anything (laughs). I’m not going to talk about that, like that, with just anybody, that’s what’s a bit weird actually. It’s just that, as a result, people are going to have a slightly delirious image of this chick, when I’m not that. I was raised in a family where we’re very open, without taboos, we speak freely, and that’s different from other people, I speak easily about these things. So, yeah, I’m uninhibited, but I’m not a crazy person. 

PAN M 360: There’s another thing you say at the very beginning, it’s that, no matter what the lyrics are, we love the sound. Would you like to export yourself and your projects one day? 

Jäde: Of course, besides that, we’re trying to see where it works according to the feedback. There’s Canada, so that’s cool, Germany… I won’t be able to vocalize in another language, it’s not possible, and in any case, staying in my French thing and trying to please the outside world, that would be the dream. It’s complicated but I think it can be done. For example, Rosalia, she killed it while singing in Spanish, you know. If I export my work, so much the better, but it’ll be in French.

PAN M 360: It’s not easy to make songs in French, and your lyrics are simple but well worked out. 

Jäde: Nah, it’s actually super hard (laughs). My lyrics are simple, you have to try to find a little recipe, because at the beginning I was trying to do something well written and, as a result, to be a bit in poet mode. You realize that it’s not natural, and therefore weird, but you don’t want to do something too much like SMS text language, because it’s a bit cheap, it’s really in-between (laughs). You’ve got to find the middle ground, that’s what’s complicated.

PAN M 360: Are there other facets we haven’t yet seen? Any ideas for the future? 

Jäde: There are other things that I’m still experimenting with, that I’m going to share in the future, but for the first project, I still need to do this a while to stake out my identity, because if I go all over the place, people won’t understand my foundations, but I’m already experimenting with electro (laughs), things that have nothing to do with me, but in the end, it’s going well, so there are a lot of things to test again. I’m just going to focus on a longer format with more tracks for next time, so I can really show more stuff. 

PAN M 360: Last little question: we know that the coronavirus has put a lot of things on hold, but what are your future projects in terms of live shows? 

Jäde: Well, that’s fucked up. The only gig that is still going on is in November, because it’s my release party six months late (laughs), so maybe we’ll celebrate another project at the same time. All the summer projects are cancelled. After that, we are working on sounds in the studio and we will be able to move ahead quickly because we have only that to do, so we spend some time in the studio, and then we shoot some videos, and then go back as soon as possible. 

PAN M 360: And do you have any collaborations planned?

Jäde: Yeah, well, on this project, there weren’t any, so now I want to invite people for the next one. On the other hand, I really need to invite people I like. I’m going to try to collaborate especially with Lyonzon, and to open up and try to get out of this wave because there’s a lot of other people, but yes, I’m planning strong collaborations. 

PAN M 360: Great, thanks. What are your plans for the day ahead?

Jäde: Right now, I’m going to do some sunbathing, it’s nice out.

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