Preview
THE INCANDESCENCE
Thursday, June 30
Broken City
Friday, July 1
Stanley Park Community Centre
(4013 Stanley Road S.W.)
When most bands release their first album, they’re quick to tell you that the recordings don’t totally represent the group’s live sound. In the case of Calgary’s The Incandescence, that sentiment is even more accurate than usual.
In trying to get a handle on their sound, the band have been through several lineups, had at least five members step up to the mic and even taken the stage as an instrumental outfit. "We have played a lot of shows and people tell us we sound different every time," says guitarist Sydney Koke. So, when they say that their debut album, Demo 1, isn’t really them anymore, it’s not just a show of false modesty.
The album in question opens up with a tight explosion from Markus Lake’s bubbling bass, treble-kicked guitar and duelling sung-spoken vocals. Any fan of indie rock will recognize the heavy influence of legendary noise merchants Sonic Youth seeping through many of the six tracks on the album. This may give you a taste of Spencer Davis’s prodigious guitar playing and drummer Andrew Hume’s penchant for room-clearing white noise, but until recently the coveted vocalist position has been a revolving door of sorts for the band.
Formed in February 2003, the band was originally fronted by Megan Borg. Although the members universally acknowledge her lyrical prowess, when they played live, her voice was so quiet that no one could hear what she was singing. In a classic move of over correction, the band found Tori Morris, a powerful well-trained vocalist with a background in jazz. While there was no problem with her matching the band’s volume, her polished style just didn’t jell with the noisy tendencies of The Incandescence.
She’s no longer in the band, but her vocals can still be heard on the album’s aptly titled "(Pop Song)," which shows off a group mixing female vocals and loping guitar lines. The band then merges Brit pop with post rock for album closer "Lamps & Lanterns." There is a certain schizophrenia at play on the album indicative of a band trying to get a handle on their sound.
"I don’t think we have ever been able to successfully categorize ourselves," says Davis. "We try to make it so our music is a lot more – I won’t say intelligent, but we don’t play any power chords. We don’t have any bass players playing roots of anything. We try to jump out of that whole rock thing, I think."
The band all agree that their new material has a rawer edge and a more primal sound, but when it comes to describing that sound, The Incandescence have a hard time classifying the music without a van-load of hyphenated adjectives. Are they noise-rock, now? Are they post-punk? Ultimately, the band echoes Koke’s sentiment that the biggest difference between their old songs and the material that they’re performing now is collectibility. They like their old songs, but they would actually buy the new ones.
"And that is why we are spending the entire weekend locked in this house to record a new album," says Davis. Apparently the band are as ambitious as they are unclassifiable.
Flying in the face of the Calgary tradition in which bands break up after releasing their new album, The Incandescence are planning a dual-CD release featuring one disc of well-polished older songs and a second disc of brand new basement recordings. The hope is that both albums will give audiences an idea of the band’s evolution. Now all they have to do is record Demo 2 in less than a week so it will be ready for the show.
But the question still lingers – what does the new stuff sound like? "I think we are getting a lot darker," says Davis. "Andrew and I, and Sydney as well – we don’t listen to real music anymore. We have been listening to noise," says Davis. "It’s going to be like the No New York compilation meets ’50s pop." |
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