DETAILS
Marquee Room
Thursday, September 25 - Thursday, September 25
More in: Rock / Pop
Find It...
There is a certain kitsch in creating music that unabashedly blends electronic sounds with ebullient pop. Some bands attempt to distance themselves from the camp accessibility of their melodies by adopting a more serious image, but dance and pop music, by their very nature, are meant to make you smile and move rather than think. Embodying the kitsch embedded in the music often works better than avoiding it. Chromeo, for example, revel in their overt sexiness and gusto, letting it shape their music. Another Montreal act, We Are Wolves, don’t go that far, but they play with similar themes. Their blend of electronic pop is overly upbeat, and proudly so. The key is in how it makes you feel, more than how it makes you feel about yourself.
“Creating good, genuine pop music is what we aim for in every song,” explains drummer and backing vocalist Antonin Marquis. “Each of us has our own personal definition of what pop music is, but they usually revolve around a certain theme of creating catchy, cogent melodies. That doesn’t mean we can’t experiment with distorted sounds, but we try to blend it all together under a pop manifest.”
Sure, We Are Wolves’ off-kilter electronic blips and bleeps cajole melodies out of their comfort zone, but behind the quirks and experimentation lays a dedication to pop music, from the Beach Boys to the Chemical Brothers. The culmination of this sound is the trio’s second album, Total Magique. Released in late 2007, the album has catapulted We Are Wolves to critical acclaim in Quebec, landing a Gémeaux award (Quebec’s equivalent of the Junos). The record explores the band’s love of pop, treating each melody with respect, as if its straightforwardness was a trait to be treasured.
Surprisingly, for a record that screams of life, Total Magique was recorded in the middle of the night, in relative quiet, away from other musicians and priorities. “A friend of ours who helped with the recording allowed us to record cheaply in the middle of the night, after everyone else had finished their sessions. So when everyone left the building, we started working on our songs,” explains Marquis. “Because we recorded in the middle of the night, the neighbourhood and building were really, really silent. There was a dead calm. At some moments, when we plugged in the synths, we just prayed the cops wouldn’t shut down the sessions because they were too loud.
“Still, it was nice and relaxing to record that way, and the studio itself had a great vibe,” he says. “I was told Elvis once broadcasted from the main room, which is interesting. Despite us not technically doing it during open hours, we made ourselves at home. It was like we were rats in a castle.”
The comfort of the sessions shines through on Total Magique. It is a mature, concise album, one filled with the spontaneity of live performance, but in a polished, well-produced manner. It is not too constricted for dance, but not too open-minded for pop, creating a luxurious medium. Still, the thought of reproducing the songs live filtered the band’s approach, as they felt each song needed to sound honest and spacious.
“Despite having fun in the studio, I think we are more of a live band, and this record shows that,” says Marquis. “We are more comfortable on stage than we are in the studio. To be honest, it was difficult at first to accept the difference in energy between the studio and playing live, so we tried to blend the two as best we can. Still, there is nothing better than the surprise that comes from playing in front of an audience, the thought that something can go wrong, the exposing of oneself to danger. It’s thrilling, and it drives our music.”
