Montreal bands – 7th Level Music

Review: Bodywash – I Held the Shape While I Could

The title of Bodywash‘s new record, I Held the Shape While I Could, is a perfect summary of how it feels to be barely holding your life together and then finally, sometimes blissfully, being able to drop that façade when you’re alone and just cry your eyes out.

The record was made as both Rosie Long Decter and Chris Steward were coming out points in their lives that had resulted in dissatisfaction, alienation, boredom, and heartbreak. Opening track “In As Far” sets up a major theme of the album (breaking through ennui by being willing to face it head-on) with Steward’s synths that burst open like the sun through clouds. “Picture Of” has Decter reminiscing about a past lover and how sometimes the memory is better than the relationship truly was (“You were hard to believe, asking everything close. You were hard to prove. Something to see and not know.” / “I decide to lie and wait, picture of desire in a frame.”)

“Massif Central” is Steward’s buzzing shoegaze tale of losing his Canadian work status in 2020 due to a typographical error, thus leaving him alienated and unemployed just as we were all hearing the early warnings of the pandemic. “Bas Relief” is an instrumental, sounding like ocean waves and wind and some kind of early 1990s mall music tape that’s been left near a space heater.

Steward sings about trying to fit in as half-Japanese, half-British (“To feel half is not to feel whole.”) and Canadian. “Kind of Light” is about Decter trying to fit in after after the end of a relationship while others are enjoying love around her (“Pull back all the ways you count her gone. Spend a year living trying to hold yourself to a certain kind of light.”)

“One Day Clear” is almost a spoken word piece as Decter tells a lonely tale and Steward plays simple, hypnotic, looping synths behind her. “Sterilizer” is a tale full of bright shoegaze guitars while discussing the idea trying to make a relationship work, but knowing, in your heart, that, while it feels good now, it’s probably going to make both of you bitter in the long run (“We talk inside of swallowed pride, still I warm your sleep tonight.”).

“Dessents” floats right into the snappy, electro-thumping “Ascents” – which is a lovely song about Decter and Steward’s friendship forged even harder during their long drives to gigs while working out their relationship woes. The shimmering sound and wispy vocals on “Patina” (another song about moving past an ended relationship) remind one of some Besnard Lakes tracks, which isn’t surprising when you consider that Jace Lasek from The Besnard Lakes recorded and mixed the album.

Decter is at least in the process of healing by the time we get to “No Repair.” Her vocals are a bit melancholy, but her voice doesn’t seem to be carrying as much weight, and the instrumentation behind her helps rejuvenate her and us. Lyrics like “And sometimes when I’m quiet and alone, I need no repair. If this is as far as it goes, write it in handfuls of air. You were there.”

That’s a lovely lyric to end a lovely album.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

Montreal, Québec’s The Besnard Lakes have returned with a massive, yet not too heavy album, that, like its predecesors, has a cryptic title. This one is The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings. What is this thunderstorm of which they wish to warn us? It’s the storm we all must face – death.

Written over the course of 2019, when COVID-19 was emerging, claiming lives, canceling plans, and changing the world by forcing all of us to look impermanence square in the face, the album is a stunning piece of work. It’s even more impressive when you consider that frontman Jace Lasek‘s father also died the same year. Processing his grief, and visions his father spoke about on his deathbed, led to Lasek confronting the Grim Reaper head-on. The band also paid tribute to two legendary musicians and songwriters – Mark Hollis (who also died in 2019) and Prince (who had died three years earlier).

The album’s four sides are titled “Near Death,” “Death,” “After Death,” and “Life.” It is an album of sadness, grief, love, and peace. The opening track, “Blackstrap,” brings Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon to mind with its echoing guitars and sampled telephone busy signal. The title might refer to a type of molasses, and how sadness might feel like being stuck in it. The song crawls along like an old but happy cat with its thumping bass and psychedelic synths.

“Raindrops” has the kind of cool bass groove that only Olga Goreas seems to be able to create, and Lasek’s vocals move back and forth between dreamy simplicity and falsetto flashes that he seems to do with ease. The warped, distorted “Christmas Can Wait” is one of the tracks honoring Lasek’s late father. The song melts and reforms into a mix of psych and synthwave that is so good that it’s almost unbelievable.

“Our Heads, Our Hearts on Fire Again” brings brightness breaking through the clouds with vocal styling that reminds me of The New Pornographers, a string section, a brass section, and possibly a Venusian choir for all I know. It’s a tonal shift on the album, and a brilliant one (on an album that’s already brilliant up to this point).

“Feuds with Guns” is the shortest track on the album at a little over four minutes, but it doesn’t feel any less expansive. The organ and drums seem to rise up from a desert canyon, and Lasek’s vocals seems to glide down with a setting sun. “The Dark Side of Paradise” again brings Pink Floyd to mind, but adds shoegaze elements to the psychedelia for a trippy brew. Lasek’s vocals sometimes disappear into the synths and guitars, blurring the line between which shadows the other until the song transforms into a beautiful instrumental.

“New Revolution” breaks through the pallor of death with bright guitars, healthy heartbeat drums, and vocals brimming with hope and joy. “The Father of Time Wakes Up” in the band’s tribute to Prince. It’s a lovely one that doesn’t overdo it with wild guitar solos or funk jams. It keeps the psychedelic riffs and hypnotizing bass and uses a simple, but effective guitar solo as Lasek sings, “You’ve been hurting since the father of time woke up.” (and moved onto another plane). Haven’t we all? The chorus of “With love, there is no time.” is a wonderful reminder of a universal truth that is easy to forget.

“Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings” takes up the entire fourth side of the album. It’s a glorious track of nearly eighteen minutes with The Besnard Lakes helping us get up from the ground, to walk out of the dark, and to let go of attachments so we won’t be dragged by them. The horn section returns and drums blend with real thunder to bring a cleansing sound. The song drifts into the sounds of wind and simple synths to become a meditative experience (doubly so, as I discovered, if you play it while next to an open window and birdsong naturally blends with it).

It’s a gorgeous record by a band operating at the height of their powers, and an uplifting album as we emerge from a pandemic and a divisive election (here in the U.S., at least), and strive to move forward from anger and fear.

Keep your mind open.

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SUUNS’ release first single,”Pray,” from upcoming EP.

Montreal-based band SUUNS, comprised of Ben Shemie, Joe Yarmush, and Liam O’Neill, announce their new FICTION EP out October 30th via Joyful Noise Recordings, and share the lead single. “PRAY” was recorded during a hot Dallas summer in 2015 with John Congleton, originally for the band’s 2016 album Hold/Still. “It didn’t make the cut, probably because we loved it so much and thought we had an even better version of it in us,” says O’Neill. “We subsequently tried to record multiple versions of this song, none of which captured the unhinged energy of this live-off-the-floor performance. Discovering this lost jam and its power felt like a reminder to keep in the moment and to trust ourselves – you just have to keep moving forward.”

SUUNS are future-oriented. New sounds, new techniques, new ways of thinking; above all, new environments are the lifeblood of the band. And true to form, here on the FICTION EP, SUUNS are exploring fresh processes as a result of their current surroundings and global circumstances.

On the FICTION EP, new sounds and sonic directions are fashioned out of old. A year-long period of limited resources and contact inspired the band to reflect on the various environments in which they’ve created music over the years: to comb through their previous sounds and creative approaches, and fuse them together with new ideas, ultimately producing a sort of future/past alchemy. The FICTION EP is as much a project of curation as it is one of creation: sifting, re-imagining, and re-framing, sometimes completely disassembling and then building from the ground up. Each song is a live-off-the-floor recording that was then taken into isolation and re-worked.

As much as the FICTION EP is a project born of introspection and reflection, it’s equally one for which SUUNS sought inspiration from outside. Longtime friend of the band Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart), bringing relentless claps and buzuks, leads SUUNS through “BREATHE,” while Amber Webber (Lightning Dust) sings a mournful siren song on the penultimate track, “DEATH.” Finally, the ghost of Frank Zappa lends the band his fervent societal diagnosis, as relevant today as it ever was, on “TROUBLE EVERY DAY.”

Zappa’s darkly prophetic message, repurposed from 1966 to meet our moment, is an apt referent. These dualities, confluences of past and future, of introspection and influence, are what defines the FICTION EP. Produced from old remnants, it is entirely new; done in relative isolation, and is also something of a live record. The songs have been meticulously reworked, and yet the entire collection feels deployed with hardly any reflection, done in one breath. It’s the sound of SUUNS regrouping, and then poised, and then driving towards the future.

The FICTION EP is the first preview of more new music to come in 2021.
Stream “PRAY”:
https://youtu.be/pY56vaNYCVE

Pre-order FICTION EP:
http://joyfulnoi.se/FICTION

FICTION EP Tracklist:
1. LOOK
2. BREATHE (feat. Jerusalem In My Heart)
3. PRAY
4. FICTION
5. DEATH (feat. Amber Webber)
6. TROUBLE EVERY DAY

Keep your mind open.

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]