A regular presence at this venue over the past few years—as if marking their presence at key moments in the evolution of a work in progress—the Montreal band now returns to this space for a well-deserved artistic residency. This is the logical next step in a relationship built on mutual respect and camaraderie that has grown stronger with each new, and always memorable, visit. For those who haven’t yet had the chance to experience them, we’ve dug up a few lines from our recent coverage of their last visit to Aquário, promoting ‘A Chaos of Flowers’: “[…]an increasingly personalized avalanche of repetitive riffs, feedback, atmospheric passages, martial rhythms, and Robin Wattie’s expressive voice[…], in a call that claims all the purity of folk or the blues, to drain them through feedback sculpted with the parsimony of sparse rhythms, with Wattie’s voice as the gravitational center of all this catharsis.” A milestone in a continuous process of refinement and discovery that, this time, takes place right here during the two weeks leading up to their arrival on stage.
Hovering over the residency and the album around which it revolves is a new motto for this trio: “no drums, not ever again.” A decision motivated by Tasy Hudson’s absence as he focuses on other projects, this new configuration has allowed the band, in their own words, “to push their sound in new creative directions.” Or “how to hold the listener’s attention long enough to create engagement, or a sense of intrigue that makes them return to that music?” In other words: “Is it possible for a band typically driven by drums—even if only minimally—to make an album where the listener doesn’t miss them, even if they’re familiar with our work?” We think so. A risk that turned out to be fundamental for this new album, due out in June, to be, for the band itself, their best album yet. Studio work that, during this residency, will be translated to the stage, in an expansion of that same material that will be witnessed, in person and for the first time, right here. A privilege.
BS
