For Australian duo Canyons, the list of musical instruments they use on their EPs is as eclectic as their succession of DJ names (since this interview, they’re now known as DJ Tax and DJ Bill). Having released two EPs, Fire Eyes (on DFA Records) and The Lovemore (on A Hole in the Sky), Leo Thomson and Ryan Grieve, who also go by Leo Holiday and Ryan Sea-mist, are currently in studios finishing up their debut album (set to be released on Modular Records). The guys took some time from the busy schedule to make a mix tape for this issue of The Block, and after a few listens, we sat down to ask Leo a few questions.
Beach House contemplates music, success, and MacGyver
Words Miné Salkin Image Evaan Kheraj
“You look familiar,” she says. “I know you from somewhere, right? We’ve met before.” Lead singer and organist Victoria Legrand might sound seductive and gruff when she sings her dreamy, lovelorn tunes, but in the green room she’s relaxed and humble, walking towards me wearing retro blue denim and a smile that could melt butter. For Baltimore-based duo Beach House, it’s broken hearts and soulful crooning on the album, but kindness for a stranger. “Actually, I’d love to see you down some of this tequila,” she says, pointing at a full bottle on the table.
Guitarist Alex Scally sits down, brushing back his thick black locks to reveal he’s shaved his beard, but left a rather dapper-looking mustache behind. “Get tanked!” With only a couple of hours to settle in before blazing the stage at Vancouver’s Rickshaw, Legrand and Scally are relieved to be heading home soon after a tour that sold out at nearly every show in the country. Their third full-length, Teen Dream, released by legendary Sub Pop Records, has garnered much critical acclaim despite the pressures of their success with 2008’s Devotion.
Sitting pretty on a rather tired leather couch, Legrand and Scally are something adorable together. Instantly becoming friends when they met back in 2004, they finish each other’s sentences, poke fun, and make the other shriek with laughter. “I have to play off my own stupidity sometimes,” Scally says, while Legrand scrunches up her face at him. It’s easy to mistake a faint trace of love lingering between the lines, but their musical synergy is actually more platonic than that. By listening to songs like “Zebra,” “Turtle Island,” and “Gila,” it’s pretty clear that their brains have the same creative hardwiring. The two also share a penchant for thrift store shopping and retro instrument collection.
While Devotion and their debut set in motion their classic dream-inspired pop sound, full of whimsy and sprawling instrumentals, their latest album drifts into more melancholic realms. “This record, more than anything, has been the product of time,” says Legrand, leaning in. “We feel things more clearly now. When we were writing those songs, we became a lot better at creating more physical spaces out of our sound.”
As thoughtful and shy as they may sound on their albums, Legrand and Scally are both visibly disciplined, yet bubbling with extroversion. Abstaining from the tequila and beer they so graciously offer, they perk up and explain the joys of late-night MacGyver reruns. “We don’t get a chance to watch television on tour, but we’ve watched MacGyver. What an idiot,” Legrand says. “No way, MacGyver was killing it,” Scally defends. Part of the duo’s charm is flirting with the fine line between a joke and the truth. Legrand admits to practicing levitation to prepare for a show, while Scally frequently treats himself to tantric sex with strangers. “It just helps to reset my mind,” he says with an inscrutable smirk, visibly blushing in his dark green fleece pullover.
After the tour is over, the band will be ready to start writing again, but the tone for future music seems unclear. At the core of it, Beach House is all reverb-soaked, hauntingly beautiful soundscapes, not unlike a dream you can’t recollect even though the feelings still move through you. “Sadness, heartbreak, longing, all those things are in the music, of course,” says Legrand. “That’s what pop music is all about.”
On her single “MCs Can Kiss,” Uffie gets defensive straight from the get-go. “I’m an entertainer, not a lyricist” she rap-sings, atop Mr. Oizo’s hard-hitting, bouncy beats. The 22-year-old resident vixen of Ed Banger Records has received much flack for her bratty party girl antics since her career began in 2004 after she organized a fashion event and booked producer Feadz to spin. The pair started dating (they were linked until 2008), and Uffie wound up supplying vocals to some of Feadz’s tracks, including “Pop the Glock” and “Uffie & Me,” as well as Justice’s “Tthhee Ppaarrttyy,” all of which became dancefloor staples as the Parisian electro scene picked up steam. Ultimately, it matters not that Uffie’s persona overshadows her actual music. Her unique voice is like a futuristic, mutant version of Debbie Harry’s rap on “Rapture” – and it has launched her into full-on muse status.
Canadian alt-rock collective Broken Social Scene, currently promoting new album Forgiveness Rock Record, are finally set to debut their film project with Hard Core Logo director Bruce McDonald. Screening exclusively at 92YTribeca in New York (today and June 17) and at NXNE in Toronto (June 17), This Movie Is Broken chronicles the band’s July 11, 2009 Harbourfront performance. Though the film is set against the love story of fictional characters Bruno and Caroline, it’s really McDonald’s homage to Toronto.
This Movie Is Broken opens in limited release on June 25 in Vancouver and Toronto.
Buffalo Stance by Buraka Som Sistema
Directed by Anthony Burrill
In Issue 21 of The Block, we told you all about how as part of Dr. Martens’ 50-year anniversary celebrations, the footwear brand commissioned a bevy of musicians to produce videos of classic tracks. Here’s one of those vids: Buraka Som Sistema’s cover of Neneh Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance,” directed by Anthony Burrill. We think it’s smokin’ (not cokin’).
In the traditional sense of the word, Tanlines – the musical duo that is Jesse Cohen and Eric Emm – is not exactly a band. They certainly do make music: Emm is a veteran guitarist, formerly for the bands Storm & Stress and Don Caballero; Cohen was raised on the drums and keyboard (most recently playing for the band Professor Murder); and Tanlines’ debut EP, Settings (True Panther), thumps with electrifyingly diverse instrumentation – bongos and steel drums convene with airy guitars, hooky synth riffs, and thumping bass lines to create a sort of tropical disco dance party. But Cohen and Emm barely play any actual instruments on the album. Like a growing number of young experimental DIY pop musicians, they translate their musical ideas from their brains straight to their super high-tech computers. “For us, the writing and the recording process are the same,” says Emm. “I think the evolution of our band is kind of the opposite of the historical evolution of a band. With a band, you start out writing music in a practice space and then go to a studio. We go to the studio first.
LCD Soundsystem – Drunk Girls
Directed by Spike Jonze and James Murphy
Forget those mopey Wild Things and their existential crises: Spike Jonze’s new music video for LCD Soundsystem’s “Drunk Girls” (co-directed by frontman James Murphy) features a goon squad of pandas really getting wild. They’re hilariously creepy, but since we don’t like being egged and tied up with duct tape, we won’t be inviting these party animals over anytime soon.
Over at Block HQ, we’ve got Issue 21’s mix tape stuck on repeat. No surprise: it was created by super-talented Aussie trio Midnight Juggernauts. The three, Andrew Szekeres, Vincent Vendetta, and Daniel Stricker, have done a pile of notable remixes (The Presets’ “Down Down Down” and Cut Copy’s “Hearts On Fire,” among others), while the music they’ve put together as a three-piece electropop act has been burning up dancefloors since 2004. In the leadup to the May 28th release of their new album, The Crystal Axis, we asked Stricker, the band’s drummer, a few questions.
There’s something about the joyful psychedelia of Animal Collective that gets us all wide-eyed and giddy (and maybe a little dry-mouthed, but that’s a minor side effect). So you can only imagine how excited we are to let the band guide us through a totally immersive sensory experience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
