Gigi Rabnett « corduroy magazine

Interview: Bear In Heaven

April 20th, 2010

Upon first listen to any Bear In Heaven track, it’s tempting to stamp them with a quirky, hyphenated indie brand and call it a day. But the entirety of their sound is not automatically divulged to the listener, and only reveals itself after several listens. Their music is capacious — designed to fill large spaces, with room for reverberation. And like all things exquisite, it gets better with time.

Made up of Jon Philpot, Adam Wills, Joe Stickney and Sadek Bazarra, the Brooklynites’ ethereal collection of songs has been tagged with descriptors like folksy-pop, prog, synth-pop and dreamwave to name a few, and has drawn comparisons from Pink Floyd to Depeche Mode. Suffice to say, their sound might as well exist in a realm of genre-less charm.

After the success of their 2007 debut, “Red Bloom of The Boom”, the hype surrounding their follow up, “Beast Rest Forth Mouth”, is palpable, and the title just as much a mouthful. “I always laugh when people who become familiar with this album get excited to find there’s another one,” explains Wills. “Then they’ll ask excitedly what the first album is called and I always blush and say quietly ‘Red Bloom of the Boom.’ It just infuriates people, and it’s funny to witness.”

It is this lighthearted and wry nature that radiates in their sound, filled with hazy guitars, hypnotic drumming patterns, and Philpott’s delicately high-pitch voice. While they are serious about developing their sound, the way they first released their music was less than strategic. Philpot, the band’s founding father, lead song writer and multi-instrumentalist, first moved to Brooklyn “really just to get a job,” and in the process put out an album. “I was doing music but never intended to do it like this,” he says. “I was always recording some stuff here and there, and then when I got to New York eight years ago, I accidentally released a record from my bedroom.”

In the same vein, guitarist Wills and drummer Stickney gravitated to Brooklyn nearly a decade ago after graduating college, to pursue work and in search of cheap rent. In fact, Stickney asserts that he came to Brooklyn from Alabama “to get away from music, actually.” The fortuitous network of talent eventually manifested itself as the current incarnation of Bear In Heaven, who currently find themselves globe-trotting their little hearts out on tour, while accumulating a mass of admirers in the process.

But their story hasn’t been all Hype Machine hearts and Sony record deals. In fact, prior to 2009 and the soaring success of ”BRFM,” they were just a bunch of music enthusiasts strumming along somewhat aimlessly, their music-hub locale a petty convenience. The 2007 release of “ROBTB,” while fantastic, was seemingly not mainstream-sounding enough to secure a name for them anywhere outside of the Brooklyn bubble. They’ve had to fight to be taken seriously and to not have their music be taken for granted.

But now, they’re on their way up, thanks to their acclaimed new album and blogger-approved single, “Lovesick Teenagers. “People get really excited when we start to play it,” says Philpot, “but equally, there are other songs we play live that really freak people out and get a way bigger applause. That’s the beauty of playing live: people come and they listen and they hear we have other songs and get excited.”

Despite all the brouhaha that comes with being the next big thing (they were recently the apple of SXSW’s eye), what’s still most striking about Bear In Heaven is the persistent happy-go-luckiness about them, both on and off stage. Their rapport is a well-fortified force, casting light on what are sure to be future successes. Even when broaching potentially awkward topics, they manage to ease the mood. Upon drawing attention to the glaring lack of their fourth band member during the interview (and subsequent photo shoot), for instance, they respond giddily: “There’s a perfectly good answer to that and we made a video about it! It’s on the internet! It has lasers in it!” they explain, before adding, “Oh yeah, we like to make funny videos too.”

- Gigi Rabnett

(photo courtesy of Dean West)

Tags: Bear In Heaven, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, brooklyn, Gigi Rabnett, New York, Red Bloom of The Boom, SXSW
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Interview: Phenomenal Handclap Band

November 22nd, 2009

Founder, conductor and leader of all that we consider ingenious in the world of music, New York City has a lot resting on its shoulders. And rightfully so. It gave us Interpol, and then The Strokes, post-punk and co., and even tastefully revived grunge rock. The past decade has endured a disorderly mess of sounds, birthing all sorts of zany genres from ”electroclash” to “noise rock,” while providing an umbrella of shelter to the seemingly relentless production of anything “indie.” Now, an era of dishing out handfuls of ubiquitous sounding bands is winding down and the city is again prospering with unique talent. And with Brooklyn’s latest “sonic boom,” it seems great music is becoming more accessible than ever.

In the middle of New York’s musical upswing, there’s a band about town worth talking about, and they don’t give a damn about Brooklyn and all its appeal. On their recent tour playing alongside legendary production-team Simian Mobile Disco, we caught up with Daniel Collas and Joan Tick of The Phenomenal Handclap Band during their brief Toronto-stopover. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, their music certainly will. You’ve probably heard The Phenomenal Handclap Band’s viral hit “15 to 20” blasting throughout a local H&M, or, (more likely) peppered somewhere in the blogosphere, as remixers world-over have adopted it as their own. And while the single is certainly catchy, we assure you these guys are no one-hit-wonder; this is only the beginning.

At first glance, there’s something entirely unconventional about these outwardly 70s-style rockers. Perhaps it’s that unlike, well, just about every other band in the world, earning the famed “Brooklyn” label is the least of their priorities.

“It’s funny, actually most of us live in Manhattan,” says Collas, co-founder of the eight-piece outfit. “We get it all the time. I’m almost starting to take offense to being labeled ‘Brooklyn-based.’ It’s such a rare and weird thing to be from Manhattan these days.”

Still, they lend themselves to no particular borough or location. Fittingly, their style is just as elusive. Their first [self-titled] LP features an array of contributors, from reputable scenester Jaleel Bunton (of TV on the Radio) to renowned 80s hip-hop queen Lady Tigra.

“Everyone on the record is basically an old friend of mine, from my travels and nightlife,” says Collas. She [Tigra] was a receptionist at a night club I used to go to. She looks like she’s twelve years old still. She would sit there and answer the phones and look cute, and one day I finally asked, ‘What’s the story with that girl?’ and everyone was like, ‘Oh that’s Tigra,’ and I’m like “Yeah I know that’s Tigra.’ And then they said, ‘No that’s Lady Tigra, dude.’ We kept in touch, and years later she was in town and I just asked her if she wanted to collaborate.”

The album features a revolving door of stand-ins, which begs the question: Who is an authentic PHB member and who isn’t? The answer lies in whoever made the final tour cut. “We recorded all together –contributors and all — and then it dawned on us that we had to do the same thing live,” Collas explains. “At that time, we had to do our first three shows which happened within a month of each other. It was more about re-creating the record onstage. So, we hired a percussionist, and then just… played live. The first time we left New York together to play live, that’s when it became the final eight of us. The real draft.“

The resulting eight member powerhouse consists of: Daniel Collas, Sean Marquand, Patrick Wood, Luke Riverside, Bing Ji Ling, Laura Mrin, Joan Tick and Pier Pappalardo. Essentially the brain child of Collas and Marquand, both New York-based underground club DJs, PHB has come a long way from “a bunch of music-lovers just wanting to make good music.” And despite having no previous working rapport with each other, they now function as one big octagonal family.

As to be expected with numerous musical minds working together, their influences range across the board – from Thin Lizzy to The Rotary Connection. “Big producers from the soul era are what makes me tick,” says Collas, contemplatively adding, “mostly from the 70s, the two tone era.”

It’s certainly apparent on the 65-minute album, featuring groovy synth-disco elements on tracks like “The Martyr,” the dream-inducing continuum of “You’ll Disappear,” and of course, the anthemic foot-tapper “15 to 20.”

With the growing success of their first LP, their sights are already set on making more groovy music. When prodded about their next project, Collas eagerly dishes the news: “Yes, there’s a new album in the works. I think the second album is a big deal for us because it’s going to be written by all of us. We’re all really excited about it.”

The collective virtuosity that shone through both on their album and live, gives enough reason to anticipate a second album more ambitious than the last. And you can be sure to count on more Phenomenal Handclap Band and less collaborative features. With equal eagerness, Tick describes the music-making process of the next record: “On our first record, we didn’t exactly have a band,” she says. “It was an opportunity to work with a lot of people that we really admire. But now that we have an actual band, I think it’s going to be a lot more exploring in the studio and we’re going to see how creative we can be.”

(photos by Dean West)

- Gigi Rabnett

Tags: Gigi Rabnett, Lady Tigra, Phenomenal Handclap Band
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Interview: Gonzales

October 15th, 2009

You might know “Chilly Gonzales” as the madman who recently set a world record for the longest solo-artist performance (playing the piano straight for 27 hours, 44 mins. and 33 secs.), but it turns out Gonzales has been setting the standard for outlandish musical performances for some time now, and isn’t slowing down anytime soon. The then-humble pianist crept onto the scene in 1996 with the EP Thriller, became disillusioned with Toronto’s music scene, and promptly left Canada to embark on a mission for international acclaim.

Now, almost a dozen albums later, with the likes of Drake sampling him, and Leslie Feist as his right-hand (wo)man, he’s certainly done something right. His style, a hybrid of electronica, rap and classical music manages to parody while paying tribute to all aspects; he’s able to freestyle rap about testicles while delivering a hauntingly beautiful piano solo, and does so in good taste. It’s a testament to Gonzales’ creative versatility that even rapping and staging quirky keyboard performances occupy only a small fraction of his musical inventory. The man is simply a musical enigma.

We recently caught up with the self-proclaimed “musical supervillain” at the Mod Club for his long-awaited return to Toronto. Sporting his token ensemble of white satin gloves and a souped-up bathrobe, he sat down with us to discuss the notorious live performances, his distaste for opening acts, and why he’s just not a Drake fan.

Welcome back to Toronto!
Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here, I think. I did play here about a year and a half ago, with my band, it was a very difficult show. It was tough to come back, but I’m here.

It’s been just over a decade that you moved away from us.
Yeah I was out of here in 1998. I went to Berlin, and then I went to Paris in 2003. I am now a proud Paris resident.

What is it exactly that prompted you to leave Toronto so abruptly?
Well I’ve always seen myself as a musical supervillain. And every supervillain has an origin, you know, a moment where lightening hits their lab or they’re bitten by an insect or they had some traumatic experience where they wanted to take over the world, and rule over it with evil-doing.

So you felt like Berlin was your lab in a sense?
Well, actually Toronto was the scene of the crime that turned me into the supervillain, and then I had to go elsewhere. So, I’ve always seen Toronto as the monster that spat me out, so to speak. And the trauma of the story was to do with the fact that I could never be appreciated in Toronto. I felt like I deserved recognition that I wasn’t getting, so I left. In the process of leaving, I built up various musical superpowers and performance powers.

Do you feel like it would be different now, at the scene of the crime, a decade later?
It’s hard to know, in retrospect. I don’t really like to ask “what if,” but I do sometimes think, “You know, it took leaving to get the strength and the recognition.” So I guess part of it is the strength to leave somewhere — it gives you a certain advantage. You’re all of a sudden something exotic when you’re somewhere else. Because, believe it or not, a Canadian can be something exotic in some parts of the world. And so I used all that to my advantage, and started to get the recognition I felt I rightly deserved in Berlin. I’ve enjoyed it profusely for the past eight or nine years, since I put out my first album.

So what brings you back here?
I have slowly, with heavy pain in my heart, come back to play in Canada. More so in Montreal at the beginning because of the European vibe there, and then more and more in Toronto, culminating in the Massey Hall show where I opened for Feist.

On that note, you’re obviously a fan of collaborating with Canadian musicians. Do you keep track of Canadian talent? Are you a Drake fan?
Yeah, of course I know who Drake is.

He sampled a song of yours, “The Tourist,” from your album Solo Piano on his most recent mixtape, have you heard it?
Really? Drake sampled me? I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, that Solo Piano album has reached across many genres – it’s given me shout-outs from the hip-hop world all the way to the classical world. I’m pleasantly surprised whenever it makes its way to an unknown genre. Although, I must confess, I’m not a Drake fan. I guess Canadians should be proud that they finally have the closest thing they’ll ever have to a credible hip-hop personality, but I’m sorry, I’m just not a fan.

Your genre has been described as a mix of things from “Ambient Jazz” to “Classical.” If you could clear this up for everyone right now, is there one defining genre you want to go by?
Yes, actually. I would call my genre “entertainer music,” in that I put the personality ahead of the music. And where the personality goes, that’s where the music follows. So, I try to think of what my message should be, I try to think of the story I want to tell before I think of the music. That’s to cover up a bit of a weakness of mine, which is that I have a very scientific approach to music. I always say I’m a musical genius, and people take it as an ironic boast, but I truly have a gift for understanding what’s happening in the technical aspect of music making — the harmony and the melody. That also gives me a weakness when it comes to taste, because I can find value in anything from a technical standpoint. I don’t really like anything just based on the music alone, which puts me at odds with most people, whose tastes are usually the sound of what they’re hearing. What makes me like something is their image, if someone makes great music but they have what I consider to be a faulty message, then forget about it.

So you’re saying you don’t like Drake because he has a faulty image.
Absolutely. But not just him. I will write off a whole band just based on seeing one photo. And that doesn’t make me superficial; that just means I have a different value system. If I like someone and am intrigued by their story, then I will find a way to like their music. I’m incredibly close-minded and I like so few things based on their image. That leaves me with a very small pool of musicians I respect: most of them are people I’ve worked with, or people I have come into close contact with. So as soon as I see someone who seems to share similar value systems, I try to seek them out. I’ve been very lucky in who I’ve been able to work with-people like Feist, Peaches, Jamie Lidell, Daft Punk. Once in a while I see someone who I don’t know so well but I love what they’re doing; Andrew WK is the newest one. Do you know him?

Yes, I love Andrew WK! I heard you recently threatened him to a Piano Battle. How did that go down?
Oh. Well, I inflicted musical spankings on him. I still admire him, though. I heard he was making a piano album, so I sought him out through a journalist I knew would be interviewing him, and made a video to give him. Knowing that he has the same value system as me, I knew that he would see in that video the scenes of a fellow traveler. And I knew, well, suspected strongly, that he wouldn’t be able to turn me down. And he didn’t! I battled him, and he suffered the consequences. But the audience got to see something really special, because I think what we did was something very rare and unique for my first New York show in eight years. Whenever I see someone who excites me like that, I try to seek them out. It doesn’t always work. I try to work with rappers that I admire, but they don’t always like me.

Your records are so drastically different from one another. Would you say you’ve garnered a different audience with each album, or that you have more of a cult audience? Do you have specific intentions with each album?
I must admit something: I’m not very good at making albums. You know, I really excel on stage. But when I’m in the studio…you don’t really know what you’re aiming for. It’s a time lapse of months before you’ve reached a target. It’s pretty hard to put the effort in, because you know you can’t control the result at all; you don’t know when or how people are going to listen to it. That’s why when I’m in the studio, I tend to keep it short and sweet. I feel like if I give it a burst of energy, chances are that it will work just as much as if I labor for a year on it. But the key is really to just surround yourself with other people who are good at it. For instance, Feist makes an album, and for her that’s a really important moment. So when I work with her, I find a role to help her do it and that’s why I enjoy producing with other people. But fundamentally, I am a creature of the stage. That said, you can’t control who gets your albums. For Solo Piano there was definitely an older crowd who got into it, there was lots of classical. That’s one of the reasons it sold better as well; old people don’t know how to download songs.

Your recent World Record — playing the piano for 27 hours straight — is quite a feat. How did you prepare for such a performance?
Well the previous record was 26 hours, so I knew I would have to hit 27 hours. But it wasn’t about coffee or substances, I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep while playing piano. I knew that my toughest challenge would be to just make it entertaining. Because you know people sit there for three hours and think they’ve been taken for a ride. But then there are 24 hours left, and I had to be 100% focused. That’s why most of what I played was audience suggestions. I would sit there and let people yell out songs they wanted to hear and then I would play them. And that’s why my ego and my musical memory — my two strongest weapons in this entertainment war — came in really handy for that particular performance. I entertained. If they’re not entertained, you’re failing. That’s the capitalist law of entertainment: the customer is always right. If they’re not enjoying it, it’s on me. I could never blame an audience for a bad show.

- Gigi Rabnett

(photos by Geoffrey Knott)

Tags: Drake, Feist, Gigi Rabnett, Gonzales
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Still Life Still – “Pastel”

June 17th, 2009

As a band freshly signed to Arts & Crafts, it may come as a surprise to know that Still Life Still, consisting of Aaron Romaniuk, Derek Paulin, Josh Romaniuk, Brendon Saarinen and Erin Young, have been together for nearly ten years already. A decade of friendship, playing shows, and hanging out in Toronto’s East End apparently makes for a well-fortified rapport though, one that radiates in their sound. Just in time to make summer exciting, the band releases their first commercial EP “Pastel” this week, and oh, does it hit the spot! With the benefit of a genius like Kevin Drew producing the album, and recorded live in only five days time, the band’s own excitement resonates in their performance.

While making a conscious effort to avoid comparisons to Broken Social Scene and well, Arts & Crafts altogether while listening, I was pleasantly relieved to hear a fresh sound coming from SLS. ”Pastel” is the result of years of unfiltered creativity and carefree music-making, and it delivers song after song of re-playable pop music. Upon first listen, it is difficult to pinpoint a certain “sound” or genre that SLS portrays, as there are many instruments making a lot of noises. Yet, in the least annoying way possible, it’s actually a good thing. While instrument-heavy, the tracks are beautifully woven together and conducted in a way that compliment each other, with heavy layering and splashes of instrument here and there.

Unlike other artists, whose overwhelming consistency defines their sound, it is SLS’ ability to do something different with each track that is intriguing. Any album where there is no stand-out single right off the bat says a great deal about its producers; for SLS, it is a comment on their creative capacity. There is a heavy weight and uniqueness to each song on “Pastel,” from the escalating minute-long intro on “80’s on TV” to the short, manic drumming on “AID.” In all its experimental glory — sound layering, background noise, and melodic, sometimes-intentionally inconsistent guitar riffs — the album is simply and impressively well-done. So say hello to the BBQ/late-night walk home after the bar/house party/good time soundtrack of the summer. You’ll be happy you did.

“Pastel” is in stores now, and check out more about Still Life Still on MySpace.

- Gigi Rabnett

Tags: Arts and Crafts, Gigi Rabnett, Still Life Still
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