BeatRoute Magazine AB print e-edition - [August 2017]

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EDMONTON EXTRA JESSE LEBOURDAIS DIY vagabond reveals duality on new release Vancouver’s Jesse LeBourdais has been a staple in the Canadian acoustic punk scene since he began performing in 2012. Over the last five years, Jesse has zigzagged his way across the country, playing hundreds of shows and multiple festivals armed only with his acoustic guitar, energetic live performance and commanding voice. As Jesse begins the cycle of releasing his fourth full-length, his music has begun to evolve with the addition of a full band, which in turn has altered the way he records his music. “Most of the other albums were written only partially, with the rest of the details being added while I was in the studio,” explains LeBourdais. “This is the first album where we had the music, drum parts, everything done and rehearsed before entering the studio.” The new album Grief, Intensity, Friendship is a slight departure from LeBourdais previous albums sonically and conceptually, but the anthemic vocal hooks, acoustic songwriting and painfully honest lyrics found in his earlier work remains. The reason for the changes in production style came from working with the legendary Vancouver based engineer/producer Jesse Gander at Rain City Studios. “Working with Gander was really great,” LeBourdais recalls. “He’s very easy to work with and had some great suggestions and ideas, which I was worried about Grief, Intensity, Friendship is Jesse LeBourdais’ fourth studio album. at first because I can be really opinionated about details as well.” Thematically the album stays true to its title. The 12 songs are born of the pain of loss, the strength of photo: Luc Frost friendship and the excitement of things to come. “Last year was tough in a lot of ways, I lost some good friends and the songs are informed by grief in that aspect.” by Kevin Klemp Lyrically, the new songs explore the grief and loss through experience, but also explore some self-deprecating topics such uncertainty and self-doubt. For those who have met Jesse, these topics might seem antithetical to his open and inviting personality. LeBourdais opened up about the duality, revealing, “I’m not sure why I write songs like that. I tend to punish myself for my mistakes and blame myself. I also find it strange to be promoting myself as a product. I’ve never been good at that side of the industry, schmoozing with the right people and networking.” For many years, LeBourdais insecurities surrounding the music industry have manifested into a strong DIY ethic regarding the production and sale of art. “I’ve always thought people pass onto other people so much that they are able to do themselves.” This attitude not only bleeds into his music but also into Falter Farms, his coffee roasting company he started last year that can be found at his merch table. “I’ve gone too long without a boss,” Jesse explains. “I’ve gone too far to turn back now.” Grief, Intensity, Friendship was released online on July 10. You can listen to the release at https://jesselebourdais.bandcamp.com/. Physical copies will be available at the Buckingham on August 31 (Edmonton), a location TBA on September 1 (Calgary), and at the Silver Buckle on September 2 (Medicine Hat). 34 | AUGUST 2017 • BEATROUTE ROCKPILE
letters from winnipeg SLOW LEAVES life through the rearview Grant Davidson is the driving force and heart behind Slow Leaves. kind of obsessed with thinking about the past and thinking about time,” says singer-songwriter Grant Davidson (a.k.a. Slow “I’m Leaves), ruminating about the songs featured on his latest release, Enough About Me, out independently on August 11. With his third album, Davidson returns to what he knows best, finding poetry in ordinary things and his own deep introspections. As the artist confesses, he likes to live, and write about, his life as though he’s looking back on it through a rearview mirror. “It’s sort of like reverse nostalgia,” he explains. “I’m always thinking about the end of my life. Not in a morbid way, I’m just conscious of my own mortality…I’d love to be lucky enough to be an old person and to have warm, nostalgic thoughts when I look back on my life and not have regrets…I don’t really live in the moment…I’m always living in a different time.” On Enough About Me, Slow Leaves’ inward lyricism is backed by subtle arrangements—pared down but never sleepy—and ‘70s country-folk signatures interspersed with moments of straightforward humanity (hear: “Love and Honesty and Kindness”). Indeed, these tunes are as soothing and relaxed as they are personal and heartfelt. Further adding to that sense of intimacy is the video for “Enough About Me,” filmed in collaboration with his seven-year-old son, Eaton. The self-referential title track is an easy-going opener about Davidson’s “inherent selfishness,” featuring a rich, percussive bass tone that permeates much of the record. It’s a vintage quality that Davidson says he was definitely chasing. “One of my favourite albums is a Lee Hazlewood record called Requiem for an Almost Lady,” he says of the 1971 release. “It’s very simple production, ROCKPILE by Julijana Capone photo: Christopher Dyck and the whole thing is kind of driven by this bass. I was after that.” While the album was born primarily out of demos made by Davidson in his basement, some frequent collaborators make contributions to the final product, including Jason Tait (Bahamas, Weakerthans), Julie Penner (Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think), Rej Ricard (The Telepathic Butterflies, The Wind-Ups), and Rusty Matyas (Imaginary Cities, Sheepdogs). Fans of Slow Leaves’ 2014 critically acclaimed record, Beauty is So Common may recall Matyas’ involvement as producer on that effort, though this time around Davidson took on production duties for the first time. “A lot of the ideas came from me just sitting in my basement trying things out,” he says. “For good or for ill, a lot of it was created in isolation.” Davidson acknowledges his collaborators for helping to bring a different energy and forward-momentum to his patient tunes. Yet at their core, his songs remain a very insular affair. “I write from an interior place,” he notes. “I’m always trying to dig deeper into myself—to a fault—and it’s not something I’m proud of. It sort of makes me a little self-absorbed…I tend to be very inward-focused, rather than writing about the things I see around me. I guess it’s about how I see myself within all of that.” Slow Leaves performs on August 30 at the Needle Vinyl Tavern (Edmonton), September 1 at the Ironwood Stage and Grill (Calgary), September 2 at Waynestock (Wayne, AB), September 15-16 at Harvest Moon Festival (Clearwater, MB), and September 28 at the West End Cultural Centre (Winnipeg). To purchase Enough About Me, head to slowleaves.com. HOLY VOID journey into the abyss Always the chameleons, Holy Void have journeyed into hypnotic, experimental depths over the years, much like their psychedelic/shoegaze-leaning origins. But the Holy Void of two years ago is not what it was last year or even today. With their next, yetto-be-titled album, expect Holy Void’s latest sonic incarnation to take the form of a rough-edged, no-frills garage band. “Every album kind of has its own feel,” says guitarist Grant Trippel. “With our new record, we want to give it more of an old garage-rock sort of feel…In the past, when producing our records, there’s been lots of layering, lots of atmospheric overdubs, and we wanted to make this next record very honest, raw with a live-off-the-floor sound. We’re recording this thing entirely onto tape.” The four-piece includes guitarists Trippel and Michael Henderson-Castle (both of instrumental surf-rock group The Catamounts), and bassist Danny Hacking and drummer Kyle Loewen (of the now defunct Surprise Party), with the later two also finding time to contribute to other burgeoning musical projects in Winnipeg, such as shoegaze supergroup Juniper Bush with Lizzy Burt (of Basic Nature), and stoner rock act TV Static. “There’s a lot of cross-pollination going on,” says Trippel. “Our jam space is always usually active with some band rehearsing for a show.” The band released their moody self-tilted EP in 2015, featuring a collection of melancholic, reverb-swathed tracks. Fast forward to 2016’s For Everything Else EP released via the Transistor 66 record label, and the band’s kaleidoscopic palette starts to come into greater focus. Songs like “Matte Plastic” shed the doom and gloom for some psychedelia with an unusually Holy Void bring their ever-evolving tunes westward this summer. by Julijana Capone jaunty vibe, while the eerie “Red River” harkens the darkness of earlier work. Creeping bass lines swirl around echoing guitar riffs and Henderson-Castle’s wobbly vocals. Given the immense—and often tragic—history of the murky waters (read: Drag the Red), the foreboding atmosphere seems worthy of the band’s self-styled “nightmare-pop” tag. “We were in a bit of a transitional phase with the last EP,” says Trippel. “We don’t want to be dark all the time. We enjoy playing music of all styles.” With all of the members of the band amalgamating their collective influences into the project, it’s easy to hear why they can’t settle on a singular sound. But that’s just part of the Holy Void journey. With a few EPs under their belts and a debut full-length on the horizon, the band is ready to get in the van and hit the highway for a nine-date stint across Western Canada. For those eager to hear Holy Void’s next effort, Trippel mentions that a new single will be out via their Bandcamp by the time they get out on the road. Aside from crushing beers in a bathtub, and managing rotting fruit and fast-food debris in a hot van, Trippel says they’ve yet to experience anything too wild and crazy while on tour. “We haven’t been robbed, we’ve managed to break even and even make a bit of cash,” says Trippel. “Being with these guys it’s just always an adventure.” Holy Void perform on August 3 at Vangelis (Saskatoon), August 4 at Mill Creek Café and Catering (Edmonton), August 5 at the Palomino Smokehouse (Calgary), August 12 at the Astoria (Vancouver), and August 15 at the Slice (Lethbridge). BEATROUTE • AUGUST 2017 | 35
Page 1: Spoon • AJJ • Ashley Hundred
Page 4: pulse PEELED A Calgary-based cockta
Page 9 and 10: CITY CALGARY FRINGE FEST uncensored
Page 11: CITY BEATROUTE • AUGUST 2017 | 11
Page 14 and 15: THE MUTILATOR Night Terrors Film So
Page 17 and 18: ROCKPILE SPOON Austin rockers keep
Page 19 and 20: THE ASHLEY HUNDRED swept away by a
Page 22 and 23: ROCKSLIDIN’ some more things to p
Page 24: BOOK OF BRIDGE FLIP FEST Lethbridge
Page 31 and 32: TOO MANY ZOOZ maintaining that subw
Page 33: PRESTON the image and sound of Gene
Page 38 and 39: 38 | AUGUST 2017 • BEATROUTE JUCY
Page 41 and 42: ROOTS EDMONTON FOLK FEST HIGHLIGHTS
Page 43 and 44: SUSTO staying honest when folks don
Page 45 and 46: PHYLACTERY Edmonton death thrashers
Page 47 and 48: Grizzly Bear Painted Ruins RCA Reco
Page 49: livery. The record is nicely paced
Page 52 and 53: Photo: Christine Leonard The BIG Sl
Page 54: SAVAGE LOVE crossed dressers My wif

BeatRoute Magazine AB print e-edition - [August 2017]

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