It can be very difficult to speak about the things that really turn me on.
I'm speaking about art here.
And by art I mean anything that is created by someone. Of course, that created thing could also be a person, but I'm not thinking directly about that today. Most specifically, I am thinking about music.
There are many records I have listened to that effect me profoundly. I listen to them over and over again. They reach me deeply. They excite me. They inspire me. It is an emotional response, and it's very energizing in many different ways, including in a creative way.
It is very hard to speak about these things because their effect is so profound that speaking about them seems a bit impossible. Nevertheless, I would like to speak a bit about Wolf Parade's record entitled Apologies to the Queen Mary.
There are about 8 songs on there that I play over and over and again and the number is growing. It's like the way that Arcade Fire's Funeral was. There is an angst here, I suppose, that I do respond to. Both records are sad and yet beautiful and exhibit a profound release. They do, in this sense, truly rock.
They also do have a preoccupation with death; with the remains of death, with the liberation that can come from it, and with ghosts.
Wolf Parade do remind me of a few other groups: The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Roxie Music, The Replacements, Spoon, and Arcade Fire. This is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. They remind me of them, or I hear traces of them in the music, but I do not think the record is derivative. This is a delicate balance to manage for any artist who comes to their art mentored in their hearts and minds - in their spirits, if you will - by the work of other artists that they love and are affected by.
There is a sound that sort of comes from Montreal, and I really like it. I come from Montreal, and I really like that, also. There is a way that this music does remind me of living in Montreal as an English-speaking person. English Montrealers are not the same as French Montrealers, but they are more alike then English Montrealers are with the rest of English Canada. That being said, though, I can say that I have found a kinship and affinity with people who are artists all across the country, no matter where they're from or what language they first were taught to speak.
In music that comes from Montreal, there is an orchestral quality to the arrangements. There is a beauty in the sadness that is there, and in the way that there is release from any pain, like blues is always said to do. It rocks, but not at anyone's expense. It is intense like love and loss, and not like hatred, bitterness, and envy. There is an expression of contradiction and confusion and the desire to sort it out, but an understanding that you have to keep on doing that, it doesn't only happen once like in some kinds of hero stories.
There are bands who make this kind of music who also do not live in Montreal, and who are integral, I think, to this community of artists, like the Broken Social Scene and the many variants of that band. The Broken Social Scene are a stupendous band to go see live.
In fact, a lot of Montreal bands come to Montreal from elsewhere, Wolf Parade included, but they are still Montreal bands, precisely because it is Montreal that does attract them, and that means something. Montreal is not like any other city that's in Canada.
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