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In the Canadian music press, often bands that dabble in folk and Americana get more attention than acts experimenting with live electronic sounds. The reasons for this are baffling, as many cities across Canada, including Hamilton, enjoy a healthy and thriving electronic music scene. But Canada was raised on acoustic guitars and rural storytelling. Electronic music, in comparison, is only in its nascent stages of influence. One of the most popular and successful exports of these ideas is Toronto’s Crystal Castles. The duo found a commercial route through dance, as programming and vocals took precedent over acoustic guitars. Abroad, Crystal Castles found immense success, including cover stories in NME and the Guardian, and a headlining slot at Glastonbury. Finally, Canada’s live electronic scene had an ambassador, and now there are scores of acts ready to take the momentum with them.
One of the more exciting acts is Toronto’s Parallels, comprising of Crystal Castles live drummer Cameron Findlay, along with vocalist Holly Dodson and keyboardist Joey Kehoe, who plays in the live incarnation. Taking similar strides to the aforementioned, the band mingles synthesizers and programming along simple, ‘80s–influenced beats and powerful, commanding vocals. As an introduction, Parallels has readied their debut titled Visionaries, a collection of tracks recorded slowly at home, while Findlay was off tour. “The instrumentals for the album were recorded at my apartment in Toronto over the past year, and then mixed at Marigold Studies in Toronto” explains Findlay. “This is where Holly records vocals and where we do the final mixes of our tracks. We take this route because it’s how we’ve taught ourselves to write and produce. I used two analog synthesizers and a drum machine to write most of our songs. But now we have sped things up a bit since Holly and I have started working together, and we use the studio to complete our work.”
Parallels utilizes older, more anachronistic equipment, often plugging analog synthesizers atop programmed beats, to add swaths of colour to the mix Dodson sings over. The result blends early–’90s chill out, crunchy electro and deep house, creating a sound that differs, quite nicely, from much else being touted right now. “Using analog and vintage gear we feel adds colour to our mixes, and gives it something that really can’t be recreated in with any digital synthesizer,” adds Findlay. “There’s an authentic feel to the analog sound, and it has more than digital copies. We have a lot of analog and vintage equipment that we use at Marigold, as well. The studio was build in the late ‘70s and hasn’t changed much since then.” With the older equipment, the band was able to be more patient recording, stripping ideas down to their core and then rebuilding them, to improve texture, beats and overall feel. Having both analog and digital gear at their fingertips, all the time, simply abetted this. “We didn’t plan on recording this within a certain timeframe,” continues Findlay. “We don’t have a timeframe when it comes to writing songs. We take our time on things and enjoy the process. To be honest, our biggest challenge is determining when a song is finished, and when we can just it go. We don’t like to dwell on things for too long.”
“Doing that, we create what we hear goes with the song as an entity, but it doesn’t necessarily mean keeping things danceable or making things experimental. Sometimes an entire song comes from the initial bass line, melody, drum beat, anything. We come up with a part that we like and then layer it with melodies and other instruments that are fitting. We aren’t setting out to only make only dance music, just music that we enjoy.”
In the live setting, everything is recreated in the flesh, with Findlay on drums, Kehoe on keyboards and Dodson on vocals. Using his experience with Crystal Castles as an influence (who also perform with live instruments), Findlay has created a strong counterpart to the intricate studio work afoot, a live product that in many ways surpasses its predecessor. “We want to be able to recreate our songs live as accurately as possible to the original recordings,” affirms Findlay. “That means doing it all live.”
Catch Parallels tonight. www.myspace.com/parallelsmarigold
PARALLELS
w/Allosaurus, En Francais
Thursay April 15 @ the Casbah
306 King St. W. Hamilton
myspace.com/parallelsmarigold
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