Our band lives on a massive island that is pigment green
with sharp grey mountains moving slowly and peninsula fingers stretching out
and snagging the sea. The people in the band are all different heights and all
have very different tastes in music and very different ways of expressing
emotion or thinking about art.
We started making noises in a concrete basement on
the wrong side of the railroad tracks in Victoria, Canada six years ago, and we
had a lot of conversations with each other through many songs. Some of these
conversations were long and sad and unsure of what they were about. Some of
them were many voices talking at once but understanding each other perfectly
and saying the same thing in different, unconscious ways; and after this type
of conversation
we would quietly get into our cars and drive back across
the tracks and feel a beautiful buzzing in our heads.
We took a bunch of songs and recorded them in 2006
with Neil Osborne. We called the record “Bridges” and we played the songs to
each other and also played them to other people over and over and over again
all over Canada, America, and Europe. Sometimes there were five thousand people
listening and sometimes not, but the band loved putting the music into the air
and letting it go.
When we got back to the island we put some heaters
and carpets down in our concrete basement and dimmed the lights a bit and
sometimes took a sip of scotch and stared at each …
Our band lives on a massive island that is pigment green
with sharp grey mountains moving slowly and peninsula fingers stretching out
and snagging the sea. The people in the band are all different heights and all
have very different tastes in music and very different ways of expressing
emotion or thinking about art.
We started making noises in a concrete basement on
the wrong side of the railroad tracks in Victoria, Canada six years ago, and we
had a lot of conversations with each other through many songs. Some of these
conversations were long and sad and unsure of what they were about. Some of
them were many voices talking at once but understanding each other perfectly
and saying the same thing in different, unconscious ways; and after this type
of conversation
we would quietly get into our cars and drive back across
the tracks and feel a beautiful buzzing in our heads.
We took a bunch of songs and recorded them in 2006
with Neil Osborne. We called the record “Bridges” and we played the songs to
each other and also played them to other people over and over and over again
all over Canada, America, and Europe. Sometimes there were five thousand people
listening and sometimes not, but the band loved putting the music into the air
and letting it go.
When we got back to the island we put some heaters
and carpets down in our concrete basement and dimmed the lights a bit and
sometimes took a sip of scotch and stared at each other and thought about music
and the strange relief of Fall but didn’t talk about it and instead had a lot
of conversations with each other through many many songs. So many songs this
time that the band felt new and old at the same time which is, I think, a
wonderful feeling. In the middle of the winter we put all our instruments,
carpets, heaters, lamps and do-dads in a giant truck and moved everything up to
a cabin on another, smaller island off the western coast of Canada (Hornby
Island, BC) that is crushingly beautiful and calm. We again asked Neil Osborne
to join us, and together the band stood facing each other in a circle under an
angled skylight. The sound of the songs filled the room and the sound would
only stop when someone was frustrated or hungry or needed to watch some Flight
of the Conchords or stand out on the porch in the dark and listen to the wind
moving the huge trees.
We have put together a group of these new songs and we have
called the record NO NATIONS. The songs have played over and over again in our
heads until they no longer sound like songs, but more like a list of a million decisions
and feelings and moments. We are ready to put the music into the air and let it
go.
–Antonia
