Take heaps of archival material and new sound, reduce to a simmer to evaporate the superfluous, and you’ll have a coherent substrate, fruit of the wisdom of creators who now know enough about the techniques of the trade to make confidence — while respecting the product. This is, in a nutshell, the recipe behind Saltthe fourth and brand new album from Montreal band Half Moon Run.
The members of the formation have not been idle in recent years, despite the pandemic, by offering two small EPs and a disc of acoustic versions of their own songs. But Half Moon Run was still prancing about getting back to the main program, that of creating an original album worthy of the name – with enough flesh around the bone, to stay in the culinary metaphor.
“There was this desire to do something clear, in which one could dive deeply, something in contrast to these scattered projects, which could be almost confusing for the fans. At one point, I was even thinking of a double disc! laughs multi-instrumentalist Conner Molander, seated in La Fontaine Park with his colleague Devon Portielje.
Half Moon Run, completed by Dylan Phillips, will not have gone that far. Salt still offers 11 tracks that do not leave us hungry. Everything respects the musical personality of the group, which tends on the album to shine the spotlight on its personality from the first moments – in particular certain harmonies and guitar arpeggios.
This is one of the discreet, but real intentions behind the disc of the group born as a trio and which had mutated into a quartet during the last two efforts, before becoming three-headed again with the departure of Isaac Symonds in the summer of 2020. “By playing three again, there was the feeling of rediscovering our chemistry from the start, in a way. And I hesitate to admit it, but there was a bit of a trajectory that we had started and which was interrupted by the fact of life, which was altered by… the tour, by circumstances, Molander confides cautiously. There was this lingering feeling in the back of our heads that we didn’t finish what we started. »
The pandemic, explains Devon Portielje, has also made it possible to immerse oneself in creation in a vacuum, in a three-way bubble. “It felt like 2010, and it was very exciting,” he enthuses.
This outstretched hand at the beginning of Half Moon Run partly explains the fact that the group proceeded, for Salt, to archaeological excavations in its archives to pick up titles under construction or forgotten ones. They ended up forming almost half of the final selection.
There was this lingering feeling in the back of our heads that we didn’t finish what we started
“We had this little two-track recorder that we used every time we james and we dug quite a bit, notes Devon. For the room 9beat, for example, we had 104 covers in the files over the years. It’s incredible. Regularly, we came back to it, we advanced to a certain point before getting lost and saying to ourselves “to hell with this song” and putting it aside for a few years. »
The “de-node-de-serpentisation” of this cursed piece – which turns out to be an astonishing mixture of Latin rhythms and folk rock melodies – came about in good part thanks to the record’s producer, Connor Seidel, who recently won his stripes with his collaborative project 1969, during which he encountered Half Moon Run. The sauce took so well during this session that their association for Salt almost went without saying for the trio.
Trust
Half Moon Run was in a situation where it had finished its contract with the Glassnote label, and the trio therefore had free rein for each stage of the creation. Including the director’s choice, among other things.
“I was always annoyed by how we did before, notes Conner Molander. Because basically, we create together in our practice room, surrounded by our speakers, playing together. And, then, we book a studio, away from home, where we record in different rooms, with headphones, with someone from London or Los Angeles, who has different tastes and different ideas from us about what the project should be… Why do we do it like that? ! »
This time it was different. Connor Seidel is based in Montreal, where he has his own studio, and he had strong affinities with the band. Half Moon Run was able to land confidently and even break a few studio rules, like using a reverb effect right from the first low-end console the band got, or even recording without Seidel, the speakers. open. During a spontaneous encounter in Istanbul, the piece Crawl Back In was recorded with open windows.
“But there’s a fine line if you break the rules,” Molander notes. If it had been the twenty-something version of ourselves that had made those decisions, it wouldn’t have worked. You have to know what you’re doing to break the rules. And so you have to find that place in your creative life to break those rules, by opening the windows. »
So there was free rein, but also confidence, and experience that came into play this time. “The reason we recorded this record like that is that we weren’t looking for mentorship on this record, we were looking for the right environment to do what we do best. »
Half Moon Run also relied on natural allies for other spheres, such as the cover and the creation of visuals, such as the music video for the piece. Alco. The trio called on Jennifer McCord, who lives in London.
We were looking for the right environment to do what we do best
“We told him: what if we went together, anywhere in the world, the jungle, the desert, in Africa, whatever! And of all the destinations in the world, she chose Oregon! But after the group’s slight disappointment, this choice made sense in the context of the sound signature of Salt. Devon illustrates: “It’s not urban, it’s nature, but not a hippie nature, it’s more foggy. It’s consistent with the West Coast. “Perhaps the water for the initial broth was salty…