>>PREVIEW
THE MOST SERENE REPUBLIC
Friday, August 12
Warehouse
You get the feeling this sort of thing doesn’t happen with Jet. When Ryan Lenssen, keyboardist and songwriter for The Most Serene Republic talks about their bassist, he also refers to him as the band librarian. In fact, Lenssen reveals that many of singer Adrian Jewett’s lyrics on the band’s debut Underwater Cinematographer contain literary references intended solely to please the group’s bassist Andrew McCarthur.
The well-read nature of The Most Serene Republic finds its musical equivalent in conversation with Lenssen, where Igor Stravinsky pops up alongside Do Make Say Think, Bill Evans, and the Dismemberment Plan. Those influences are widespread on Underwater Cinematographer, with leaps into electronica on "Where Cedar Nouns and Adverbs Walk," bossa nova on "King of No One" and the unconventional layering of vocalists Jewett and Emma Ditchburn throughout.
"What people are looking for right now is a really full, symphonic sound. That can’t be achieved without more people playing instruments," says Lenssen from his studio in Milton, Ontario. He happily describes the band (rounded out by guitarist Nick Graves and drummer Adam Nimmo) as coming from out of nowhere, and they surprised some by becoming the first band outside Broken Social Scene’s immediate circle to be signed to their Arts & Crafts label. "When Mahler started using a 20-piece section of horns in his music, people noticed. I don’t think a band can be complete without females, without trying to grasp as many instruments as you can possibly fit in, like a string section, a percussion section, a rhythm section."
The making of Underwater Cinematographer was painstaking. Lenssen assembled hours of electronic drum samples and intermingled them with the live percussion of Brampton-born drummer Nimmo on the finished tracks. With four months of backing tracks complete, vocals were approached in an equally unconventional manner.
"We were exploding onto analogue tape. When we got the vocals we started to get really crazy. Adrian refused to record in the studio, so we recorded outside on the highway here (and) in a train station. ‘Relative’s Eyes’ was recorded when we went camping," says Lenssen.
"‘Proposition 61’ set the mood. We were in the recording studio – the lights were off, a condenser mic in the middle of the room. We all sat, 20 of us, maybe more, clapping. We made a mistake, started laughing and kept going. Everyone stood in a line and started yelling at each other. It was very fulfilling."
Although the band deserve to be considered alongside Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, and Stars, The Most Serene Republic are young enough to reveal the influence of the last time experimentation mixed with chart success. "Kid A (by Radiohead), Moby’s Play, those are perfect examples of albums that wrecked our lives," Lenssen says with a laugh.
Lenssen colourfully describes The Most Serene Republic’s eclecticism and its transition to live performance, previously resulting in front man Jewett in a powder-blue tuxedo for the group’s Toronto debut. "Our creative ADD branches off into absolutely everything we do. We’ve done stupid things, like paste glow-sticks to our bodies and turn off the lights – things we think would really wow and shock people. You soon realize you get tired of it. We’re lucky because the music itself presents an attitude of ‘don’t expect anything because as soon as you start, we’re going to hit you with something else,’" he says, before adding, "At the same time, I guess you could expect that." |
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