Biography
"Flotilla's One Hundred Words For Water stands out as one of the most original and engaging albums released by a new Canadian group recently."
-Exclaim!
"… You may get drawn in by Veronica Charnley's affecting vocals, Geof Holbrook's musical mission (bass, piano, organ, autoharp, kalimba, etc.) or [Eveline-Grégoire Rousseau's] concert harp, but the soul of their stirring songs will imprint themselves for a long while."
-Steve Guimond, The Hour
"OHWFW is not your standard indie rock record and in today's cookie cutter world, that's terrific. Flotilla shows that creative songs are still being written in the land of poutine and the status the region holds is still well deserved."
-Herohill
Flotilla earned their spot at the top of Exclaim! magazine’s shortlist of pop/rock bands to watch this year simply by leaking a couple of tracks from album One Hundred Words for Water, released in June 2009. Since then this half-anglo, half-franco, boy-girl, boy-girl band from Montreal has toured throughout the east coast of Canada and the US, recently making appearances at NXNE and the Evolve Festival. The album has received rave reviews, with Exclaim! calling it “one of the most original and engaging albums released by a new Canadian group recently”.
One event might have proved a distraction this year. Geof Holbrook, the band’s bassist, keyboardist, and producer/arranger, was a finalist in the much-publicized CBC Evolution National Composition Competition held in Banff, Alberta, in which he competed for a $20,000 prize. But Flotilla tagged along, hunkering down for a residency in the mountains in order to: 1. put the finishing touches on One Hundred Words for Water, 2. write new songs, and 3. to emerge, playing a show at the Banff Centre that was aired nationally on CBC.
With a classical harpist, an avant-garde composer, and a jazz-trained singer-songwriter on the roster, Flotilla makes for an unusual, genre-defying indie-rock outfit. They’ve toured internationally, and shared stages with Ohbijou, Hexes and Ohs, Ghost Bees, David Martel, Pink Noise, Cursed(!) and as well, quite proudly, with weirdo acts Deep Dark United and 101 Crustaceans. The music has been compared to Kate Bush, Bell Orchestre, Portishead, and Joanna Newsom (for reasons other than just the harp), and Veronica Charnley’s songs have been praised for their melodic inventiveness and vivid imagery. Charnley and Holbrook have teamed up on songwriting duties occasionally, and now they team up on their tax returns; they were married in August, and are now an indie-rock husband-and-wife team to be reckoned with.
About One Hundred Words for Water:
To make One Hundred Words for Water, Flotilla rented out Studio Loco, which is directly above much-loved Montreal venue Casa del Popolo, for three weeks. They arrived with half of the songs half-written; but access to long hours in the studio made possible a spontaneous, organic approach to completing them. Producer and engineer Robert-Eric Gaskell set up camp with the band, which proceeded to take advantage of whatever instruments were lying around (French horn, trombone, Fender rhodes, kalimba, autoharp, a honky-tonk piano and a spinet organ someone’s grandmother had left there). They practically lived off the sandwiches sold by Casa downstairs -- their favourite was called “Miel Madness”. The recording process, like the sandwich, was at once maddening and sweet as honey.
The resulting album is White-Album-esque in its diversity. Operatic, eccentric, contemplative, raucous, harmonious, abstract and heartfelt are all applicable adjectives. All this is on display at their live shows, where the band performs the album (and a lot of new material already), very often expanding the palette with guest musicians from a variety of backgrounds.
Instrumentation
Veronica Charnley - guitar, vocals
Eveline Grégoire-Rousseau - harp
Geof Holbrook - keyboards, bass, electronics
Benoit Monière - drums
Discography
Disaster Poetry, 2006
Ladyfest Compilation, 2008
One Hundred Words For Water, 2009
Links
| http://www.myspace.com/flotillamontreal |