Slight

The recent public falling out of Blink-182 is a reminder of the delicate equilibrium facing bands with two principal songwriters. But as the pop-punkers also proved, there are fruitful, peak years to be had when there are two strong-willed frontmen pushing each other to greater heights. A relative newcomer in the Lennon/McCartney or Krug/Boeckner mold are local psychedelic rockers Slight, led by guitarist Michael Hahn and keyboardist Danji Buck-Moore. After a whirlwind beginning with multiple drummers, a heavily amplified baritone saxophone and a more atmospheric debut, the duo is now ready to chip away at a full-length follow-up. In the meantime, they dropped two-sided single “Spirit School”/“Tasting” in October. The concise, hooky A-side is fronted by Hahn, while the more kaleidoscopic, languid B-side is Buck-Moore’s. The format is a casual nod to ’90s singles, where the hit gets paired with an out-there deep cut. “I’ve always loved bands that have two songwriters or more,” admits Hahn. “I love listening to Sonic Youth records and hearing a Kim Gordon song, then a Lee Ranaldo song next. Both of us have a bit of our own solo songwriting going on, but then we’re excited to come together and collaborate on the arrangements.” Adds Buck-Moore: “We write songs separately, then bring them to each other when they’re at some stage of completion, but that could vary from 60 per cent to 90 per cent. We’ve also super-glued separate, incomplete ideas together into one song.” Slight have little recorded material out there, but they’re in the process of stockpiling songs for the next album. Even though the recent single goes that route, Hahn doesn’t necessarily represent the pop side and Buck-Moore the adventurous one. “That’s why you get excited to form a band with someone in the first place,” says Hahn. “You’re on the same wavelength and you’re bringing a similar set of influences to the table. I would even say we’re influenced by each other and push each other to write better songs.” They’ve been doing much of their writing and recording at the Plant, the much-loved Mile Ex art space and venue. Both are part of the collective that runs it, so they’re familiar with the quirks of trying to achieve “weird amp alchemy” in such a hectic space where other artists are passing through. Their goal, they say, is to produce more noise with two people than listeners are accustomed to. “We’ve gotten good at it. We know what’s realistic,” says Buck-Moore. “We record there,” adds Hahn. “It can be totally crazy. We have this set-up figured out between our rooms where we put instruments and amps in Danji’s room and turn them up to full blast, then we record from my room with cables going across the space. It works pretty well. It’s as good a bedroom-style of recording session as you can hope for.” They say the Plant’s lease is coming up, and although other spaces of that type in the neighbourhood have fallen by the wayside, they’re optimistic about the future. As for the band, one can only hope their trajectory is as upward as fellow locals Ought, who not only have a similar sounding name, but were also Plant rehearsal space alumni. “One word bandnames are tight,” they both exclaim, adding that at the time both groups came up with their monikers, there was another band rehearsing at the Plant with the even more awesome name Debt. “I think everyone was just tired of being called Crystal Bear Girls,” jokes Hahn. “Maybe we’re trending away from multi-word animal bandnames.” ■ - Cult MTL

On SLIGHT's Melodion EP, the Montreal project welcomes any influence with a hint of defiant madness. You get the sense that their psychedelic pop and krautrock forebears are regarded with wide-eyed wonder and reverence. That they feel privileged to be making sounds like “Paths,” rippled with Silver Apples' lysergic experimentation and Can's autobahn propulsion, and as satisfying as taking a messy bite of fruit on a summer day. They visit these hallmark repeatedly, but what makes Melodion most rewarding is its dedication to making even its bleakest moments unmistakably beautiful. After being suffocated repeatedly by natural forces in the lyrics to “The Freakwave,” we're brought to rapturous Brian Wilson harmonies that urge us to smile at whatever cruel joke strikes us across the face. “Edison,” which is near funereal by comparison to the rest of the EP, is blunted by dreamy vocals that coo out a grim finality “No stopping flow now, it's here to stay/Yesterday felt so full of colour.” SLIGHT and their music stand out because they're not content just to take the power of their influences, they want to create it for themselves. To watch their own throne. It's a rare thing, and the work and ambition speak for themselves. - Chart Attack

From the orange mind of Catherine Debard:

Montreal’s Slight is channeling 90s psychedelic art rock and shoegazey melodies with this sweet haunting 2-track EP. The repetitive shimmering guitar line on “Spirit School” echoes a distant Sonic Youth pop era, the organ and melody carries us in a Spacemen 3 teenage afterschool hang out in empty parking lots, trashing cans. “Tasting” is heavier sounding, My Bloody Valentine layers of whistling drone and loud bass juxtaposed to prog pop flights of 60s sunshine. The vocals are efficient, as those melodies that stay on your mind. Dark and light, dancey and wild on a meticulously crafted canvas. - Weird Canada

A self-described psychedelic pop krautrock project, Slight find beauty in repetition and understatement. These Montrealers take cues from Neu! by constructing simple songs that take on more and more weight as they play out across successive bars with uncanny precision. With only three songs available on their Melodion EP, their live shows are a must-see, if only to find out what else they have up their sleeves. - AUX TV

Slight are a three-piece psychedelic pop band based in Montreal. Self-described as “swirling,” the music of Slight is somewhere between the feeling you feel during the first hours of dusk and a scientific experiment gone slightly wrong. We spoke to Michael Hahn from Slight about Montreal sounds, influences, and the underrated-ness of Tears for Fears.

How and when did Slight come about?

Slight really began with Danji and Michael discovering a too-good-to-pass-up song-writing partnership/mind-meld sometime in winter 2011. It was cold and we were growing disillusioned with the music school jazz arms race so we formed a freaked-out psych project called “Vostok 1” after the first manned space flight. Slight coalesced later as we settled into the line-up and aesthetic that we’ve been honing ever since.

There are a lot of influences in your music— you are also known to have covered Tears for Fears before in your live set. How would you describe the mood that is present in many of your songs?

Tears for Fears is criminally underrated, their studio sound is really interesting and dialed in! The Hurting is a near perfect record in our book. We’ve actually been toying with covering another one of their classics, stay tuned… Anyway, we’ve always described the mood we’re trying to inhabit as “swirling” — some kind of amalgam of our everything-modulating-all-the-time textural strategy and this psychic chord power harmonic thing we’re always trying to tap into.


You were known for previously having two drummers— did this effect the songwriting process?

Two drummers was kind of a forbidden fruit for a while, there have been some really interesting applications of it (The Allman Brothers during the Fillmore era, heck the Grateful Dead on Live/Dead!) but at the same time it’s got a bit of a Spinal Tap vibe. However, at the point when we realized we had two friends who were ready and willing we had to do it. When Julian left to work on his main project full-time (the blue, breathless, excellent band Seoul) it was a hard decision to scale it back to one percussionist, but the time was right. Trios are the shit.

Tell us some of your favourite sounds coming out of Montreal right now.

Freelove Fenner has always been one of the hardest-hitting Montreal bands for us. The clarity of ideas that they can smash into a two minute number is pretty awe-inspiring. We also just got our brain melted by Chairs, a band which contains the mighty Ian Jarvis/Matt LeGroulx combo of EXPWY fame. If all goes to plan we’ll be joining them on tour for a quick jaunt in the fall, hurrah!

Picks for this years POP Montreal Festival?

This one’s going be a real ripper. Suuns + Jerusalem In My Heart is a mean looking bill, we really dig The Besnard Lakes, Stars of the Lid is almost a bucket list show and MOTORHEAD!? Good grief!

What’s next for Slight?

At the moment, Slight is lovingly incubating a full-length LP. Hopefully it hatches into a phoenix, or a dino or something. It’s a major effort to pull together a coherent sounding eight-to-ten of the best damn songs you can write but it already seems fruitful and the level of excitement to go into the studio is getting insane. As I mentioned earlier, we’re also hitting the road for a few shows in the fall. It’ll be our first time so hopefully we can get our tour legs and get ready to blast the 401 and beyond in the future. - Pop Montreal