Whiteroom

This is truly one of the most complex and textured albums of the year. Ranging from folk to rock to latin to jazz, the album is a kaleidoscope of musical influences changing in such rapid succession as to be constantly challenging the listener to relate to a concept before pulling the rug out from under them. While definitely not "easy listening", WhiteRoom is engaging, thought provoking, and at times achingly beautiful... if not a bit too frenetic.

Written and produced by the Montreal based duo Alex Dray and Eddy Silva Frade, the album boasts a long list of accomplished guest performers playing a variety of instruments such as trumpet, cello and tuba. The unique talent of these performances and the richness of the orchestration adds to the overall texture of the album, giving it a much more complex and ornate feeling then most mainstream music today.

While dense, the album remains accessible on many levels and is particularly evident on some of the more catchy numbers like Ordinary Day and Barcelona. The vocals are the highlight of the album, mixing sweet melodies with Beatles-esque harmonies that float lightly on top of all the madness. At first listen WhiteRoom is an overwhelming auditory experience, but subsequent listens reveal an elegant and sophisticated album unlike any you have heard.

http://capsulerecords.com
- Capsule

There are purists out there who think that music is dying. There have been these same naysayers for a number of years, citing a lack of creativity and a bulk of weird and different for the sake of weird and different. WhiteRoom is about to blot out these same people by shoving their self-titled album down their throats. WhiteRoom's music is a collage of everything great about Brit rock from 1964 to 1977, then 1994 to the present, skipping the embarrassing fads of the 1980s and cutting back and forth between the juicy bits, from Radiohead squalls to upbeat Beatles ditties. It should make anyone a fan of music again. If you like the Cooper Temple Clause, you should love WhiteRoom. More eclectic and less likely to get lost within their own song. Highly recommended.

http://www.decoymusic.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21891
- Decoy Magazine

This is truly one of the most complex and textured albums of the year. Ranging from folk to rock to latin to jazz, the album is a kaleidoscope of musical influences changing in such rapid succession as to be constantly challenging the listener to relate to a concept before pulling the rug out from under them. While definitely not "easy listening", WhiteRoom is engaging, thought provoking, and at times achingly beautiful... if not a bit too frenetic.

Written and produced by the Montreal based duo Alex Dray and Eddy Silva Frade, the album boasts a long list of accomplished guest performers playing a variety of instruments such as trumpet, cello and tuba. The unique talent of these performances and the richness of the orchestration adds to the overall texture of the album, giving it a much more complex and ornate feeling then most mainstream music today.

While dense, the album remains accessible on many levels and is particularly evident on some of the more catchy numbers like Ordinary Day and Barcelona. The vocals are the highlight of the album, mixing sweet melodies with Beatles-esque harmonies that float lightly on top of all the madness. At first listen WhiteRoom is an overwhelming auditory experience, but subsequent listens reveal an elegant and sophisticated album unlike any you have heard.

http://capsulerecords.com
- Capsule

I found WhiteRoom, an indie band from Montreal, just a few days ago while doing my rounds. WhiteRoom was officially born in September of 2006 - a good month I might add, as it was also the birth month of a Western Massachusetts Local Currency, BerkShares. The band arose from the creative brains of Alex Dray and Eddy Silva who took their collective years and diverse music interests and turned them into the sonic adventure that you are about to experience.

The track from their self titled album that I chose for today's post is Papillons, I assume after the papillon, a dog marked by its butterfly like ears. This track has all of the energy of a thousand butterflies tempered by mellow vocals and kept steady with skilled instrumentation. The music is tough to nail to a specific genre, the influences being all over the road. 90s pop / break beat / Beatles / Eastern ethnic / ambient piano. Speaking of butterflies, sounds like Joe Frank buried in the background murmuring about white butterflies too beautiful to imagine.

The description "a firm foundation of Introspective Indie Rock while drifting fluidly between latin jazz, urban beats, haunting trip-hop and romantic cinema sound-scapes" hits the mark pretty well. I bet WhiteRoom is great live. - Black Sweater, White Cat

I found WhiteRoom, an indie band from Montreal, just a few days ago while doing my rounds. WhiteRoom was officially born in September of 2006 - a good month I might add, as it was also the birth month of a Western Massachusetts Local Currency, BerkShares. The band arose from the creative brains of Alex Dray and Eddy Silva who took their collective years and diverse music interests and turned them into the sonic adventure that you are about to experience.

The track from their self titled album that I chose for today's post is Papillons, I assume after the papillon, a dog marked by its butterfly like ears. This track has all of the energy of a thousand butterflies tempered by mellow vocals and kept steady with skilled instrumentation. The music is tough to nail to a specific genre, the influences being all over the road. 90s pop / break beat / Beatles / Eastern ethnic / ambient piano. Speaking of butterflies, sounds like Joe Frank buried in the background murmuring about white butterflies too beautiful to imagine.

The description "a firm foundation of Introspective Indie Rock while drifting fluidly between latin jazz, urban beats, haunting trip-hop and romantic cinema sound-scapes" hits the mark pretty well. I bet WhiteRoom is great live. - Black Sweater, White Cat

WhiteRoom at its essence is the duo of friends Alex Dray and Eddy Silva who came together in high school. Stylistically, they drifted in and out of groups in the Montreal, Canada music scene, experimenting with musical amalgams. Fast-forward five years, and the pair “gave up natural light and hunkered down in a claustrophobic basement bunker,” says Dray. “To call it a studio at the time is delusional, since it was essentially a bare room with a computer running Cubase, a sound card and two pairs of $20 headphones.” They invited in musicians—and sourced a variety of unusual outlets and samples—to flesh out their vision. The result? A sound they call ‘NeoRomantic Pop’.

Alex confesses that as ‘children of the digital domain’, almost the entire record was recorded on a Dell PIII computer with an Event Gina 16-bit sound card running Cubase 5. “We disagree fundamentally with audiophiles who swear that tape-based systems, tube compressors or vinyl recordings have a ‘soul’ that is lacking in digital set-ups. Of course, we have some beautiful pieces of analog gear: a Roland Juno 60, a Roland JX-3P and Korg MS-20 are prized possessions. We used the Roland Space Echo RE-201 lavishly and with great affection. For sampling we used an Akai S6000, which its own particular D/A A/D coloration and warmth.”

All the instruments, from the conventional to the exotic, were tracked using stereo techniques using a pair of cardioid Shure SM-81s in combination with an AKG 414 BULS—in a room with little acoustic treatment and low ceilings. “We had to close mic everything to reduce the effect of flutter tones, flanging and phasing and just about every other nasty room noise that you can imagine,” he remembers. Vocals were captured almost exclusively with a $200 second-hand M-Audio Luna mic, which sounded amazing.

While the writing phase usually began before recording, once the song hit the production phase, it went in unforeseen directions. Working with samples to enhance their music—whether from sources such as vintage vinyl or ones they create themselves. “On the song ‘Ender’, Shen Qi was invited to improvise on Er-Hu (a two-stringed Chinese ‘violin’). We were left with about an hour of material from which we created a 1-minute solo. The solo itself contains over 100 different samples from the original improvisation, edited together to make a fluid musical line.”

Live drums were pretty much the last thing that was recorded. They upgraded to the 8-input/20-bit Layla card, borrowed some mics including a D112, a few more 81s and some SM57s. “Almost every song was recorded/produced initially to sequenced drums. Although it made performance difficult, and a lot of time adjustments was made after tracking was finished (although no Beat Detective, thank you very much), there are many instances when we chose to double layer the original sequencing with live drums over the top. The intermingling of live drums with synth drums had a huge impact on the style of drumming as we sought to make the two fluidly intermingle.” - Electronic Musician Magazine

WhiteRoom at its essence is the duo of friends Alex Dray and Eddy Silva who came together in high school. Stylistically, they drifted in and out of groups in the Montreal, Canada music scene, experimenting with musical amalgams. Fast-forward five years, and the pair “gave up natural light and hunkered down in a claustrophobic basement bunker,” says Dray. “To call it a studio at the time is delusional, since it was essentially a bare room with a computer running Cubase, a sound card and two pairs of $20 headphones.” They invited in musicians—and sourced a variety of unusual outlets and samples—to flesh out their vision. The result? A sound they call ‘NeoRomantic Pop’.

Alex confesses that as ‘children of the digital domain’, almost the entire record was recorded on a Dell PIII computer with an Event Gina 16-bit sound card running Cubase 5. “We disagree fundamentally with audiophiles who swear that tape-based systems, tube compressors or vinyl recordings have a ‘soul’ that is lacking in digital set-ups. Of course, we have some beautiful pieces of analog gear: a Roland Juno 60, a Roland JX-3P and Korg MS-20 are prized possessions. We used the Roland Space Echo RE-201 lavishly and with great affection. For sampling we used an Akai S6000, which its own particular D/A A/D coloration and warmth.”

All the instruments, from the conventional to the exotic, were tracked using stereo techniques using a pair of cardioid Shure SM-81s in combination with an AKG 414 BULS—in a room with little acoustic treatment and low ceilings. “We had to close mic everything to reduce the effect of flutter tones, flanging and phasing and just about every other nasty room noise that you can imagine,” he remembers. Vocals were captured almost exclusively with a $200 second-hand M-Audio Luna mic, which sounded amazing.

While the writing phase usually began before recording, once the song hit the production phase, it went in unforeseen directions. Working with samples to enhance their music—whether from sources such as vintage vinyl or ones they create themselves. “On the song ‘Ender’, Shen Qi was invited to improvise on Er-Hu (a two-stringed Chinese ‘violin’). We were left with about an hour of material from which we created a 1-minute solo. The solo itself contains over 100 different samples from the original improvisation, edited together to make a fluid musical line.”

Live drums were pretty much the last thing that was recorded. They upgraded to the 8-input/20-bit Layla card, borrowed some mics including a D112, a few more 81s and some SM57s. “Almost every song was recorded/produced initially to sequenced drums. Although it made performance difficult, and a lot of time adjustments was made after tracking was finished (although no Beat Detective, thank you very much), there are many instances when we chose to double layer the original sequencing with live drums over the top. The intermingling of live drums with synth drums had a huge impact on the style of drumming as we sought to make the two fluidly intermingle.” - Electronic Musician Magazine

The cosmopolitan influence, and the local sound inspire the many voices of Montreal. A polyphonic sound created by its festivals.


In Montreal, the crisis of the record industry does not seem to exist. It is sufficient to take a walk around the famous Plateau Mont Royal area to witness the numerous music stores that promote the highly creative local talent.

In recent months, much has been written about such local bands that have gone on to be famous such as: Arcade Fire, Feist, Rufus Wainright, and The Dears.

A new trend is taking place in which the city has already created a following. As demonstrated by Pop Montreal’s attractive advertisement. Pop Montreal is an alternative music festival whose objectives, among others is to fight the monoculture of big corporations, let alone, the will to put in evidence the cultural liveliness of the city.

The group White Room is part of this trend. They were formed five years ago, thanks to the friendship between Alex Dray and Eddy Silva. Their music can be described as romantic neo-pop with a poetic folk sound. It is a pot-pouri that combines the latest influences, as evidenced in their first self-titled CD (FreeWorld Records). According to band member Alex,” Our goal is to travel the world absorbing diverse musical styles, and to incorporate it into our music.”


Montreal is a cosmopolitan place where bilingualism gives life to the parallel Francophone and Anglophone scenes of rock, electronic, folk, and hip hop music. One of the groups that best embody this trend is local band Patrick Watson, who released their second cd last October entitled “Close to Paradise” (Secret City Records). This release proved to be very successful.

In spite of the name, this group consists of four members. According to the band leader, “For two years, we searched for a name which expresses the cohesion of our band. Unable to find one, we decided to name it after me.”

From a music point of view, these artists not yet into their thirties, declared their love for music by Pink Floyd. A band from which they have drawn inspiration, and derived a musical lightness that confers a hypnotic aura to their music. The same lightness as the music of Martha Wainright, sister of Rufus Wainright, who is working on an album due to be released next autumn. This would be a follow-up to her successful first album. Nora Jones declared Martha, “the artist most listened to this year”.

Raised in a family of musicians, Martha grew up listening to music.

The electronic panorama includes “So this is Goodbye” (Domino). This is the second album by The Junior Boys, and a single will be released in March. This band divides their time above all else between Ottawa and La Belle Province. With talented groups like these, we are left wondering what is the secret to Montreal.

It is worth turning our attention to White Room, who seem destined to become popular on the international scene.

According to Alex Dray, “In many cities, a single style of music dominates, and hundreds of bands do nothing but try to imitate this single style. There are few original pieces. Here instead, you can stay awake for three days in a row to absorb the diverse influences in the music of Montreal. There is a present feeling in our music. And those that know this city can perceive the voice.
- Olivier Roerbach

How to get your album to 10.000 ears in 2 months on Jamendo…
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

A quick usecase of our new BuzzTeam feature!

WhiteRoom (a Canadian pop band) released their eponymous album on Jamendo on February 09th of this year. It initially received a few good reviews and begun making its way in the Jamendo community.

Then a few days ago, Mike Linksvayer discovered the album (it would be interesting to know how) and liked it. Mike happens to be the CTO of Creative Commons and the primary contributor to their highly popular weblog. He included a player widget of the WhiteRoom album on a post about Rythmbox+Jamendo.

A few days later: the album was listened to more than 10.000 times, it received more reviews and was added to the finest playlists on Jamendo. Mike is now of course the most active member of the WhiteRoom BuzzTeam with more than 1700 referrals!

This is the most outstanding example of BuzzTeam use to date but there are many, many others. Even if your blog isn’t as popular as the Creative Commons one, the artists welcome every single effort to help them spread their music, so let’s share your favourite albums!
- Jamendo Editors

How to get your album to 10.000 ears in 2 months on Jamendo…
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

A quick usecase of our new BuzzTeam feature!

WhiteRoom (a Canadian pop band) released their eponymous album on Jamendo on February 09th of this year. It initially received a few good reviews and begun making its way in the Jamendo community.

Then a few days ago, Mike Linksvayer discovered the album (it would be interesting to know how) and liked it. Mike happens to be the CTO of Creative Commons and the primary contributor to their highly popular weblog. He included a player widget of the WhiteRoom album on a post about Rythmbox+Jamendo.

A few days later: the album was listened to more than 10.000 times, it received more reviews and was added to the finest playlists on Jamendo. Mike is now of course the most active member of the WhiteRoom BuzzTeam with more than 1700 referrals!

This is the most outstanding example of BuzzTeam use to date but there are many, many others. Even if your blog isn’t as popular as the Creative Commons one, the artists welcome every single effort to help them spread their music, so let’s share your favourite albums!
- Jamendo Editors

1. Who the heck is the White Room and how did you get your start?

Our introduction to computer based production was came very early. Alex was working briefly on a project with a friend of his at the time, Justin West (now owner of Secret City records in Montreal) who showed him a brief prophetic glimpse into the future of basement production.
After the project with Justin disintegrated, he lent Alex his copy of Cubase 5 and Fruity loops, a few SM58 microphones and a 2 channel 16 bit Event Gina sound card. Some of the tracks that made it to the album (like ‘At Odds’) were sketched almost right away and sat around collecting digital dust for a long time. That was over 9 years ago!

WhiteRoom itself had a very organic birth. Eddy, Alex and Paco have been playing together in one form or another in several different groups since early high school. We drifted from a young alternative rock band through reggae/hip-hop and ended up in an experimental improvisational jazz/electronica ensemble. At this point we were already playing with Matt Wiviott (who plays upright bass on the LP). After this group went its temporarily separate ways, Alex and Eddy gave up natural light and hunkered down in a claustrophobic basemen bunker. To call it a studio at the time is delusional, since it was essentially a bare room with a computer running Cubase, a sound card and two pairs of $20 headphones. However – over the years –we very, very gradually added components and upgrades.
In the summer of 2002 – Alex went to Mexico and had his heart split in two by a beautiful French Canadian – upon his return Eddy and Alex cut school for two weeks and recorded ‘Puppeteering’ – WhiteRoom was officially born.



2. How would you describe the music to someone who hasn’t heard the music?

After careful musicological study, we have identified our genre as NeoRomantic Pop. That is to say – we like the notion that there is a larger scale concept that we’re trying to tap into while writing: emotional, intellectual, thought-provoking or whatever. But musically, we try and let our instincts guide us. I.e. if its sounds good, it is good. Regardless of the complexity of our harmonies, the intricacy of our creative process or how advanced the theory.
For that reason- we find it very difficult to stay within one style, or one framework. Ender and Papillons feature extensive sampling, processing and programming. But something like Ordinary Day is of a very simple acoustic style – almost like a folk song.
We were definitely all children of the 90s Alternative Rock Golden age: Radiohead, Smashing Pumkpins, Blur, Portishead. But the more different music we listened to, the more we began to hear our heroes' influences as well. For instance, Radiohead draws a lot of their energy from the Beatles, while a lot of their harmonies go back to the Classical Romantic composers...so we spent a lot of time listening to those composers-Lizt, Schuman Chopin and so on. But of course by this time we had started absorbing so many genres: Hip-Hop, Columbian Latin-Jazz, UK break-beats; the beginning of jazz and be-bop in Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, to name just a few. You can hear all these influences in our music.

We also try to draw musical ideas from not only the actual music we listen to, but also films we've watched, places we've been, lovers we've lost, random thoughts at 4am after way too much coffee and cigarettes. In the end music is about story-telling. If you have no story to tell, your music may be pretty or catchy, but it will be also be hollow and empty. We went around telling everyone that we sounded like Radiohead for a while, since they have been such a huge influence on us – but many people found the comparison simplistic. At the end of the day, we enjoy saying people can expect NeoRomantic Pop and letting them (and the music) decide what that means.

3. Talk about the creation of the new CD from a writing/compiling standpoint… do you write fully realized compositions or is the creation process experimental and spontaneous…?

Production is always a pretty absorbing process. On some songs, the timbre/sound of the recording ends up becoming as important as the melodies and rhythms used. For instance ‘Ender’ was originally written as an alternative rock song (you can get a glimpse of the original form at the very beginning of the LP). Although the harmony and lyrics remain the same– the song is almost unrecognizable in its current Acid Jazz/Trip Hop form –undergoing a huge metamorphosis during production. The parts of many songs were recorded and recorded several times as we adapted the playing, mastered new techniques or just got technically better as musicians. Its amazing what sounds great at 2AM for instance after a few glasses of wine, but sounds terrible in the raw light of the next morning.

We both sit down to conventional instruments (i.e. piano, guitar) to begin the writing process – but once that s - Frantik Magazine

1. Who the heck is the White Room and how did you get your start?

Our introduction to computer based production was came very early. Alex was working briefly on a project with a friend of his at the time, Justin West (now owner of Secret City records in Montreal) who showed him a brief prophetic glimpse into the future of basement production.
After the project with Justin disintegrated, he lent Alex his copy of Cubase 5 and Fruity loops, a few SM58 microphones and a 2 channel 16 bit Event Gina sound card. Some of the tracks that made it to the album (like ‘At Odds’) were sketched almost right away and sat around collecting digital dust for a long time. That was over 9 years ago!

WhiteRoom itself had a very organic birth. Eddy, Alex and Paco have been playing together in one form or another in several different groups since early high school. We drifted from a young alternative rock band through reggae/hip-hop and ended up in an experimental improvisational jazz/electronica ensemble. At this point we were already playing with Matt Wiviott (who plays upright bass on the LP). After this group went its temporarily separate ways, Alex and Eddy gave up natural light and hunkered down in a claustrophobic basemen bunker. To call it a studio at the time is delusional, since it was essentially a bare room with a computer running Cubase, a sound card and two pairs of $20 headphones. However – over the years –we very, very gradually added components and upgrades.
In the summer of 2002 – Alex went to Mexico and had his heart split in two by a beautiful French Canadian – upon his return Eddy and Alex cut school for two weeks and recorded ‘Puppeteering’ – WhiteRoom was officially born.



2. How would you describe the music to someone who hasn’t heard the music?

After careful musicological study, we have identified our genre as NeoRomantic Pop. That is to say – we like the notion that there is a larger scale concept that we’re trying to tap into while writing: emotional, intellectual, thought-provoking or whatever. But musically, we try and let our instincts guide us. I.e. if its sounds good, it is good. Regardless of the complexity of our harmonies, the intricacy of our creative process or how advanced the theory.
For that reason- we find it very difficult to stay within one style, or one framework. Ender and Papillons feature extensive sampling, processing and programming. But something like Ordinary Day is of a very simple acoustic style – almost like a folk song.
We were definitely all children of the 90s Alternative Rock Golden age: Radiohead, Smashing Pumkpins, Blur, Portishead. But the more different music we listened to, the more we began to hear our heroes' influences as well. For instance, Radiohead draws a lot of their energy from the Beatles, while a lot of their harmonies go back to the Classical Romantic composers...so we spent a lot of time listening to those composers-Lizt, Schuman Chopin and so on. But of course by this time we had started absorbing so many genres: Hip-Hop, Columbian Latin-Jazz, UK break-beats; the beginning of jazz and be-bop in Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, to name just a few. You can hear all these influences in our music.

We also try to draw musical ideas from not only the actual music we listen to, but also films we've watched, places we've been, lovers we've lost, random thoughts at 4am after way too much coffee and cigarettes. In the end music is about story-telling. If you have no story to tell, your music may be pretty or catchy, but it will be also be hollow and empty. We went around telling everyone that we sounded like Radiohead for a while, since they have been such a huge influence on us – but many people found the comparison simplistic. At the end of the day, we enjoy saying people can expect NeoRomantic Pop and letting them (and the music) decide what that means.

3. Talk about the creation of the new CD from a writing/compiling standpoint… do you write fully realized compositions or is the creation process experimental and spontaneous…?

Production is always a pretty absorbing process. On some songs, the timbre/sound of the recording ends up becoming as important as the melodies and rhythms used. For instance ‘Ender’ was originally written as an alternative rock song (you can get a glimpse of the original form at the very beginning of the LP). Although the harmony and lyrics remain the same– the song is almost unrecognizable in its current Acid Jazz/Trip Hop form –undergoing a huge metamorphosis during production. The parts of many songs were recorded and recorded several times as we adapted the playing, mastered new techniques or just got technically better as musicians. Its amazing what sounds great at 2AM for instance after a few glasses of wine, but sounds terrible in the raw light of the next morning.

We both sit down to conventional instruments (i.e. piano, guitar) to begin the writing process – but once that s - Frantik Magazine