www.quebecantique.com
album on cdbaby (or iTunes)
Listen:
Quebec Antique - "Sleep"
Quebec Antique - "Under White Roofs"
Quebec Antique consists of a Canadian living in Oregon and an Englishman in Texas (where the two met). One gained experience in a rock band, the other comes from a classical background, and they met through a jazz guitarist they both know. Alongside slick electric drum beats, they throw in accordion, organ, and a grab bag of other weird sounds.
But instead of a mess, Michael Blake and Andy Dollerson of Quebec Antique make a marriage out of contrasts, melting their many inspirations into a fluid electronic pop. Instead of chaos, they uniquely construct a musical bricolage, with songs often more felt than heard. It's an art and a chemistry and a testament to fleeting common moments worth studying again.
After releasing their debut The Abbey Tapes, Blake moved to Portland, Andy renewed his visa, and both spoke with The Overcast.
The Overcast: What's your name and what do you do in Quebec Antique?
Blake: My name is Michael Blake. (I usually go by my last name because there are far too many Mikes around so my friends call me Blake.) In Quebec Antique I sing most of the songs and I play all kinds of crazy instruments, mainly guitars and accordions and ukuleles and pianos.
Andy: I'm Andy and I play some of the ivory instruments, pianos, and I do some of the beats and generally just support Blake in what he does. I'm the cheerleader.
Blake: Well you are also the main engineer.
Andy: I'm the main engineer. It's my computer, that's what that means.
What's the deal with you being in different cities?
Blake: We were living in Austin, Texas together for pretty much up until now. I just moved to Portland less than a month ago. So we are sort of kind of trying to feel out how feasible it is to be in separate cities. We've been Skyping and talking and promoting and stuff, but I am trying to not-so-subtly get this guy to relocate to the northwest.
Andy: Not subtly at all. I'm planning on going up there for a month or two towards the end of this year just to check it out, and I think we're going to do some more writing in a studio up there. The plan is to get together, keep the momentum going and carry on writing.
Could you talk about the move a little bit?
Blake: I'm actually from the northwest. I actually moved down [to Austin] with other musicians, with a band that I was in at the time. That band didn't get too far, but I met Andy during that time. My wife and I had been talking about moving to Portland for as long as we've been together, basically, so when we finished the record we were like, "Okay, it's time to go." My family's here, we want to start a family of our own too and we want to be close to family. We both had a really hard time saying goodbye to everybody because we had a lot of good friends in Austin, but we're also excited about Portland. So, we're just kind of playing it by ear right now. We don't even have jobs yet.
Andy: I miss him. And his wife. I've been up there a couple times before, playing with different bands. Actually I loved it. I've still got a few ends to tie up here. But then, probably past Christmas I'm not really sure where I'm going to be or what I'm going to be doing. Moving up there to do some serious live shows and some more writing is definitely a possibility.
Your sound has a lot of different dualisms to it, particularly combining those acoustic sounds and electronic sounds.
Andy: We both have quite a wide range in taste in music, and we were just trying to put as much of that influence from all these different bands as we could into the record. One that stands out to me is Sigur Ros--the massive sort of guitar-led sound, and we try to incorporate elements of that into the music, alongside more intricate beats of some of the electronic artists that we like, like Amon Tobin. ... I would say for the most part it was just experimentation, like, "Oh yeah, I really like the sound of that band and the way they shape that part of this song. I want to get that in our song." There's a lot of trial and error I think in terms of creating that sound.
Blake: When we were working on "Sleep" ... Andy was, like, pounding on this big tom and cymbals and we were trying to get a really Sigur Ros-y sound. It sounded just like a Sigur Ros song we liked, and then we were like, "Okay, that might not be a good idea." We took out the drums and just put in the electronic beats that we had been using previously in the song. In my mind, that was kind of where we figured out we really like guitar sounds and piano sounds and real organic sounding acoustic instruments, but we really also like this really stark digital drum sound, drum and bass kind of sound. And so we kind of started blending them together, and after that it was no going back.
You've mentioned using ukuleles, accordions, organs, whatever you've got. Where did that come from?
Blake: Well, for about a year previous to recording with Andy, I kind of went on a little binge where I decided I wanted to collect a bunch of weird instruments. And so I was on eBay for about a year just buying just weird stuff, like little vintage toy organs and melodicas and xylophones and toy music boxes and just whatever I thought would be interesting, you know, would make an interesting sound. And so when it came to time to record I had all this stuff and [we just said], "Let's just use it all." I think a huge part of making a record is you want it to be somewhat unique. I think that's where that came from--plus I wanted to get a good back on my investment, spending some money on toys. But what I really like about it as well is, we're taking these ukuleles or toy boxes or whatever and we're using them, but we're also using the digital medium to manipulate them. You can hear that on our record. You hear a ukulele, but then you hear it get totally digitally messed with, which I think is kind of a fun thing to do. It's kind of a fresh ability in this recording age to be able to do that kind of thing, and you can get some weird new sounds that really haven't been explored very much.
On being a music listener and a musician
Andy: When I listen to music, I listen for stuff that's different. I'm always looking for something that is innovative and that grabs my attention rhythmically. So doing the rhythmic side of songs, I was always pushing for something that's not just straight ahead, but I try to be as creative as I could with it. Or we try to, together, make it something that would grab people's attention in terms of, you know, this isn't just monotonous ... but there's always something new happening. I think that sort of is also the case in the sense of the layering that we try to make the songs as cohesive as possible--well, have a lot of depth to them sonically so that hopefully people will be able to go back and listen to it again and again and hear little things that they perhaps didn't hear before, buried in the mix a bit. Personally I get fed up with pop music sometimes because it grabs you instantly because it has a good groove to it, but after two or three listens there's nothing else to it, and you don't really want to listen to it again. I really like music that takes a few listens before you can begin to get into it, have that sort of interesting depth to it.
Blake: I agree with that. And also, every musician starts off as a music lover first. And at least when I listen to music, I'm always looking for what the song's going to make me feel. That's why love songs are so popular, because you can listen to a good love song and it makes you feel all those feelings that you have if you've been in love or if you are in love. So I'm always looking for that in music that I listen to. When I write a song, I guess I'm still trying to convey a feeling, whether it be about love or about something else.
Are there specific artists you would consider influences?
Andy: Sigur Ros, definitely.
Blake: Boards of Canada.
Andy: My favorite electronica artist is Murcof. I love what he's done. He definitely influenced me. I'm not sure if we really reflect that music. It's very different. But just the way he manipulates beats and melodic phrases and stuff, I always sort of have that in the back of my mind. (pause) Actually the Beatles.
Blake: (laughs) Well, yeah, that goes without saying.
Andy: Mariah Carey.
Blake: Uh, I can't sing that high.
Andy: I'm working on the falsetto for perhaps the next album. Seven-octave range.
Blake: Technically I am singing that high on some of the songs, but that's only because we put an octaver on my voice.
Andy: The Mariah Plug-In.
Blake: I guess, definitely, The Postal Service was a big one for us. Just 'cause they were, like, the closest thing that we could think about to what we were doing, in the sense that they're kind of a poppy sound with sort of a drum and bass kind of approach. I think what sets it apart a little bit more is I think we do rely a little bit more on the organic sounds. There's not a whole lot of organs in Postal Service music.
On growing into collaborative songwriting
Blake: For me, personally, I came from a place of being in a rock band, you know, and approaching songwriting just like, "Okay, what am I going to do with my guitar?" And this project was totally different than that. First of all, I was mainly writing on the piano instead of the guitar. And sometimes there was just a simple little melody line or chord progression that I liked and I would bring it to Andy and it would kind of go from there. I guess that was the other fun thing about the recording process--I would get a song as far as I could get it, then I would bring it to him and then he would just take it to this whole other level. I've just never written like that. In the past I've just created this whole song and then taken it to the band and [I'd] go "Here's the song." It was kind of interesting and fun to just start something really simple and then build it there and see where it goes.
On writing lyrics
Blake: I tend to approach a song music first and then lyric. ... For me [lyrics are] always the hardest part, 'cause it's a different mindset. Writing a melody is one kind of mental exercise, and then writing lyrics ... you have to use this whole other part of your mind to come up with rhymes and meter and cadence and all that. Also I want to try to say something interesting. I don't want to have a boring or mundane lyric. I try to think of something, an idea that I find is interesting or, I don't know, just, a feeling that I've had about something.
Andy: I'd say a similar thing for me as well. Lyrics are definitely my weak point when it comes to writing songs. I quite like how we wrote the songs together. ... We sat down together and tried to talk about what the song was beginning to mean and we'd try to figure out some lyrics together, just 'cause I was so awful at doing it. I needed help. So, I quite enjoyed that as well. If we hadn't done that, those songs probably wouldn't have gotten written. I'm not an English major.
Blake: But you are English.
Andy: I am English. That did help a little.
On the lyrics of "Sleep"
Blake: "Sleep," is mainly this little idea I had about this experience we all have where you wake up in the morning and you've been dreaming about something, and it's fresh in your mind, and as the day kind of goes on you kind of forget. Or sometimes you immediately forget the dream and you just get up and go on with your day, and then later on in the middle of the day randomly that dream will pop into your head. Sometimes that dream is very vivid, or it creates certain feelings in you. And then when you remember that dream, instantly it brings back all those feelings, and it just sort of floats back. It's sort of a common human experience, and so the song is just basically describing that experience and that feeling that you get. I want to elicit the feeling from the listener. I want to convey that idea, but ultimately I just want them to like the song, what they're hearing. Even if they don't completely know what it's about or understand it, I want them to go, "I just like the way that song feels."
On "Under White Roofs"
Andy: I was reading an article of Darfur, and it was sort of a description of a photo I saw in the article. There was a picture in there and it really struck me, of a woman standing on one side of a river, and these UN tents, refugee tents were on the other side of the river. Just that hopelessness and separation. That's where the lyrics started from.
I think that was the last one we wrote, and we got a lot of drums at that point. [And we said,] "All right, let's do a song that's a little bit more mellow." And I'd already been writing, we'd already come up with most of this song, so we just thought of doing it really chill. ... I think it just happened to work out that that photo really spoke to me. It's sad, and at the same time we wanted to do a song that was a little bit more chill, so it kind of just fit.
So what's coming up for you guys?
Andy: What have we got in the bag? Well, chattin' with someone about a video to "Sleep." I'm not sure when that's going to be done, but we're excited about that potential happening. We're quite keen to get placement, like, get our music into bigger media, so we're talking to a couple music houses about them taking our CD and showing it around. And then...
Blake: Film and TV work.
Andy: I've always wanted to have music on film and TV, another artistic thing. I really want to write more, so hopefully we'll start writing again, towards the end of this year hopefully.
Blake: Yeah, definitely. I know I've got some rough ideas that I'm working on that I'm excited to show to Andy, see what he thinks of them.
And is there anything else that you think we should know or that you want to throw in?
Blake: I think we should start an Internet fund that will help Andy with his move up to the Northwest.
Andy: That would be great.
Blake: If we can get all the fans to contribute just five or ten dollars, then we can finance his move up here and we can guarantee a second record.
Andy: Five or ten dollars a week, that is.