For the past months we’ve been busy working on some interesting side projects composing full orchestral pieces. We have also been developing some new material while hibernating through this snowy winter. We really enjoy writing in the winter time.
We will have an upcoming show scheduled in march, we’ll have the date available soon. we’re looking forward in being back in Montreal and seeing you all again
cheers!
elsieanne and stephane
Hi!
Happy New Year.
Vaporous came in at number 29 in the Aural Bliss 50 Most Blissful tracks of 2007 countdown! They will be counting them down starting Jan 20th on Aural Bliss - Auralgasms Radio.
Aural Bliss airs every Sunday 10PM-Midnight EST. 2 hrs of Dreampop, Britpop, Triphop, Shoegaze and Electronica.
There is a live chat during the show for listeners all over the world to meet and discuss the music. we would like to invite you to tune in! Auralgasms Radio <http://www.auralgasms.com/radio/>
Cheers,
elsiane
In the past months many people have been asking us about our album cover wanting to know more about the image . The contortionist image is actually a painting created by Montreal artists known as MTAF (Krista Bursey and Jason Wasserman). This 48″x 36″ painting was inspired by the song Mend. This contortionist represents Elsieanne’s vocal melodies, it’s what they called a Vocal contortion.
For us this work symbolizes and evokes many key elements that coincide with the music; the connection to the human body and soul, anxiety and paranoia as well as a discomforting beauty.
On Thursday, September 6th, we get to indulge our love of film by playing at the Drake Hotel in Toronto. The Drake Hotel is the official headquarters for the Toronto International Film Festival, and we’re excited to be part of their programming for TIFF for our first show in Toronto. We’re in good company, with Vancouver’s Circlesquare sharing the stage that evening. We go on at 9PM, and it’s only $5 at the door. Capacity is only 150 so it will be an intimate first meeting with all of our friends in Toronto.
1150 Queen St, Toronto
http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/tiff.asp
Back in Montreal, we’ll be playing our first show at home after taking the summer off to write new music and relax. You’ll find us at the Tree stage at Osheaga festival on Sunday, September 9th at 9pm. This will be the first outdoor festival that we play at, and we’re looking forward to playing outside in nature and seeing you all again.
www.osheaga.com
“I’ve never dug deeply into jazz as a genre. My dad is a trombone player who plays jazz, as well as in orchestras. I remember listening to him play at a very young age but any influences aren’t really conscious. We never listened to free jazz around the house; it was more along the lines of Miles Davis. Vocally I never dug deep into jazz history despite what people may hear in my voice, I guess I still have a lot to discover. I’m more interested in discovering older stuff these days than discovering new bands.” – Elsieanne.
“As a drummer you need a certain amount of technical ability to play jazz, you have to understand music as a language. I studied a lot of jazz rudiments on my own to make myself more ambidextrous as a drummer but I was never really into music theory. I just wanted to be part of a band and to play something that had emotion and that comes from the heart. I wanted to learn at least a little bit of jazz technique so I’d have more of a vocabulary and ability to play different patterns and make things interesting but really music needs to come from the heart to satisfy me. The music we do has a lot of rhythmic patterns – half jazz, half rock – but they’re always in support of the melody and emotion in a song. We like big, epic, lush orchestration.” – Stephane.
Elsiane are fans of Cinematic Orchestra’s evocative lushness and highly recommend checking them out at this year’s Montreal Jazz Festival. “I played their records so much that I destroyed them!” says Stephane.
“Jazz is such a different musical language, I’ve never really explored in depth. I like music that has jazz influences more then pure jazz. So when I discovered Portishead it was like entering into a new musical world for me. It was such a rich mixture, very jazzy but also bluesy, and orchestral. It was very melancholic, dark, dramatic and epic all at the same time. I love music that comes from a dark place. I also love Massive Attack, it’s funny how I’ve discovered other artists through them…like Led Zeppelin! Or, for instance, I discovered Portishead before I discovered Billy Holiday and only later realized that she had influenced them. The same is true of Herbie Hancock, who I discovered through Hooverphonic. In many ways I’ve come to get to know not only jazz but also rock bands like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd through acid jazz .” – Elsieanne.
“As a drummer you have to look at jazz as a pretty incredible sort of music because there’s so much involved. We listen to jazz in so many other contexts than the traditional one, and a lot of the music I’ve listened to over the years comes from and is influenced by jazz – from rock to acid jazz. As a drummer I love listening to what Buddy Rich did. I love stuff like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, which is like the earliest acid jazz really. I like Coltrane too, but I was never really a jazz fanatic.
Especially in terms of rhythm, jazz was just so out there that we’re still catching up. For instance Squarepusher, so many people hear his beats and go on about how new and amazing it is but if you listen to it, to the beats and rhythms, and then listen to Buddy Rich… He was playing that super sped up drum & bass, that you’d think would be physically impossible to play, and he was doing it back before synthesizers and drum machines. You take a traditional jazz beat and speed it up and all of a sudden you’ve got drum & bass, I was so inspired by that whole movement when it came out.” – Stephane.
“We’re accidental jazz!” – Elsiane.
Elsiane are fans of Amon Tobin’s muscular depth and artful melancholy and highly recommend checking him out at this year’s Montreal Jazz Festival.
Don’t miss elsiane show on July 3rd @ Club Soda, 11pm. Visit www.montrealjazzfest.com for more details.