Joseph Shabason, Kristian North, and BIG|BRAVE
Joseph Shabason
The Fellowship // Telephone Explosion
Reckoning with religious trauma has become a very common trope lately, and it seems the Millennial and Gen Z deconstruction movement on social media has seeped into all corners of our music too. Ethel Cain, Lil Nas X, and serpentwithfeet have all taken a crack at it with widely praised results, and that’s just in the last month! There are countless more examples in recent memory. Despite gobs of new music addressing religious themes, what sets The Fellowship apart from the rest in this quickly saturated motif is that it doesn’t grant the audience a lyrical narrator - it’s an entirely instrumental approach to the subject.
The Fellowship follows a narrative arc through Joseph Shabason’s childhood and eras of change in his life, almost as if Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” was distilled down to an instrumental album. The family history that preceded his upbringing was marked by tumult. His grandparents survived the holocaust, but not without a tremendous amount of trauma that bled into the family dynamics. All of this led to tensions throughout the family tree and provides the backdrop for Shabason’s personal experiences, his upbringing in an insular Islamic community, and his eventual spiritual liberation. The first two tracks refer to his family history, and from there he switches the perspective, spending the rest of the album on his personal journey.
The individual tracks vary in mood and tone, referring to specific eras in Shabason’s life that marked his and his family’s journey. At times we are comforted by fond memories and inklings of grace and forgiveness, whereas in other moments, he gives us indications of still festering traumas, stages of existential crises, and heavy clouds of shame and guilt. Whether it be an unconventional use of saxophones, samples of his childhood memories, jilted percussion, or free form guitar solos, Shabason uses a tapestry of tones to guide you gently through his life. Memories of his childhood are conveyed through sampling familiar sounds: chalk on the sidewalk, conversations heard through walls, faint laughter in the distance. When these visceral sensory memories are paired with horns, woodwinds, and guitars dancing in effortless unison, it becomes an experience not only unique to Shabason’s life, but something that we can all feel beautiful catharsis in.
To pack so much narrative into an instrumental record is a bold undertaking, and some may bristle at the idea of an album so weighed down by its own concept that it requires an explanation of the artist’s upbringing to appreciate it. But despite the unwieldy concept, Shabason approaches it with such style and grace that any preconceived notions are quickly washed away as his sonic world and narrative arc overcomes you. He has an uncanny ability to tell a story through composition; once you have a very basic understanding of his background, the album takes it from there, guiding you through the comfort, change, shame, trauma, angst, and reconciliation that Shabason experienced in his personal journey.
The Fellowship grants you the freedom to interpret the music and narrative as you hear it, but it also maintains its specificity to Shabason’s personal backdrop. We may be able to project the emotions shared in The Fellowship onto our own experiences, but the reality is that it’s a story unique to the writer, and to understand its full meaning is to intimately learn the artist and the experiences that shaped him and his work. Altogether it’s a cathartic and compelling effort that does a remarkable amount of heavy lifting. It’s the religious trauma album that we didn’t know was possible - to portray emotion through tone is one thing, but to carry such a heavy narrative arc without the aid of lyrics is a truly magnificent feat.
- Clay Geddert
Kristian North
Passion Play // Mothland
Now they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but when I got the press release for Kristian North’s newest release, Passion Play, I was first presented with a photograph of Kristian lying on a mirror, wearing a green robe and rose tinted glasses, drinking a sex on the beach with a crazy straw. This image made me expect nothing less than musical greatness, and I was unexpectedly surprised listening to the record and seeing that, yes, it is indeed so.
Taking inspiration from Roxy Music, George Michael, and Warren Zevon for the record’s sound, Passion Play uses funky bass lines, crooning vocals, and lush keyboards to form eight tracks that will get you entranced and moving along. Each song utilizes these warm sounds to create a hi-fi soft rock that’s catchy, consistent, and dense with creativity. North clearly knew what sound he was going for, and he nailed it.
As for the lyrical content, North tells several stories dense with the clichés and tropes that are prevalent in alternative pop lyrics, while still giving them the sincerity and soul that makes them both digestible and thought provoking. While the albums consistency draws from its instrumentals, its conceptual ambiguity forms from its lyrical content. One of my favourite lyrics from the album comes from the sixth song, “Eye Of Love”: “Somewhere beyond the day / Bathing in chardonnay.”
From the funky, upbeat tracks like “Tilted” and “Fantasy”, to the slower, mellower sounding “More Than Yesterday” and the aforementioned “Eye Of Love”, Passion Play is a collection of songs that appeal to both the young and old through its contemporary divergence from the days of analogue. It’s an album you could play if you just want to dance, or if you want to meticulously dissect and interpret its lyrics and structure. It gives something for the casual listener and the music aficionado. It’s a heartfelt, carefully structured album that deserves a listen from anyone who likes to get up and dance, whether that’s a simple rhythmic head nod, a drunken two step, or a sensual waltz.
- Brandon Kruze
BIG|BRAVE
Vital // Southern Lord
For a band that started as acoustic experimentations, Big Brave have become one of Canada’s heaviest bands. Since teaming up with Southern Lord records for their second record, 2015s Au De La, they have managed to carve their distinct space within the heavy experimental scene. Somehow they seemingly fly under the radar of the wider metal scenes but it's within their niche that they unquestionably flourish. After their first album gained the attention of Godspeed You! Black Emperor leader Efrim Manuel Menuck, they were afforded the opportunity to open for the legendary Montreal collective and since, they’ve taken off and haven’t slowed down. World tours, festivals and opening slots for some of the most lauded heavy experimental acts (Daughters, SUNN O))), Unsane, The Body). They’ve maintained a consistent output of boundary pushing records and their new album VITAL is no exception.
Big Brave are a band of many juxtapositions. First and foremost vocalist Robin Wattie’s vocal style gives the band a very distinct sound. While there are many great female fronted bands that verge on the sludgey side (King Woman, Chelsea Wolfe and Lingua Ignota to name a few) there's a level of emotion in Wattie’s voice that absolutely pierces through the mix. The vocals aren’t screamed or darkened. They lie delicately upon the heady drones and are often given the space to lead the tracks.
Minimalism primarily guides the trajectory of VITAL. The songs shape around cacophonous long notes while the vocals provide all the melody. The result is five dark brooding atmospheric opuses. There’s a level of beauty provided by Wattie’s vocal style that adds a unique element compared to their Southern Lord counterparts. The experimental qualities along with the brevity and personal sentiment within the lyrics give the Montreal three piece an image that manages to set the band apart. Take “Of This Ilk” as an example. The track centers around a simple repeating rhythm as Wattie sings about their personal experiences with skin bleaching. To sing about something so personal is almost harrowing and intimidating. As a listener you truly get a sense of how close the band is to these songs. The track is free from traditional structures as they work their way through the different acts of the song, each separated by ambient soundscapes. The song's lowest moments carry equal weight as its heaviest.
The one criticism of the record is that in its minimalism, the album lacks variety. It’s a criticism that tends to follow the band and is largely debated in comment sections. For me the band's dedication to minimalism gives every note an added purpose despite most of the album falling in the same key, with many of the songs forged around new rhythms of the same one note. From another perspective though, it's quite impressive how much Big Brave do within their minimalist constraints. It gives greater importance to the space between the notes, the reverberations and feedback, and the dynamics throughout the song.
With Vital, Big Brave continue to push and evolve their sound. The album is their darkest and heaviest yet. Through their minimalist approach they’ve managed to capture a sound that is both unique, simple and huge. The weight in the music both sonically and emotionally is so aptly captured, it makes VITAL one of the most interesting and innovative heavy albums 2021 has produced so far.
- Kennedy Pawluk
