Escarre

Band	Escarre
Country	Canada
Genre	Avant-garde Metal
Link	https://www.facebook.com/escarreband
Release date	2016/01/25

Interview
How are you guys? Please introduce yourself and the band? We're a trio based in the province of Québec, Canada. The band members are François C.-Fortin (drums, sound engineering), Kevin Jones (fretless bass) and myself, Simon C.-Bouchard (everything else). It's always hard to put a name on a narrow specific genre, but the closest is probably “avant-garde metal”. Would you mind to give a translation of your band name as well as of the title of your debut release? Can you elaborate a bit on the meaning? The English word by word translation would be ”bed soar” for the band name and “A vault without key” for the album. It's sort of a play on words: a key that you're always spiritually searching for, but everything around you is crumbling because the key is missing. We see this album as a disembodied journey into mind's withdrawn infinity. Why this type of avant-garde metal? Considering that all band members have been involved in a considerable amount of bands so far, would it be fair to guess that this is an attempt to break out of the conventions of ordinary music? A cry of the soul that longs for something outré? All of us have been involved into bands with strict artistic direction - and we do think that this is really important – but for Escarre, the intention was to explore musical expression with a very personal approach, so the result could sound, at time, hazy and weird. What bands or even albums would you name as influences? There's so much, it's impossible and pointless to name them all. Our interest in music goes from trip hop to avant-garde, 70s rock to darkjazz, 8 bit video game music to reggae, sludge to dark ambient, grunge to extreme metal... How did you start with the album? Has there been an initial idea and how did you move on from there? We had songs and we thought that they were worth being recorded. So we did, with a lot of dedication. The recording process was long due to fact that we're all committed to many other projects, but we did this album a way that sounds natural to us, with no specific boundaries. We like to think that these songs follow their own will. What are the core essences of your music? Travel within your brain and heart. Elevate your soul above physics to reach a ethereal feeling of absolute. A “mise en abîme”. What role do the vocals have in terms of the music? It feels that they hover a bit above the instruments are not (always) bound to the rhythms and the motives that can be listened to. The vocals are a great part of our music. They've been made with intuition. I felt that the themes explored in the lyrics were not meant to be screamed. So I sang the way that I felt was fitting the songs. Flow and consistency in the style or sound are two facets that come to mind when listening to the album. Why are there no stark contrasts or something that would break with the progression? References would be Solefald or early Arcturus. We see this album as a whole, an entity. We don't play music to prove something or demonstrate technical prowess, we think that musical intelligence is the ability to create moods. And this work gave us the opportunity to initiate an eerie and unconventional journey through convoluted yet substantial landscape. Méandres Triangulaires and Scène Immobile appear to differ from the rest. Do these tracks divide the album into three parts? These are both instrumentals, right? It can be understood this way, but the concept behind this album wasn't plan like a tryptic. The songs are in an order that appeared natural to us. As Escarre is from Quebec it makes sense that you would rely on French in terms of the lyrics. As not everyone is familiar with this tongue, would you mind explaining them a bit and tell us what the album is all about? The lyrics talk about soul diseases, drugs and the spiritual visions they create. The meanings are purposely allegoric and cryptic. We hope that listeners will create their own interpretation, even if they don't understand French. How does the music and the artwork or design of the release go together? Who had been responsible for it? The graphic design has to go along with the music. We visually tried to express the ghostly and abstract mood of the album. We want our visuals to inspire a point of departure more than a narrative and stereotypical imagery. What about playing live with Escarre? Is it possible to get all this weirdness on stage? We haven't played live for years now. We're open to the idea of creating a live version, but for now we each living in different cities separated by around 800km. So for now, we're a studio project. How can someone get in touch with you and where can someone find your music? Via our e-mail : escarre.band@gmail.com and our facebook account : www.facebook.com/escarreband. Or also via our label Dusktone. What would be the future plans for Escarre? The ideas for a second album are already quite defined, but this will take time. We're a band that pays a lot of attention to details, so at times we can get lost in these details... Closing comments if you like Thanks for your time and appreciation. We put much energy and devotion in this project, if it's give you chills, that's our greatest reward.