"Future Songs"
(Constellation, 2011)
Somehow ‘Future Songs’ is the perfect title for this blown-out set from Canadian noisenik Pat Gregoire. Shrouded in the kind of roomy, wrong-but-right recording you’d expect to hear on a punk tape in 1978 there is absolutely nothing even remotely connected to the future over forty minutes, but at the same time it makes perfect sense. Gregoire is obsessed with jangly guitar pop of all kinds, and this obsession manifests itself in the genre bending jumps from track to track that seem to span pop music from the 1950s to the mid 1980s. It’s almost like a more lucid Daniel Johnson playing Joy Division covers in an empty warehouse, and as I’m sure you’ll realize there’s no way that can be anything else than gripping. Through the grit, shaky vocals and drowned percussion these are small and perfectly formed songs with verses, choruses and real tangible hooks. You’ll be humming them for weeks to come – and that’s where the ‘future’ comes into it. Future Songs is the bracing result of Pat’s isolation; an album of brilliant off-kilter pop.
Pat Jordache - Phantom Limb from philip a karneef on Vimeo.
Future Songs is the bracing result of Pat's isolation; an album of brilliant off-kilter pop, anchored by woozy baritone vocals, angular guitar lines and a gloriously careening approach to rhythm and arrangement. Evoking sounds and sensibilities that encompass David-Baker-era Mercury Rev, Joy Division, Scott Walker and Can, to name just a few, Future Songs was self-released on cassette and went up on Bandcamp in summer of 2010, circulating quickly through Montreal's DIY music community and Tumblr accounts across the continent. While entirely self-recorded, with almost all parts played by Jordache, the material unmistakably cried out for full band treatment, for which there was no shortage of eager participants.
Early Pat JORDACHE shows were solo ventures, re-working the recorded music using a DD-3 pedal capable of looping only 1.4 seconds of sound. These droning minimalist arrangements soon came to be supported by the explosive percussion efforts of dueling drummers Phillip Chanel, Jeffrey Malecki and Thom Gillies. Rory Seydel (Shapes and Sizes) soon joined the group on guitar, allowing for a more faithful interpretation of the recorded songs. Pat JORDACHE toured house show circuits as a 3-piece and 4-piece throughout 2010 while playing tirelessly at home in Montreal's underground spaces, with occasional forays into the mainstream, including a raucous and rhapsodic late-night set at the Pop Montreal after-party venue.
Future Songs opens with the clarion call of "Radio Generation" (also pressed on a tour-only 7" with previously unreleased "Radar" on the B-Side), where Jordache's falsetto kicks off the tune against stuttering and fluttering guitar vamps before settling into an off-beat chord pattern and verses delivered in Jordache's unique baritone. "Get It" follows, built from a great staccato riff and driven by tripled octave-shifted vocals. "Salt On The Fields" brings back the damaged Beach Boys falsetto winding around a rhythmic track of bubbling wood block and chimes, with a taste of afro-beat guitar lines. "Gold Bound" is woozy psych-tinged lo-fi folk. "The 2-Step" instantly sounds like a lost classic from a Joy Division session. "UKUUU" deploys nature sounds, reverse vocals and spaghetti western guitars winding their way towards a speak-song testimonial and a Velvets-style doo-wop to close the album. All in all, an awesome ride.
