Dazed/2011/Jun/Interview

D'EON VS GRIMES
MELANCHOLY POP FROM MONTREAL'S SYNTHETIC DREAMERS
Two ends of Montreal's unique and dynamic music scene come together on the ominously named Darkbloom split twelve-inch. On one side is Grimes, who keeps getting compared to Kate Bush and Björk for her melancholic, slurry rendering of pop music. And on the other is D'eon, who is moving away from last year's Middle-East-inspired sonic foray towards early 90s synthetics. Having both recently recovered from some wild times together on the Mexican pyramids, they tell us what happens when misfit souls collide.
D’EON: The conversation that we had when we decided to do a split was just, “You really get my music and nobody else does, and I really get your music and nobody else does. There’s this one vocal line on Grimes’ “Crystal Ball,” and when I heard that on headphones I thought, “Yeah, that’s it.” But we’re both very solitary. That’s why it’s a split rather than a collaboration. I could never come up with music in the presence of somebody else.
GRIMES: Yeah, we’re both controlling. After I released Geidi Primes, we were planning to just make a tape and release it ourselves. It was supposed to be a small deal, but then the labels got interested. We both really liked classical, goth, and industrial music in high school, and now we’re into R&B. We love J-pop and Anime too. Actually, we have all the same influences!
D’EON: But I think the influences for your songs are a lot different from mine. I listen to a lot of Hype Williams and to a lot of Whitehouse – this industrial band from Britain that have really morally terrible lyrics! Music feels like it’s getting darker generally. There’s a lot of really bad stuff going on in the world, economically and environmentally. That pessimism is starting to show. When I lost my job in 2009, it seemed like people didn’t realise the extent of the recession. But in 2010, it sunk in and people got really bummed out. Maybe there will be some kind of 'new angst' music coming.
GRIMES: Right now, it seems distasteful to talk about social issues. Bands don’t address political stuff. No one would ever be an activist or discuss women's rights. Music now is dark, but it's abstract. We've spoken about how it's tasteful to be distasteful these days, like Lady Gaga giving birth in her new video. I like to think more about the image that I'm presenting than you do, but we both wanted our faces on the album because it's kind of an iconic Janet Jackson thing to do.
D’EON: My personal style is about extreme contrast. I don’t mean to look like a freak, it just happens, but it's more interesting to look freakish than to look like an indie rocker nerd. But I could never marry myself to just one aesthetic, my personality shifts too much. In the past few years, I've gone from acoustic Middle Eastern music with religious themes to synthetic plastic pop! If anything, I want my look to be the opposite of my music. If I'm singing R&B, I want to look like a heroin addict serial killer. If I'm making fucked up industrial music, I'd like to look like an R&B singer. You always tell me off for being too self-deprecating, and my music is really self-deprecating, my lyrics are more, 'Why do I even live?!' The second song on my side of the split is just about not knowing how to talk to a woman. We were both very ostracised in high school, so I feel I have something to prove. I used to play the piano to get girls to notice me but it never happened. Now it does! Girls come up to me and say, 'Oh, nice show, you're really great,' and I'm like yeah, 'Fuck you for the last 20 years of my life!'
GRIMES: You also got some good new clothes. I remember when you went shopping last summer and more girls talked to you. My music is way more confident, it’s about what I can’t achieve physically. Everyone always makes fun of me for being small. I want my music to be very powerful in a way that I physically am not. That’s why I like big drums and lots of bass. I could never win a fight. I don't fight in battles and ride a giant black horse, I just live in this shitty apartment and eat potatoes. 
D’EON: Yeah, the lack of jobs for English speakers in Montreal and the cold contributes to the depression - which is great for music! A lot of Montreal shows aren't always in bars, more like people's homes, so you don't always have to behave yourself. I saw a great band from Halifax called The Ether, they had really dirty punk-based riffs, fucked up lyrics, and a crazy dancer with them. I think I knew everyone in the room.
GRIMES: Everyone I know is so good at making music here, music that is accessible but also really new and unique. The scene here is the best scene in the world. I would find it hard to leave.
NAME: Chris D’eon
DATE OF BIRTH: October 17, 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
WHAT YOU KNOW: D’eon dabbled with middle-eastern R&B on Palinopsia in 2010.
WHAT YOU DIDN’T: He’s afraid to enter furniture stores. He thinks he must have gotten lost in one as a kid.
PREVIOUS: Before he got into recording music he was studying Arabic, Iranian and Turkish music.
NAME: Claire Boucher
DATE OF BIRTH: March 17, 1991
PLACE OF BIRTH: Vancouver, BC, Canada
WHAT YOU KNOW: Grimes is the woman behind the albums Halifaxa and the dreamy Geidi Primes.
WHAT YOU DIDN’T: She wants to start a tattoo company but has found out one guy already did it under the name “Grimes”.
PREVIOUS: Grimes was going to do an MA in Earth and Planetary sciences. But now she’s now “just a musician” since she “fucked up” and got kicked out of college.
Text MIMI HADON
Photography DANIEL PELISSIER
DARKBLOOM is released jointly by LA's Hippos In Tanks and Montreal's Arbutus
Category:InterviewCategory:2011