Photo: courtesy of tyler goodyear
to a close, they are eager to break out some new material. Earlier this month Quiring and Kopperud recorded a stripped-down EP that will be released as a limited run of cassettes. (Kopperud says the cassette will also include download codes for those not equipped with a car dating from the mid-1990s.) Slow Weather feels like an attempt to shake off the tension that binds Timbers together. The arrangements
Photo: courtesy of tyler goodyear
are spare but not spartan, the sound expansive yet somehow restrained. In addition to a new composition called “Slow Weather” and a cover of Bon Iver’s majestic “Perth,” the EP includes two tracks from Timbers, “Creature” and “She’s On Fire.” “We recorded it partly at a friend’s home studio and partly in a church in Abbotsford, British Columbia, where there’s the biggest grand piano I’ve ever played,” Kopperud says of the EP, which feels like an exercise in dramatic minimalism, its barren arrangements a potent counterpoint to the driving energy of the band’s debut. “The songs from Timbers have completely different arrangements, and by listening to them outside of the lyrics you wouldn’t know them.”
The version of “Creature” that appears on Timbers is a pulsating rock song, a journey from summer into fall driven by the sharp contrast between Olson’s grinding bass line and Quiring’s thin, ethereal voice. On Slow Weather the song emerges from the silence like some kind of transparent vision, a spacey amalgam of reverb-drenched guitar and rich piano chords. It is completely different from the version that appears on the record, yet it retains all of the weight and dynamism of the original. “She’s On Fire” has been transformed from a texturally dense pop song into a tender ballad. What the Slow Weather version lacks in punch it makes up for in raw power. And while Slow Weather gives little indication as to what the band’s forthcoming LP will sound like, it demonstrates just how good the songs on Timbers really are: even though the production tricks and studio wizardry have been stripped away, the songs retain their strength and their character. But Slow Weather is merely a prelude to the main event, which will begin shortly before the end of the year and culminate in the spring when the four members of Close Talker travel to Montreal to cut their second album. “In December we’re intentionally spending some time away from Saskatoon,” Kopperud says, hinting at the band’s desire to move away from the scrappy, hurried process that produced Timbers. “After Christmas and over New Year’s, before Will and I return to school, we’re going to spend about a week secluded on an acreage
doing some writing, collectively as a group. Will and I will bring ideas, Chris and Jeremy will bring ideas, and we will collaborate and hash out a lot of details.” The band members want their winter retreat to set the stage for their upcoming sessions at Breakglass Studios in Montreal, where they will work with producer Jace Lasek, who is best known for his work with the Besnard Lakes. Kopperud wants to think of the coming months as an opportunity to turn the page on Timbers and point the band in a new direction, in terms of both sound and process. “Timbers was kind of hooky and catchy, and we’ll still flirt with some hooks and try and keep people engaged, but our new stuff is definitely more intricate and complex and challenging and stimulating for us,” he says. “And I feel like Jace will get the perfect balance of bringing both aspects out of us in a creative way that might push people a little bit, but at the same time not get people to abandon us because like, ‘that’s way too weird, you shouldn’t have done that augmented chord.’” In practice, Kopperud continues, the band’s new approach can be summarized in a single word: intentionality. Whereas Timbers was written and recorded extremely quickly — “Like, this kind of works, let’s throw it down,” he says — the new record will be planned down to the last detail. “We’re trying to be incredibly intentional about each aspect,” he says of the forthcoming album. “We’re
tying to be intentional about parts, about the direction of the songs, about which songs to choose for the album. So in a lot of ways it’s trying to be more mature about the process, and then trying to document that and let others into our heads with what we’re doing.” And by enlisting Lasek, whose production and engineering credits include records by Patrick Watson, Mark Berube, and Young Galaxy, Close Talker virtually guaranteed that their new record will capture both sides of the band — their fascination with pop music as well as their desire to challenge themselves and their fans. “We don’t want to lose fans by getting too abstract but at the same time we don’t want to sell our souls to the hooky pop parts,” Kopperud says. “We know very well we could make pop songs and we could make toetappers, but is that sustainable for us? To flirt between the two is important, but ultimately this next record will reflect our ambitions to challenge ourselves and to push the songs beyond what might be predictable.” But perhaps more than anything else, Close Talker’s forthcoming sophomore album promises to
show not only that it is possible for members of a rock and roll band to live and work in different provinces, but that their geographic situation is paralleled in their music. Just as Timbers juxtaposed the sounds of Saskatchewan and British Columbia, creating in the process an engaging and original combination of influences and ideas, the band’s new record is certain to dive deeper into the gulf dividing both the band members and their musical ideas. “We’re turning the page to not necessarily a new sound, but definitely a new direction,” Kopperud says. “One that will better define our intentions than Timbers did.”
Close Talker December 21 @ Amigos Cantina $10 @ Ticketedge.ca
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