Malajube Explain Creating Labyrinthes

When Montreal/Sorel, Que. band Malajube released their Trompe-L'Oeil sophomore album in 2006, expectations were high in their home province. The torch-bearers for the modern francophone indie rock movement in Quebec didn't disappoint.

What Malajube didn't expect was a two-year whirlwind that would see them perform in front of non-French-speaking audiences in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The group's profile also grew back home as locals viewed them as carrying the weight of a young generation of francophone musicians wanting to make it big internationally while retaining their linguistic roots.

Malajube's long-awaited follow-up, Labyrinthes, took a full year of writing and recording to complete. CHARTattack spoke to drummer Francis Mineau about the musical maze that is the elaborate Labyrinthes.

CHARTattack: What did the group learn about itself in creating Labyrinthes?
Francis Mineau: We figured out a new way to compose songs, a new method of working as a team. It's the main quality of the new record. We changed the way we approached music and, as musicians, we've changed a lot because we toured the last record so heavily.

This new approach to writing was what set the tone for Labyrinthes — the more jamming aspect — and a bit more centred on musical passages rather than traditional verse-chorus-verse. The first album was mostly short songs under two minutes, and Labyrinthes shows how we've grown as individuals and as a band.

It also reflects the fatigue of touring for two years, and being so anxious to start writing music again. We played the material from [2004 debut] Le Compte Complet and Trompe-L'Oeil so much that I think that's why Labyrinthes sounds so far removed from those records. Maybe that's why it's more dark.

It's a reaction to the touring life and Trompe-L'Oeil in general. There are elements of Malajube from the Le Compte Complet pop side that are still there, but it's become more complex. We're older now, and this album proves we're not the same people we were even in 2004.

Did the band always have a good idea of what Labyrinthes would sound like?
The studio is always a kind of place where things change a lot. We had plenty of ideas, for sure. We did a lot of playing and recording every day this past summer because we had our own place, but the big idea we always had was to create a more raw sound, to basically come up with a similar sound to our live shows.

We wanted to keep things simple, and the final sound is more pure than on Trompe-L'Oeil. We had the starting vision of just making a record with a basic set-up of four instruments. But in the studio, it kept evolving and eventually we were still adding layers for each song. It turned out like Malajube... but with more consistency.

Labyrinthes seems to flow like one long song, especially from "Casablanca" until the end.
You think so? My father said the exact same thing. The first time he listened to the album, I played it for him one evening at his place and we had some wine. He felt like there weren't any stops between the songs, that it was like one big song. I don't really have that impression, but I'm so close to the creation process it's tough for me, considering I know how they were created separately. It's almost been a year that I've been close to these songs.

In a sense, there isn't one big hit that jumps out at you. There isn't an out-of-nowhere song that cuts the flow, like on Trompe-L'Oeil we put a rap song ["La Russe"] right in the middle of the album and it was something that cut the album in two parts.

You remember the last album from Wolf Parade? The guys from the band were saying the same thing. When they were promoting the record, they said it was impossible to listen to just one song. You had to listen to it from start to finish so that each song could be heard in the right context.

I found it strange they would say that, but now it's my turn to make the same case. It's just that they're simply well-sequenced. Every song has its place on the record, and the albums aren't too long or short. I think that's why people get that impression.

Have you been paying attention to online commentary from both the anglophone and francophone sides?
I'm not really into that kind of stuff. It's not that I'm not interested in reviews or hearing about what people think, it's just that I'm not a frequent user of the internet. I don't even have a computer. Can you believe it?

Then again, the other guys in the band are quite into it. When the album leaked on the internet, Julien [Mineau, vocals/guitar] was reading them quite a bit. Anglophones seemed to be more favourable to the francophone ones. I don't know, the anglophone and German media found it was more enthusiastic and upbeat than a lot of francophone media did.

When the album came out in Quebec, there were reviews in the newspapers and they were mostly good, which was very cool. I'm happy people are listening and talking about Labyrinthes and our music. To me, that's what's most important, good or bad.