Islands Re-Arm On Vapours

10/23/09 1:02pm

by Erik Leijon (CHARTattack)

If the in-your-face album cover featuring frontman Nick Thorburn's mugshot wasn't enough of a clue, Montreal's Islands have once again taken a dramatic step in another musical direction — this time eschewing the elaborate movements of 2008's Arm's Way for sleek and simple pop on Vapours.

The group's 2006 Return To The Sea debut contained a lot of bubbly, summertime musical jaunts that were spectacularly lanced on the very ornate follow-up Arm's Way.

But Vapours represents a happy medium, demonstrating some of Thorburn's most mature songwriting yet, while retaining the sunny arrangement/sinister lyricism contrast that has defined his career since his time with The Unicorns.

"I knew wanted to scale things back and I had songs that fit that mold," says Thorburn says of his group's third record. "All these songs were demoed in my room with an acoustic guitar. That's how they all started."

CHARTattack had the opportunity to speak to Thorburn about his latest.

CHARTattack: Would you call Vapours your most straightforward album yet?
Nick Thorburn: I think of it as being very diverse within itself. It's the most consistent record I've made, but I also think it's the most varied one I've made.

There's a wide spectrum of influences you wouldn't necessarily see as fitting together, like the Motown vibe of "Vapours," and My Bloody Valentine-esque guitars on "Everything Is Under Control." A song like "Shining," I wouldn't expect to see a song like it with a weird dubstep wobble bass and a crazy drum machine, next to a song like "Disarming The Car Bomb," which is a throwback to '60s proto-punk like The Sonics.

I don't think it's a straightforward record at all. It has a lot of twists and turns, but I also think it has potential to have a broader accessibility.

Was the songwriting process then drastically different on Vapours compared to previous projects?
Some of the songs on this record predate Arm's Way songs, so it wasn't a conscious decision to make a record different from Arm's Way. The songs that were written after Arm's Way are more in line with the shorter, more condensed pop songs I wanted, the kinds that elicit a more immediate response. Arm's Way was a real methodically plotted record that required a lot of concentration and time to unravel. Vapours is meant to be a more visceral experience.

When Arm's Way came out, you were saying it was a concerted group effort. This album seems to be largely the opposite. Is that a fair assessment?
Yeah, it is.

Arm's Way was the result of a band that toured behind Return To The Sea and had fleshed out these songs I had written in the interim, the songs subsequently becoming Arm's Way. It was a real natural thing. It was the group that made the record.

Same process as Vapours, really, except Vapours was more expedited. I still wrote the songs, but with Vapours I demoed them by myself, whereas Arm's Way I would bring in the song and we would jam it out then play it live on tour before recording it. The final songs were then plotted out pretty thoroughly.

But with Vapours we were flying a little bit by the seat of our pants. I brought in a new group of people [original Islands drummer Jamie Thompson, along with brothers Evan and Geordie Gordon] who are more inclined to perform the songs in the style I was going for: more scaled back, dancier, more electronic.

How did Jamie Thompson return to the fold, anyway?
I asked him. He left right around the time the first record came out. He wanted to step out of the rigamarole of touring and recording. He started doing a lot of electronic production, and a lot of hip-hop production, and getting really knowledgeable about modular synths, programming and sequencing.

So when it came time to make this record, I was getting interested in certain types of music. I heard this song by [French songwriter] Sebastien Tellier called "Divine" — which is the inspiration for the song "Vapours" — and I heard a remix of the song by a French producer named Danger. I liked the style: the real simple rhythm and repetitive throbbing movement to it. It was a big shift for me.

I wanted to make a record that was like that, with an electronic tinge. Jamie had been honing those precise skills these last two years, so I enlisted his help.

Vapours also seems like a big shift for you, lyrically. You don't utilize morbid imagery as much as before, and many of the songs are built around your vocal hooks.
It's a very personal record. More so than the last ones which were built along abstract hyperbolic metaphors that have to do with a lot of grisly, violent imaginings of death. This one was a little more vulnerable, a little less cloaked in metaphors.

I think this album is definitely dark. I think I'll always have a dark inclination with songwriting. Two new songs on the record — "Devout" and "Disarming The Car Bomb" — are more in line with songs I've written like "Creeper" that are about explosions, car crashes, knife fights and bank robberies — that sort of stuff.