The following article is from the Winter 2013 issue of Mixtape which you can read for free through our Issuu page. The following cover story on Young Galaxy can be found on page 28.

Plus Ultra

After a stellar year Young Galaxy continue to push

Young Galaxy are standing outside the Marquee Club in Halifax, waiting to load in their gear before the Halifax Pop Explosion show they are headlining tonight. The Montreal electronic-pop band played this venue during the same festival in 2007. In that time, the band has undergone lineup changes and have shifted their sound from earnest pop rock to danceable electronic pop in large part from their work with Swedish electronic producer Dan Lissvik.

From the self-titled debut album in 2007 to this year’s Ultramarine, Young Galaxy have been gradually shifting every aspect of their music; from dream pop to electronic pop, from earnest and specific lyrics to universal lyrics open for interpretation; from trying to shake off the sound of their influences to confidently making music that is their own. The Montreal band has found the catalyst to create the definitive Young Galaxy.

“In some ways, we found our Brian Eno, our guy who could understand what we were trying to get at and make it better. To know what to do when we didn’t know what to do,” says guitarist Stephan Ramsay of Lissvik, who produced the band’s Polaris short-listed fourth album Ultramarine.

The comparison by Ramsay is a huge compliment. Distinguished producer and musician Brian Eno is credited with producing and helping bands such as U2 and Coldplay change their sound and push them into superstardom.

“I think Dan is a genius. He’s not a really well known producer in some ways because he’s very secretive and low key about his output,” Ramsay says. Lissvik was a member of the now-defunct Swedish band Studio, who only released one full length album in ten years of existence.

Isolation in Sweden

For the recording of Ultramarine, Ramsay along with co-founder and vocalist Catherine McCandless, bassist Stephen Kamp, drummer Andrea Silver and keyboardist and guitarist Matthew Shapiro left their home base of Montreal and flew to Lissvik’s studio in Gothenburg, Sweden. With two weeks to record, the band had to focus.

“The band isolated in Sweden together meant people didn’t have to go home for dinner, hang out with their girlfriends or walk their dog, which was refreshing in a way because every other time we’ve recorded, we were in Montreal. We sort of kept coming in and out of the studio, but there we were all intently knowing we had two weeks to execute the plan together. It made the process very efficient, very focused,” says Ramsay.

Ramsay describes the process as being galvanizing, bringing together the five band members together. Although the current lineup has only been together for two years, it’s the longest there has been one steady group. Recording their previous album, Shapeshifting, led to fracturing of the group with two members leaving.

Making Shapeshifting with Lissvik was completely different; it was done over Skype, the band on computers in Montreal and the producer working from his computer in Sweden. The band and the producer were never physically together.

“In some ways, the band was not even really that involved in what became the sort of re-working of the record on Dan’s end. In some ways I think he took a perverse pleasure in keeping it from us,” says Ramsay.

After a nerve-wracking experience where Shapeshifting came eight months later than expected, working with Lissvik physically present made sense for the band. Ultramarine was made in a small, one room studio where they couldn’t make a lot of noise because of surrounding residences. When the band arrived in Sweden, they were surprised by Lissvik’s process. Instead of recording right away they spent the first week settling arrangements.

“Typically you try and hit the ground running. You set up quickly and you start banging it out,” Ramsay says.

Lissvik also has a very physical way of helping bands record, getting in the artists’ faces, dancing and showing how the music moves the body, making the connection between the groove and how it moves the listener. The in-your-face approach was something Young Galaxy couldn’t experience over Skype while Lissvik worked on Shapeshifting.

Shifting away from influences

The band has undergone significant changes since their self-titled debut album came out in 2007. Along with new personnel, they have transitioned from a sleepy pop rock band that was shaped by their influences to a confident artist with their own sound.

“When we started, we were shaking off our influences. I was really surprised when our (first) record came out, the way it sounded. I thought it sounded a lot like bands that I listened to in the ‘90s. I’ve always wanted to make modern music and I felt like I was sort of throwing back to another era of music,” Ramsay says. The album and how it wasn’t exactly what the band was aiming for.

Ramsay was a touring guitarist for Montreal band Stars who were on Toronto label Arts & Crafts. Through that connection, Arts & Crafts heard the record before it was released and the label wanted to release it. This was before the band had played a single live show.

“We had no idea what it was like to interact with a live audience. When it came time to play those songs, we realized there were a lot of things missing in our approach and through the playing of shows we realized that so much of what is powerful about connecting with an audience is the energy you bring to it musically. The first record was a really sleepy, slow, long kind of vibey record and we wanted to inject more energy into it, more immediacy, more danceability into our music,” says Ramsay.

The second album, Invisible Republic, saw Young Galaxy leave Art & Crafts in 2009 after not seeing eye to eye about releasing the new album. According to an interview with Exclaim magazine, the debut record ended up losing money for the label so an amicable split made sense.

McCandless role as front person

On Invisible Republic Young Galaxy started to move away from a sleepy, slow sound to something with more energy and Catherine McCandless started to take a more prominent role with her vocals. This shift has gradually progressed to the point that McCandless does all the vocals on Ultramarine and has settled into the role of front person.

“Catherine, when she began singing with me, she was so shy she had to have me leave the room in order to record. It was a very personal thing for her and that’s why from the first record until now, she sings increasingly more on each record. She’s getting more comfortable with it going a long,” Ramsay says.

On the first record, it was almost entirely Ramsay singing. He’s always had a problematic relationship with his voice, not liking the sound of it or finding anything distinguishing about it. Drinking beers and making jokes about his voice to feel comfortable singing isn’t an ideal situation for a musician.

“That’s not a good space to be singing from. That’s the nature of the beast for me, I just don’t like the sound of my own voice whereas Catherine loves to sing. It’s as simple as that.”

McCandless and Ramsay are married, making it easier for the two of them to understand and share ideas.

“She can convey the ideas regardless. I can write for her and she can write for me. We’re interchangeable creatively that way.”

From cathartic to automatic writing

While the delivery of vocals has been changing from album to album, so has the way lyrics are written and the spirit behind them.

“Well (the lyrics) used to come from a place of great earnestness. The first record was a very cathartic record for us because Catherine and I personally had undergone some huge changes in our lives. We moved to Montreal, which was this new place, and we had things happen in our lives that damaged us. It was about expressing our hopes and pain in the hopes of righting the wrongs in some ways and pointing to a bittersweet optimism. It was very earnest though, very naive in some ways.”

Young Galaxy has since shifted to a utilitarian way of writing, selecting lyrical content not based on meaning, but more so on how the words sound and work with the rhythm. Writing for Ultramarine, they tried automatic writing for the first time.

“One of us would sit listening to the song and sort of mumble or chant sound over it , then the other, Catherine or I, would go back and listen to what the other person had done and try to interpret those lyrics.”

An example of this is “Sleepwalk with Me” which has some of Ramsay’s favourite lyrics on the record because of the unconscious feeling they have, a shift away from lyrics in the past that have been too self-conscious.

“To me, it’s a more successful record than any of our others in terms of giving more space to the listener to interpret things.”

Keep it simple

The simplicity in lyrics also matches the simplicity in sound on Ultramarine. In the early days of the band Ramsay would add layer upon layer of sound to make a powerful and bombastic sound. In the search of pure music and the pursuit to do more with less, they’ve dialed back the amount of layers and kept it simple.

“The most powerful music is conveyed through the least amount of things happening. It’s certainly true of mixing. When you mix a record, if you have five things happening in a song rather than 50, it’s going to sound a lot bigger and more powerful.”

This pursuit of pure music has influenced their live show as well. Young Galaxy want the audience to experience something that they can’t get anywhere else, a show with a special combination of players and musical ideas They want each live performance to stand out in the audience members’ mind, whether good or bad. Ramsay says an apathetic memory of one of their concerts is the last thing they want.

“I want them to have a sense that what they’ve experienced is singular, that it’s not something you can get elsewhere, that the combination of the players and the ideas musically and the performance are singular, they’re not being influenced necessarily by other things we’ve seen or heard.”

“If they take away something other than indifference, then I’m happy. I’d rather fail miserably in peoples’ eyes or blow their minds than be another fucking rock band playing a rock show, because there’s a million of those now every night.”

Words:Jonathan Briggins / Photos: Scott Blackburn