On October 4th, Montreal will witness the long awaited release of “Picture Show”, the debut full-length album by Brie Neilson and Her Othermen. Having branched out from an established position within the well-loved local act, The Unsettlers, Neilson has hand picked her Othermen from Montreal’s well-endowed music scene to create an 11-song work of throwback, crooner gold. This is a night not to be missed, as Neilson will be performing the album with a full band, with Montreal favourites Michelle Tompkins and Mike O’Brien (The Sin and The Swoon) providing a very special opening set.

Recorded at the legendary Studio Victor, Picture Show brings flavours of 30’s big band jazz and 50’s country to a modern folk cabaret near you. All male harmonies and tail shaking horns provided by the Othermen will have you hearing from some of Montreal’s favourite renaissance men, such as David Simard, Declan O’Donovan and members of the Franco Proietti Morphtet. The hard working rhythm section composed of Ram Krishnan and Tim van de Ven keep Picture Show rolling through its nostalgic hills and valleys.

As a follow-up to a solo EP released in 2009, Picture Show offers a sharpened sense of direction and personality, matured arrangements and songwriting, all coated in that little bit of attitude that we enjoy so well in Neilson’s music. A cross-Canada tour with band mate David Simard in November is sure to spread the good news about this stellar new album as well as launch Brie Neilson and Her Othermen out of Montreal and into the national music scene.

CBC is very proud to be featuring Absolutely Quebec, a locally produced series reflecting Quebec’s culture through sports, music, theatre, food, and film and captured through the lenses of our province’s emerging filmmakers.

What are the inspirations behind “The Introduction” EP?
Musically, Mahalia Jackson. Spiritually, Christopher Hitchens.

You won the 2011 St-Ambroise music grant, you’re playing this year’s NXNE music festival in Toronto and you’re headlining the opening night at Fringe Park (Montreal Fringe Festival), obviously things are going well, what’s next for the band?
Hell, most likely. But before that, a single, an EP and an album. In that order.

Who are some of your favourite Montreal Artists?
Oscar Peterson (rip) and Oliver Jones for their chops, Leonard Cohen for the biting verses, Arcade Fire for the showmanship, Barr Brothers for the inventiveness, Loco Locass for the outcry, Kalmunity for the soul.

What are some of your favourite venues to play in Montreal?
Divan Orange, Casa del Popolo, any venue that has a real piano.

How’s the Gospel scene in Montreal?
Lively! And gifted. Jireh, People’s Gospel, The Jubilation. There are some pretty magnificent pipes in this town.

A lot of artists are starting to voice their opinions on the student protest in Montreal, where does Irreverend James and the Critical Mass Choir stand on this subject?
That student leaders failed to denounce all forms of violence from the outset was unwise and unjustifiable. And it likely cost their cause the majority of public opinion (without which there can be no victory in instances such as this). But that the Charest government should pass a special law to stifle descent is just as worrisome and, in our view, illegitimate. As with most conflicts, the reasonable majority are, once again, stuck between two extremes. Ironically, this situation is illustrating once again just how lucky we are to be living here and now. Normally when clowns such as these are running a show such as this, things turn out much, much worse. Our stand is that access to education is primordial in a healthy democracy. But as always, peace lives and breathes in the middle ground. Message to our brave leaders: Work it out. The stakes aren’t as high as you yourselves are making them.

Where can people find out more about Irreverend James and the Critical Mass Choir?
www.irreverendjames.com

Right on the heels of being invited to perform at the upcoming TEDx Montreal event, “Godless Gospel” band Irreverend James and the Critical Mass Choir have been confirmed as the headliner of the opening night of the Fringe Park at the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival on June 14. The opening night of the Fringe Park is always a great party, and the evening of entertainment will start at 6PM. Irreverend James and the Critical Mass Choir have been asked to close the show in style, bringing to the event the joyful experience of gospel music, complete with the crescendos, call-and-answer, and outright jubilation you’d find in a 1940′s small wooden Mississippi-delta church (minus the fabricated divinity).

Details:
Thursday, June 14
Fringe Park (Parc des Amériques, corner Rachel/Saint-Laurent)
Entertainment from 6PM – 10PM
FREE

About the St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival

The St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival is the ultimate summer happening to hit up for that unbeatable neighborhood feel! Block party and performing arts collide every June in the Plateau/Mile-End for this celebration of creativity without limits that includes music, comedy, dance, visual arts and theatre from over 500 performers. The St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival is bilingual, and includes local, national and international artists from Montreal to Greece to Japan! For more information: http://montrealfringe.ca

About Irreverend James and the Critical Mass Choir

Gospel music began as a cry for freedom. Freedom from oppression. Freedom from brutality. Freedom from shame. And Irreverend James are bringing it back to its roots. Through barn-burning live performances, Irreverend James offer the joyful experience of gospel
music, with the crescendos, call-and-answer, and outright jubilation you’d find in a 1940′s small wooden Mississippi-delta church. Only secular. Their “Godless” gospel music speaks out against injustice, inequality, and persecution inspired by, and according to, religious doctrine
and dogma, touching on themes of racism, feminism, and gay rights. www.irreverendjames.com

This album does not sound like a début effort, with the use of dynamics, tight instrumentation, and solid song arrangements, one would think this band had been together for decades. In addition, “Toll the Bell” was recorded live, meaning the band recorded their instruments at the same time, as oppose to tracking each instrument individually.

An impressive fact about this album is that is that it was funded by the fans. Lakes of Canada were able to raise over S10 000, independently, using a crowd funding strategy that has been made  accessible through websites like indiegogo.com.

Overall, Lakes of Canada did a great job on their début album, and one can only imagine what the follow-up will sound like!

Suggested tracks: Bated Breath, Limbo.

You can purchase “Toll the Bell” on Lakes of Canada’s bandcamp page.

How did you come up with the band name Lakes of Canada?
When the three of us first started playing together we went by the name “Who by Fire” (which we got from text in a Rosh Hashanah service) but none of us were super into the name. Conor and I had been playing the song, “Lakes of Canada” originally by a Halifax band called “The Innocence Mission” and made famous by a Blogoteque cover that Sufjan Stevens did. One day we checked to see if anyone had named their band after that song, cause we thought the name was really solid, and once we found out that no one had, that was it.

Tell us about your upcoming début album “Toll the Bell” and the album launch at Il Motore on May 19th.
In October 2010 my mother was murdered in her home in Burlington, VT. Obviously words cannot accurately describe my level of devastation. I spent the next six months traveling around the US and Canada with my guitar and writing as much as could manage. When I got back to Montreal in the spring of 2011 we released an EP and went on tour down the east coast from Toronto to NYC. During that time we work shopped and tried out a lot of the songs that I had written while traveling. When we got back we acquired a 5th member and went into pre-production for “Toll the Bell”. We also raised over $10,000 to pay for the album through a crowd funding site called IndieGoGo.com. We worked with our producer Christopher Fox (of Folly & The Hunter) for two months before going into his studio. We came at the album with more than 20 songs, but by the time we got to tracking we had 12. Because of the amount of pre-production we had before recording we were able to do most of the album live and usually in the first 3 takes. As we had become well known for our vocal harmonies we recorded all of our vocals together in the same room (in Studio, Oscar Peterson Hall, and even at the Synagogue for “Bated Breath”). We also had the pleasure of having our Synagogue choir do a guest appearance on a song, and we had guest brass, string, and woodwind players for a few others. The album was mixed by Chris and me and mastered by Ryan Morey of Ryebread mastering in Montreal. We are all really proud of this album. We worked on it for months and are extremely excited about how it sounds.

Any tours planned to support the new release?
We will be doing a 3 week tour from Charlottetown, PEI through to Toronto, ON in the summer. We will also be doing a release in NYC and Burlington, VT

Who are some of your favourite Montreal artists?
Oof. There’s so many. Charlotte Cornfield, Sarah Jane Scouten, Folly & The Hunter, Arcade Fire, Patrick Watson, Lhasa de Sela, Lake of Stew, The Unsettlers, Bad Uncle, Krista Muir, Suuns, The Youjsh, Holy Moly, David Simard, Brie Neilson, United Steel Workers, Broken Social Scene, Besnard Lakes, The Stills, The Luyas, Plants & Animals, Sam Roberts, William Shatner (“I can’t get behind that” is surprisingly good), SlutDrive, Young Galaxy, Think About Life, The Barr Brothers, Sam Shalabi. There are probably a ton more. Those are the ones I can think of right now.

What are some of your favourite venues to play in Montreal?
Well, I love Il Motore actually, that’s why we chose it for the launch, but also: Divan Orange, Casa, Sala, L’Esco (first time I played there I was expecting it to be crap and was very pleasantly surprised when it was the complete opposite), and Grumpy’s is really fun too. I also really like playing outside on my front porch when it’s warm enough.

Where is your favourite place to grab a bite to eat after a gig in Montreal?
Good question. It depends on where you’re playing obviously, but if I’m anywhere near Chez Claudette after a show, that’s probably where I’ll be headed.

Where can people find out more on Lakes of Canada?
LakesofCanada.com or LakesofCanada.ca