When three weird music aficionados pool their eclectic influences to create epic jams, sparks are bound to fly.
As they readily admit themselves, the three guys that form Population II are bona fide music nerds. When they’re not tapping maple trees or cleaning warehouses – essential day jobs that support their existence, even if they tour from the U.K. to Texas – Pierre-Luc Gratton (drums, vocals), Sébastien Provençal (bass), and Tristan Lacombe (keyboards, guitars) continue their search for new (but above all, old) sounds to nourish and stimulate their boundless creativity.
“It’s kind of a disease,” says Provençal. “Not a day goes by where I’m not on a quest to find an obscure hardcore band from the Midwest in the ’80s!”
Although our conversation is focused mostly on the making of Maintenant Jamais, the latest album by the best psychedelic-groovy-prog-pop-garage-rock trio from the Lower Laurentians, the discussion takes many detours, and occasionally turns into a masterclass on how Can’s krautrock and Gil Scott Heron’s proto-rap gave birth to Stereolab’s retro-futurist post-pop. “I swear, there’s a direct line between the groove of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and the Emperor Tomato Ketchup album,” proclaims Provençal.
All these influences were amassed by the band members after being set on a path of discovery in their teens. “Tristan’s dad was a musician, and he had a huge influence on us, by introducing us to all kinds of original stuff,” remembers Provençal. “One day he told us, ‘You’re going to sit down and listen to Funkadelic, then you will play Funkadelic tunes.’ Thanks to him, I saw Bootsy Collins live when I was 16. But above all, I understood that music doesn’t exist in silos, when he explained that, at the same time as Detroit was grooving to the sounds of Motown and Funkadelic, there were also very heavy bands [in the same city] like MC5 and The Stooges.”
And right there is the DNA of Population II. Right from the start, Québec’s “free electrons” (a reference to the title of their previous album, Électrons libres du Québec) were busy reconciling extremes. “We’re constantly trying to come up with the most unlikely matches,” says Provençal. “Can II mix Matching Mole – one of our favourite bands – and Isaac Hayes? It seems weird, but it can be done. That’s the Population II approach: we’ve chosen to play human music on vintage instruments, which is a break from the current era’s tastes.”
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Population II song “Trippance”
The band is perplexed by contemporary music. Gratton admits he simply doesn’t understand the hyperpop movement, and says that most of what comes out nowadays is “cold.” This contributes to amplifying Population II’s outsider status. The band members exist on the margins, motivated by a creative feeling they call “La Trippance” (very loosely translatable as “trippy by nature”), a delightful neologism that gives its title to one of the tracks on the album, which also mentions Raoûl Duguay.
“I think we don’t talk enough about the importance of weirdos like Raôul Duguay in the development of Québec culture,” says Gratton. “His partner in L’Infonie, Walter Boudreau, studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen! It’s thanks to him that I discovered the entire counterculture of Québec.”
On planet Population II, talking about music is another way of making music. Discourse and art seem to merge, not only on the aforementioned “La Trippance,” but also on “Prévisions,” the most self-referential song on the album, which mentions their rehearsal space, and names Dominic Vanchesteing (Marie Davidson, Bernardo Femminielli), who succeeds Emmanuel Éthier in the producer’s seat. According to Provençal, Vanchesteing spurred the guys to explore soul and R&B grooves.
“We wanted to go somewhere else while continuing to honour what’s always motivated us,” says Gratton. “Playing together has certainly made us tighter, but it’s important to stay natural. We’re big fans of direct cinema, and I think there’s something about this album that reminds me of that. It’s a snapshot of us at a particular moment, and we like it that way; we’ve added colour here and there, but it doesn’t need retouching.”