July Talk depicts ecstasy, agony of love
July Talk video “Beck and Call” is a primal come-here-go-away mating ritual as Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay caress then confront each other in sensual, electrifying, intoxicating slow-motion visual splendour.
Fay studied contemporary dance at university, and Dreimanis studied film which gives both added creative moxie. July Talk songs are like little heart-plays featuring the ecstasy and the agony of love — almost like late playwright Edward Albee’s “Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf ” with a hardcore alt-rock pulse.
Fay and Dreimanis wanted “Beck and Call” (also featuring good friend/creative kindred spirit Tanya Tagaq) to be a movement piece.
“We went into the studio a few times and started working on movement together to the music,” says Fay. “Then once we got comfortable in that realm we had two of our fave artists help us — Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava who were also our best friends,” she adds.
Nostbakken and Sadava are part of Toronto experimental theatre feminist collective Quote Unquote, known for their critically-acclaimed two-woman performance “Mouthpiece.”
They worked with Dreimanis and Fay, in addition to director Jared Raab who had a Bolt — a special high-speed camera crane/ cinebot that moves 15 feet in less than a second to achieve a specific focus or camera position in a film technique called motion control.
“It is very dangerous. You have to be very careful working with it because it will take your head clean off,” cautions Dreimanis with a little chuckle.
But that’s the only slow-motion in the time frame of July Talk who began in 2012.
The band features singers Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay, guitarist Ian Docherty, bassist Josh Warburton, and drummer Danny Miles.
The band’s groundbreaking self-titled debut on Toronto’s Sleepless Records (Pet Sun) instantly led to many more gigs including lots of shows with their good pals, like-minded juke-a-billy duo, Catl. July Talk also opened for Matt Mays, Arkells, Sam Roberts, Weezer, and the Matthew Good Band. The band also released EP “For Your Bloodshot Eyes.” Tours abounded from North America to Australia and Europe in addition to a number of festivals including Osheaga in Montreal, Way Home Arts and Music Festival in Northern Ontario, Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas, and Kitchener’s KOI Fest. Their first album went gold in Canada in addition to winning the 2014 Juno for Breakthrough Group, and the 2015 Juno for Alternative Album of the Year.
July Talk has also opened for Frank Turner, The National and Alabama Shakes.
Dreimanis, originally from Alberta, had dreams of working in film and moved to Toronto to study at York. There he met longtime collaborator/July Talk bassist Josh Warburton. After a few years the two quit film school to form Vulture Culture Films which made music videos for bands like Arkells and Born Ruffians. The pair, who also wrote songs in film school, began playing around town. Dreimanis played keys and lap steel. He first met Fay at live music nook, The Communist’s Daughter.
“Leah was sitting there with a bike helmet on, covered in face paint playing acoustic guitar with a friend — not like a show, but just playing songs. It all sort of fell into place and it was pretty gradual,” he notes.
Dreimanis, who looks like a cross between a young Steve Buscemi and singer Nick Cave, also has a growling gravelly bass baritone like Cave’s mixed with Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. His haunting voice is an instrument which creates dynamic aural contrast to Fay’s feisty higher octave.
In July Talk’s followup album “Touch” (produced by Alex Bonenfant — Pet Sun), Dreimanis and Fay’s sexual roles smash into each other like an emotional rollercoaster of sucker punches to the heart and adrenalin to the soul.
It’s been four years between albums but the band was on the road resulting in a sizable fan-base and likely many moments which may have been channeled into “Touch.”
“Through every album, from first to third, it’s impossible to make music that is not evolved and changed by what happens
in the world. And the things that you experience,” notes Fay adding she and Dreimanis do not plan anything before they go onstage.
“Sometimes we will say to each other let’s really weird it up tonight but we never talk about anything specific beforehand,” insists Fay who (under the name Leah Fay Goldstein) received a Best Actress Canadian Screen Award nomination for her starring role in 2015 dramedy “Diamond Tongues” about a misguided actress desperate to find success. Dreimanis was the film’s cinematographer.
The July Talk front-man also did a bone-chilling cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival classic “Bad Moon Rising” in 2014 with the band Mourning Ritual which ended up in 2015 horror film “Green Room” and several TV series including “The Following” and “The Walking Dead.”
“I have recorded more songs in that kind of way,” says Dreimanis. “It is fun for me to feel like can I write inside of a character and make things really, really dark. That was a great experience and I would like to do more of it.”