Braids evolve on new album
Braids With: Purity Ring, Born Gold When: Saturday at 7 p.m. Where: Churchill Square Tickets: free
Calgary — Contrary to how it might sound in album form, there’s a great deal of levity in the Braids camp these days.
The three friends, who made their way from Calgary to Montreal almost a decade ago, sound refreshed, relaxed and ready to take on the world as they sit around their band house and field questions on the speaker phone.
And so they should. Braids have recently released their third album, Deep In the Iris, an astonishingly beautiful record that also tackles some heady subject matter, such as rape culture on the remarkable feminist anthem Miniskirt, and how the consumption of pornography warps our real-world view of sex and love, on the song Sore Eyes.
Q: It seems that each album you evolve that much more, and defy expectations that your fans and others now have of you. Austin Tufts : We’re always changing a lot as people and this band has always tried to be an honest reflection of who we are. And I think because we’re still in the transitional time of our lives the music reflects that every time. Raphaelle Standell : It’s just an honest reflection of the art. The band has never thought about that, about trying to be the band that we were before. Or trying to be what people expect. Taylor Smith : Or even being scared of charting different territory or trying to do something that’s in the normal realm of what we’d done last time. Going into each process of writing and recording it’s a very natural sense of discovery, where we’re excited to do something different, there’s no hesitation.
Q: It sounds as if what went into the recording of this one was a little calmer than the last one. (The record was made in three sessions, including during a retreat to upstate New York, an isolated cabin in the mountains of Arizona, and on a farm in Vermont.) Austin : Absolutely. That was a huge contributing factor to so many aspects of the record. The emotional vulnerability, the lyrics, the honesty of the songwriting. I think a lot of the more aggressive moments, not really shying away from those things, was because we had broken down a lot of barriers we had in our day-to-day lives. We just shed our inhibitions and a lot of different things were coming out that we had never explored before.
Q: Miniskirt is an absolutely devastating, yet empowering and gorgeous track. Lyrically, Raph, you had said in an interview that you had felt you needed to take them (the lyrics) to the guys and ask if they were on board. Why? Raphaelle : Yeah. I knew that they were obvious intense lyrics and obviously addressing a lot of subjects, so I wanted to know their thoughts and opinions on it because we’re a band, it’s not just me. And they are amazing, respectful men, who are super down with what it was that I was saying.
Q: Do you think the fact that people aren’t as shocked anymore speaks to the fact that you, as a band, are getting better at songwriting and putting forth these ideas? Raphaelle : Absolutely. The way we put forth these ideas I think it’s a more appropriate platform and we’re more confident. When we were writing it, nobody in the room was questioning it, it felt very right to say.