SOLO SPARKS FROM ARCADE FIRE
Butler and Parry take their music in different directions, T'Cha Dunlevy writes.
Like many of us during this time, the Arcade Fire crew is spread out, hunkered down and functioning within a vastly reduced spectrum of existence. There is vague talk of a new album, but that's a ways off.
But alone time can be productive time. Two of the Montreal band's members are releasing solo albums this month, and they couldn't sound more different. Will Butler — brother of frontman Win — is back with Generations, another album of anxiously rollicking and vaguely political rock 'n' roll; while Richard Reed Parry launches his first movie soundtrack as a solo artist, for Canadian filmmaker Sean Durkin's The Nest, starring Jude Law and Carrie Coon.
Reached at his Brooklyn, N.Y., home, Butler expressed a mix of despair and determination regarding the state of the world, and of his country of birth.
“Me and my wife, Jenny, are both American,” he said, explaining their decision to move back to the U.S. in 2015. “We figured it was time for us to deal with our own issues. America is messed up. Quebec is messed up in its own way, but we can't even vote there. Let's go live in a place that's messed up in a way we're responsible for.”
He put his time and energy where his mouth is, earning a one-year degree in public policy from Harvard in 2016-17, hoping to develop a more informed critical stance that would allow him to make better use of his privileged position in one of the world's biggest indie-rock bands.
“(This degree) has helped me communicate,” Butler said. “Just in my social group, it has helped me understand what is happening in the world and be smarter about (my role in it). At times, that social group includes 10,000 people in a room — oh right, what does that mean?
“God willing, I'll just play music my whole life. But it lets me see where I might act, or how I might lobby the government intelligently, in a way that matters.”
On the U.S. tour for Arcade Fire's 2017 album Everything Now, Butler organized a series of late-night, post-show town halls, bringing together local politicians, thinkers and activists from cities where the band performed.
The followup to his 2015 solo debut, Policy, Generations finds him updating that album's bratty
punk attitude with a sense of direction and a spit shine.
Footloose and fancy-free musically, Butler has a way of channelling spontaneity that can be harder to pinpoint amid the grandeur of Arcade Fire's lofty creations. But beneath the new album's fun and frolic is a sense of dread that is very much in step with the moment.
“I'm tired of waiting for a better day,” he sings on the gently bouncing Close My Eyes. “But I'm scared and I'm lazy, and nothing's going to change.”
Then comes the chorus: “I close my eyes, close my eyes, close my eyes / And it's almost all right.”
“It's an album of two minds,” he said. “The lyrics are pretty doom. Like, `I don't know what I can do, I don't want to do anything, I'm terrified.' But I think the music is an effective counterpoint to that. The music is moving forward, it's in your body. Regardless of what your brain is saying, the music is saying, `We've just gotta do this s---t.' ”
Parry has taken a more subdued approach to his off-Arcade Fire solo output, including the classically inspired Music for Heart and Breath, and the folky existentialism of his soft-singing, tree-hugging diptych Quiet River of Dust Vols. 1 and 2.
Those releases are portals to introspective emotional journeys. Parry's intuition may be part of what inspired Durkin to seek his services for The Nest. The '80s-set psychological thriller recounts a couple's descent into turmoil when their family uproots from the U.S. to the U.K. It premièred at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is in theatres Friday.
“I immediately knew, watching the movie, that I really wanted to do the soundtrack,” said Parry, reached last week at his home in Montreal. “It's about a family that is living way beyond their means. The dad is projecting this rich lifestyle, so they buy this massive old manor in the English countryside. But it's this spooky house that's too big, and they move in and the rooms are empty, because they can't furnish them yet. It has this big, cavernous, cold vibe, but it's very beautiful.
“I could feel right away that I wanted the music to fit inside that house.”
Parry assembled an international quartet of collaborators for the project: Montreal pianist Parker Shper, New York saxophonist Stuart Bogie, Berlin-based violinist Ayumi Paul and Parry himself on double bass.
With a wonderfully light touch borrowed from classical and jazz realms, they navigate nuanced territory, exploring desolate realms that fluctuate between solitude and solace, with underlying hints of something sinister.
There is one other song in the film: Duke Ellington's Fleurette Africaine, with Charles Mingus and Max Roach. For Parry, the chance to share the screen with these jazz greats at their peak was an honour, privilege and inspiration.
“It's a stunning piece of music,” he said. “It just has an emotional depth and complexity and soft-spokenness that is very hard to capture in music . ... The composition is so clear and so contained. No one is painting way outside the lines.
“That's what I was going for with the movie. I wanted to find a little dark corner of the house, and have each piece of music be one painting in a dark corner of the house.”