La Sécurité and Hot Garbage Talk Influences, Experimentation, and DISTORSION PSYCH FEST (Mothland)

 

DISTORSION PSYCH FEST poster by Tiny Little Hammers

Before plugging in the synths and warming up the fog machines, we were able to chat with two bands on the bill at this year’s DISTORSION PSYCH FEST leading up to their rollicking sets in July.

La Sécurité by Marc-Antoine Barbier

The first group we had our eyes on was La Sécurité, a newly formed art-punk supergroup featuring members from iconic Montreal bands such as Choses Sauvages and Jesuslesfilles. In the spring, they treated audiences to a delightfully frantic and groovy dual single release – “Suspens/Try Again” via Mothland. DISTORSION was the band’s first live show together, and it was a gig for the books. 

Sofie Milito of Also Cool: I'd love to hear a bit about your group's beginnings. How did La Sécurité come together?

Éliane Viens-Synnott of La Sécurité: The band initially started with Félix [Bélisle] and I noodling around during the pandemic to pass the time. We had fun mixing up all our influences — him having more of an electro/disco background, whereas I'm more into punk and new wave myself. We then invited three friends to join. I met Melissa [Di Menna] in Vanille, this other band we played in together. We realized quite quickly that we were very compatible creatively. Laurence-Anne [last name unknown] is a good friend and has collaborated with Félix a couple times on other projects, so it kind of seemed like a no-brainer. We met Kenny [Smith] in the past couple years in and around the music scene, and we clicked really quickly as well. He has lots of natural taste and talent. Long story short, we all came together in a pretty organic way. 

Also Cool: With members from a multitude of different bands and musical projects, is there anything you were (or still are) curious about experimenting with as a group?

Éliane: It's fun to switch up who is composing which part and to take in everyone's ideas. The first few songs were mostly written by Félix and I, but the more we go along, it's more of a collaborative effort. I guess that's the direction we are interested in experimenting with. It's kind of fun to be kept on our toes and it's a good project for that purpose.

AC: What was inspiring the band in the making of your first pair of singles (“Suspens / Try Again”)?

Éliane: I wrote those singles during the pandemic, so there are allusions to that for sure. We found our groove arranging the musical aspects of the songs together and they helped us to figure out our work dynamic.

AC: There's a voltaic energy to those songs that seems like great fun for a live setting. What's most exciting to you about playing this first live show at Distortion?

Éliane: I'm excited to break in our live performance in general, and to present news songs that were composed in a more collaborative way. You can't really know what it's going tobe like until you do it!

AC: If La Sécurité were stranded on a desert island, what would be your top media picks?

Éliane: See The Whirl by Delta 5, [Miyazaki's] Howl's Moving Castle, and Please Kill Me [by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil].

AC: On the heels of your first studio recording, is there anything on the horizon for the band that you can tell us about?

Éliane: We’ve got a couple more shows planned before the end of the year. An album is in the works as well…


Hot Garbage by Alex Carre

Combining krautrock and psychedelia, Hot Garbage has been releasing spell-binding tunes since 2017, coming out with their first full-length album RIDE via Mothland in 2021. Hailing from Toronto, they trekked over to play DISTORSION amid a series of US gigs. Catch them on their fall tour this November!

Sofie Milito of Also Cool: How did Hot Garbage come to be?

Julianna Carkevaris of Hot Garbage: Alex [Carlevaris] and Mark [Henein] had been playing in bands together since their early high school days. I joined in on bass when this project was getting going—around 2014—then Dylan [Gamble] joined on keys shortly after. 

Also Cool: What are you experimenting with these days?

Julianna: We're currently working on a new record, and for the past couple of years we've been exploring new approaches to the songwriting process. The pandemic forced us to work on things while being apart from each other, which had advantages and disadvantages. I think now, we're finding a new balance between that and the synergy and spontaneity of getting ideas out by playing together in an improvised way.

AC: RIDE takes us on a scorching, swirling journey from minute one to its trippy finish. Can you tell us a little about the album’s world and what was inspiring you in the making-of?

Julianna: I think the inspiration is quite varied throughout the record, but generally, we draw a lot of ideas and moods from imagery and photos, cinema, books, mysterious phenomena — both worldly and otherworldly ["RIDE is all at once dread, beauty, wonder, horror and mystery"]. 

AC: As a band, what’s your favourite part about a live gig?

Julianna: The give and take, and the exchanging of energy.

AC: If Hot Garbage were stranded on a desert island, what would be your top media picks? 

Julianna: [The film] Goodfellas. It is a marvel of cinema with a great soundtrack. RIP, Ray Liotta.

AC: What’s the hottest garbage you’ve come across?

Julianna: It's pretty hot right now actually, so I probably walked by some today… and it will probably just keep getting hotter. Enjoy it while you can.


La Sécurité

Bandcamp | Instagram 

Hot Garbage

Bandcamp | Instagram

Sofie Milito

Bandcamp


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DISTORSION Takes Over Entrepôt 77 with Holy Fuck, Hot Garbage, Petra Glynt & More

 

Our favourite psychedelic moths are back at it again with DISTORSION > Entrepôt 77. It'll be loud, a ton of fun, and includes Also Cool favourites like Holy Fuck, Hot Garbage, and Petra Glynt. 

The festival runs from July 22th to 24th at Entrepôt 77 (77 rue Bernard), a mythical Montreal landmark located in Plateau Mont-Royal, at the junction of Mile-End and La Petite Patrie.

Ever since the festival's very humble beginnings, the moths organizing DISTORSION have made a point to settle in unique locations to present their psychedelic masses. This year is no different, but there is a slight twist: the event will take place mostly in daylight! Rest assured, though, the moth team has you covered with some of the very best noisy and experimental outfits out there.

Amongst the headliners, attendees can catch transcendent electronic artist Holy Fuck (Toronto, ON), multi-faceted psychedelic collective Golden Dawn Arkestra (Austin, TX), krautrock ensemble Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp (Geneva, CH), plus a selection of up-and-coming post-everything outfits from Montreal and abroad!

Check out the full schedule below:

FRIDAY

9 pm - HOLY FUCK

8 pm - GRIM STREAKER

7 pm -CRASHER

6 pm - PETRA GLYNT

5 pm - DJ SET

SATURDAY

9 pm - GOLDEN DAWN ARKESTRA

8 pm - PANTAYO

7 pm - HOT GARBAGE

6 pm - ZOON

5 pm - KARMA GLIDER

4 pm - EFY HECKS

2 pm - DJ SET

SUNDAY

8pm - ORCHESTRE TOUT PUISSANT MARCEL DUCHAMP *

7 pm - LA SÉCURITÉ

6 pm - MOTHERHOOD

5 pm - N NAO

4 pm - LARYNX

2 pm - DJ SET


See you in Mothland!

Tickets I Complete Schedule

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Neo-Psych Rockers Hot Garbage Share Spooky Video for "Sometimes I Go Down" (Mothland)

 
Artwork by Derek McKeon

Artwork by Derek McKeon

Are you in need of some brain-melting psychedelic rock? Well, you've come to the right place. Toronto-based psych outfit Hot Garbage, who are newly signed to Mothland, meld their shiny metallic melodies with gritty krautrock and post-punk rhythms to bring us along on a gaseous neo-psychedelic trip. 

Their latest single, “Sometimes I Go Down,” takes inspiration from the sounds of Sonic Youth, and gives us a taste of their upcoming album Ride. The track is accompanied by a spooky music video featuring mysterious calls in parallel universes, tarot cards, and more

We caught up with the band in anticipation of their set at FME on September 3rd to chat about their music and what's to come in for Hot Garbage in 2021.

Photo by Alex Carre

Photo by Alex Carre

Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: Hi! It's nice to meet e-meet you. I'm interested to know how you all met and how that friendship turned into Hot Garbage.

J: You too. Alex is my brother, so I've known him since birth. He was putting a band together with Mark, who he had played with in bands throughout high school. I jumped in on bass, and Dylan, who I'd recently met through friends, joined shortly afterwards to fill things out on keys/synth.

A: Thanks for having us! That's pretty much it, yeah. We were hanging out and going to shows and listening to music together in Toronto. So we started experimenting with writing and playing together, and it was fun! We started doing little gigs and stuff around the city.

Also Cool: Your sound is unmistakably psychedelic. Can you give us some insight on where your inspirations are coming from and what those different genres' scenes are like?

J: Our musical inspirations are pretty varied. I think for this record we're putting out now, we delved into a lot of krauty / noisy territory - inspired by stuff like CAN, Gary Numan, Sonic Youth, Exploded View. We also draw a lot of inspiration from the local scene. There's a ton of quality music coming out of Toronto. Even without hanging with those people and seeing them at shows, I'm listening to amazing record after amazing record that people have been putting out during the pandemic.

A: Yeah, I think all of us really enjoy a lot of different types of music. From a writing standpoint, psychedelic is a great access point to play with musical ideas. The human experience can be so psychedelic, mysterious or strange at times, and those feelings are also so hard to put into words. So I often feel like psychedelic music is just music that is relatable in that way. We're extremely lucky to be a part of a great music community here in Toronto!

AC: Psych shows are often accompanied by crazy visuals that enhance the overall experience. Do you have any memorable/favourite psych shows that you've been to?

J: Definitely. Anything the Oscillitarium has done visuals for is memorable. They have this magical way of transforming any space. A Place To Bury Strangers at the last Crystal Lake was pretty amazing and intense. I've seen Black Angels a bunch, and they always have great visuals by the Mustachio Light Show. There are also a lot of sets that stick with me from Levitation and Desert Daze over the years, like Iggy Pop, 13th Floor Elevators, Jesus and Mary Chain, John Cale. The installation art and visuals are always really well done at those fests; it's clearly factored into the experience.

A: Yeah, it's interesting to see this live collaboration between visual artists and musicians! Oscillitarioum light shows in Toronto rule. With buds like Possum, Kali Horse, Vypers, Mother Tongues, and so many more. I also remember having a pretty profound experience seeing John Cale at Desert Daze a few years back. The visuals and music hit me so hard. It was such an expression.

AC: I'm curious about the mysterious phone calls in your most recent music video. Can you give us any hints of who the mystery caller might've been? I'd also love to know a bit more about the tarot symbolism in the video.

A: Good question... We were playing with the idea of these kinds of gross dudes (Dylan, Mark and myself) talking on the phone and maybe being warned about something and not taking it seriously. While we're being gross, we meet our demise. Juliana maybe heeds the warning and challenges fate by pulling the right card (mystical tarot magic). She's "in touch" with the caller.

Also for the record, we made this video like a year before the pandemic, so any parallels there were not planned… Last year, when the band could only talk on zoom, we were joking about how it looked just like our music video!

AC: We're very excited to see you play IRL at FME. What are you most looking forward to at the festival?

J: Thanks, we're really stoked to play. I'm looking forward to seeing Paul Jacobs and OBGM's for sure. There are a bunch of friends going who I haven't seen in a while, so I'm excited to just hang out and see some shows. I am going to try and catch Cadence Weapon on Thursday if we get in in time. 

A: Thanks! Yeah, I know Paul Jacobs and the OBGMs have such great energies, and I can't wait to soak that up! Also just to be able to play again and be at a show feels so good. This will be our first indoor gig since the pandemic started.

AC: Lastly, what are your plans for the next year, now that shows are happening again?

J: We will be playing shows around the release of our new record - fall/winter will be mostly local-ish but hoping to make it back down into the US to do some touring in the spring. There is also new material being passed around, so we're going to be working on putting that together for the next thing. 

A: Exactly, finally tour this record! We'll go to the USA again and play some shows as soon as we can. But we've been writing tons during the pandemic, so we'll also be working on new material.

Watch Ride below

Hot Garbage

Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music | Youtube
Instagram | Facebook

Malaika Astorga is the co-founder of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and social media strategist currently based in Montreal.


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