Liza Makarova of Also Cool Mag: What is the history behind Mue? When did it start and why?
Catherine Debard of Mue: Mue is definitely a pandemic project. It [all began]in March 2020 – I was supposed to go on a European tour and had sublet my place. A few days before leaving, I started having doubts and ended up cancelling everything (which was a really good decision, since the international lockdown happened the week after). I stayed at Léon's place and we quarantined together.
Léon Lo of Mue: I had some gear stocked at home from a previous performance, so one day, out of boredom or curiosity, we decided to jam together for the first time. I set up my computer to record it just in case and it turned out to be unlike anything either of us had done individually before.
Liza: Throughout the three- (or more) year process, what were the feelings, sources of inspiration, rituals, and expectations that motivated you to develop Les vasières?
Catherine: Looking back on the recording process, the ritualistic aspect was undeniable. I think the pacing was important in this respect. We recorded a song or two at a time, a few weeks apart, for a few months. Each time, we would clear the space and since our project is hardware-heavy, it would take us about an hour to set everything up. It was meticulous and messy as if we were building a world out of a bunch of cables and machines, all intertwined and tangled together. Then, without talking much or planning anything, we improvised until we connected with each other and when the sounds locked, we would record until we felt satisfied. It would always start playfully and chaotically, but then, intuitively, we'd find each other and vibe on the same frequency.
Léon: I would say “frequencies”, as there were so many elements acting of their own accord. It was entrancing but also eerie in how egoless the process was.
Catherine: Somehow, we always intuitively stopped recording at the 12-minute mark, possibly our own sacred time unit. That was the first phase of the project, and we didn't have an album or concept yet.
Léon: After letting those recordings sit for a bit, we revisited them, chose the ones we liked best and set about cutting them down to more digestible formats. That proved to be really difficult because of the overlapping cycles of different lengths. Finding the right spots to cut out without it showing too much was challenging. But at that point, there was a feeling that the compositions could become something more concrete –that together, they could turn into something else. Kris from La Rama was an early supporter and singled out two songs (“1,000 Passages” and “A Tangle of Filaments”) to release as a limited edition 10” vinyl on the store’s in-house label La Rama Dubs. Toronto-based label Halocline Trance gracefully signed on to release the remaining tracks, which were coalescing into something like an album.
Catherine: It's around that time that we started thinking about mudflats, right? That's what “vasière” means. We added the interludes to expand a bit more on the idea. Before that, I remember we were into more of a “compost”, “slimy” imagery. I was trying to grow plants out of vegetable scraps, and I recall we were both pretty invested in the process.
Léon: Yes, listening to the tracks, we started seeing how our disparate sounds would come together like all the different overlapping cycles present in mudflats: those of the waves, the countless micro-organisms, the vegetation, the birds overhead, etc. So, each jam was re-imagined as us having set up a new mudflat and wanting to see how all the different elements would co-exist.
