Tag: Pressure Pin

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Returns with Breakneck and Woozy “Ketchup”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Sécurité features a collection of current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation back in 2022, the French Canadian quintet developed a sound and approach that meanders around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock paired with jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, seemingly run through an insomniac filter.

While their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

With the release of 2023’s Samuel Gemme-produced Stay Safe!, La Sécurité exploded into the national and international scenes, supporting the album with a busy period of touring with stops across the North American festival circuit, including M for Montréal, New Colossus and SXSW among others, as well as opening for The Go! Team.

Late last year, the JOVM mainstays shared “Detour,” a joint release with beloved indie label Bella Union and their label home Mothland. “Detour” continued where Stay Safe! let off: motorik grooves paired with spiky, off kilter arrangements and minimalistic melodic hooks that bring a synthesis of DEVO and the B52s to mind.

The Canadian outfit starts off 2025 with “Ketchup,” a breakneck post-punk ripper anchored around dizzying synth arpeggios and a distorted, down-tuned bass line paired with the JOVM mainstays’ uncanny knack for punchy, shout-along friendly hooks that continues a run of material that seemingly draws from Freedom of Choice-era DEVO.

The verses are coupled with a chord change that helps build the collective’s compelling case against small talk. And while the song isn’t about condiments; instead it sarcastically alludes to ketchup with the line “L’affaire est ketchup,” a Québécois expression meaning: “All is well.”
 
“Though we knew we wanted to write a song about small talk, when we started working on the music, I was mostly scat singing, save for the words ‘L’affaire est ketchup.’ Hence, the song title,” La Sécurité’s frontperson Éliane Viens-Synnott says. “We noticed while playing the song live, that the tune got people bouncing all over the place. The track seems to have that special energy. To keep that energy, Renny [Wilson] went all out with the production. To be fair, we did suggest that he made every track ‘clip.’”
 

Philippe Beauséjour, who directed the accompanying video, explains, “Upon listening to the song, I noticed that it was about small talk, and all these subjects that come up in conversation when we have nothing to say. These empty conversations are often about what ‘normal’ people see on television (weather forecast, news, funny ads…). The papercutting animations stem from my love for Terry Gilliam’s work.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Shares Defiant Feminist Anthem “Hot Topic”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Sécurité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year, the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a Friday release through Mothland. 

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that are manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. 

In the lead-up to the rising Canadian outfit’s highly-anticipated fully-length debut, I’ve managed to write about two singles:

  • “Anyway,” a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal and super heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. 

  • “Serpent,” a track that sees the Montréal-based post punk outfit quickly locking into the sort of dance punk groove that brings Echoes-era The Rapture and early LCD Soundsystem to mind paired with insistent shaker-driven percussion, twinkling keys, the collective’s unerring knack for dance floor friendly hooks and choruses and lyrics — in French — describing friend group drama. The song is a cheeky and sarcastic ode to complicated friendships that despite the language is very familiar. As the band puts it, “The person it is directed towards loves dancing. It’s a pretty dancy song. We hope they dance to it.” 

Stay Safe‘s third and latest single “Hot Topic” is built around a lurching yet dance floor friendly, DEVO-like grove paired with slashing bursts of guitar, twinkling bursts of keys and off-kilter percussion paired with Viens-Synnott’s defiant yet wry, shouted vocals — presumably at a clueless cis-het dude, who can’t quite get the hint.

The song’s arrangement was initially written to score an extended avant-garde dance piece also titled “Hot Topic,” choreographed by the band’s Viens-Synnott and shot in a single, continuous take. “The concept was to choreograph a dance piece to be shot as a sequence to capture the ephemeral elements present in performing arts,” Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. “Drawing influences from the Riot Grrrl movement, I created a dance piece where five women take up all the space on a dancefloor, unapologetically. We can dress how we want, enjoy our night out however that looks for us and we don’t care what you think.”

After completing the piece, the band edited down the song into the version that ultimately appears on their soon-to-be released debut. And the accompanying video is also, an abridged version of the original dance piece. (For this post, the music video is above the main text of this post, the short film is below the main text. Both are a trippy experience.) The song, the short film and the video are a testament to the Montréal-based band’s unique nature as a collaborative, artistically open group with varied and differing creative ambitions and entanglements — and in a fashion seemingly similar to that of JOVM mainstays La Femme.
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Shares Bouncy Dance Punk Anthem “Serpent”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Sécurité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year. the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a June 16, 2023 release through Mothland. 

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that are manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get.

Last month, I wrote about album single “Anyway,” a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal and super heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Symott explains in press notes. 

Stay Safe!‘s second and latest single “Serpent” sees the Montréal-based post punk outfit quickly locking into the sort of dance punk groove that brings Echoes-era The Rapture and early LCD Soundsystem to mind paired with insistent shaker-driven percussion, twinkling keys, the collective’s unerring knack for dance floor friendly hooks and choruses and lyrics — in French — describing friend group drama. The song is a cheeky and sarcastic ode to complicated friendships that despite the language is very familiar. As the band puts it, “The person it is directed towards loves dancing. It’s a pretty dancy song. We hope they dance to it.” 

Directed by the band, the accompanying video for “Serpent” features lo-fi, vintage camera shot footage during their most recent run SXSW that showcases the band’s adventures around Austin — and the snarky and playful joy at the heart of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal Art Punks La Securité Share Frenetic Ripper “Anyway”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Securité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year. the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a June 16, 2023 release through Mothland.

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. The album’s latest single “Anyway” is a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the song’s frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal, and very heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Symott explains in press notes.

Directed by the members of the band, the accompanying video for “Anyway” was shot on VHS and follows the band in what has quickly become one of my favorite cities in the world. We see the band playing in joints around town, hanging out and goofing around. It’s exuberant, mischievous and stylish as hell. The video and album announcements come on the heels of the band’s SXSW appearance this year. So this year looks to be a big year for the Montréal-based outfit.