JOVM’s William Ruben Helms chats with Hush’s Paige Barlow and Miles Dupire-Gangon about their recently released “For Dolly” and more.
Tag: Simone Records
New Video: Hush Returns with Shimmering and Woozy “Phasing”
Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop. And each member is an accomplished member of the local scene, with the band featuring members of Hippie Houraah, Elephant Stone, Anemone, and The Besnard Lakes.
Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes Broadcast, The Velvet Underground, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Steve Lacy, Cocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world.
Late last year, I wrote about the Canadian trio’s debut single, the Bibi Club-like “The Mirrors Were Right,” which also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Their debut album’s second and latest single, album opener “Phasing” is a shimmering and ethereal blend of 60s psych pop, trip-hop and dream pop with Barlow’s radiant delivery darting and dancing around the dreamy accompanying arrangement and production.
The song thematically explores the uneasy ebb, shift and flow of feeling and perception, at points questioning the reciprocity and durability of our relationships with a seemingly lived-in quality.
Conceived by the band’s Paige Barlow and Aabid Youssef further emphasizes the song’s woozy and mind-bending blur: We see blurry images of local scenes projected both behind and in front of the band. The band also blurs in and out throughout.
New Video: Montréal’s Hush Shares Lush and Prismatic “The Mirrors Were Right”
Montréal-based trio Hush — Paige Barlow (vocals) and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert — are part of a new wave of Montréal-based acts actively reshaping psych pop.
Citing an eclectic array of influences that includes Broadcast, The Velvet Underground, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Steve Lacy, Cocteau Twins and Ariel Pink, the Montréal-based psych pop trio create a sound that’s simultaneously nostalgic and forward-looking. Their music lives in the blurred light of perception — half memory, half hallucination — and is an invitation to lose yourself inside of their hall of mirrors-like dream world.
The trio’s debut single “The Mirrors Were Right” also serves as the first single from their full-length debut, slated for a 2026 release through Simone Records. Sonically, “The Mirrors Were Right” is a prismatic tune featuring shimmering guitars, dusty and warped analog drum patterns and bursts glistening, kosmiche music-like synths as a lush and dreamy bed for Barlow’s ethereal vocal. The song is one-part half-remembered fever dream and one-part existential reflection while seeming to subtly channel Bibi Club and others.
The song’s lyrics came to Barlow as she reflected on long past, but long-lasting periods of dissociation and on flashes of clarity that cut through them now. “The mirrors are right” when reflections feel distorted; “luckily alive” with head above water, somewhere between the surface and the clouds.
“For the clip, we wanted to portray a fractured sense of self. The distorted inner witness. Evolving identities over time. Imagined through a cubist and surrealist lens: worlds sensed, not witnessed,” the band says of the accompanying video. “Images drift and reform, mirroring the song’s unfolding. A meditation on multiplicity. The self made plural.”
New Video: ALIAS Shares Swaggering and Genre-Defying “EMPTY HEAD” with KROY and Cadence Weapon
Emmanuel Alias is a French-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, dilettante and polymath who had had a varied and rather accomplished career in music before he started his eponymous psych rock project ALIAS.
After spending nine years studying jazz at the Darius Milhaud Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France, Alias relocated to Montréal in 2014. Upon his arrival in Québec, Alias landed a job at XS Music, where he worked on scores for HBO’s Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, ICI Télé’s Une autre histoire, Hubert et Fanny and Cerebrum et Mon fils, Mariloup Wolfe’s feature film Jouliks and for a number of Cirque du Soleil productions. In 2017, Alias also worked for Musique Nomade, where he produced multidisciplinary Oji-Crie’ and Mi’gmaq artist Anachnid‘s DREAMWEAVER, which was nominated for an Association québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Award and long-listed for the Polaris Prize.
The French-born, Montreal-based artist also produced singles by Q-052, Annie Sama, Chances, iskwē and Beyries. And he also had a stint as the musical and stage director for Ananchid.
Along with his production and songwriting work for other artists, the French-born, Canadian-based artist has managed to have had a host of different projects to accommodate his need to explore different genres, releasing punk, hip-hop and even ambient material under different monikers, before starting his solo recording project ALIAS, a cathartic psych rock project that sees him crafting retro-tinged sons rooted in fantastical, batshit crazy, hallucinogenic tales paired with fuzzy guitars and wild tempo changes.
Alias’ sophomore ALIAS album Embrace Chaos will be released through Simone Records. Embrace Chaos will feature “CURSED” and “TRUTH OR TRUST,” a woozily euphoric bop featuring glistening synth arpeggios, whirring bas synths, relentless four-on-the-floor paired with razor sharp, incredibly catchy hooks. The result is a LCD Soundsystem-meets-Psymon Spine-like soundscape that’s roomy enough for Alias, along with fellow Montréalers Virginie B and Meggie Lennon to playfully trade neurotically self-aware and vaguely paranoid verses and hooks throughout.
Embrace Chaos‘ third and latest single “EMPTY HEAD” sees the French-born, Canadian-based artist further establishing a genre-bending and genre-defying sound. Featuring guest spots from acclaimed Canadian emcee Cadence Weapon and KROY, the hook-driven “EMPTY HEAD” features elements of industrial electronica, hip-hop and punk rock delivered with a swaggering, in-your-face aplomb.
Directed by Gabrielle Thiffault, the accompanying video for “EMPTY HEAD” features Alias at a birthday party — or some other related gathering — with a table seated by mannequins and masked people. Throughout the French-born, Canadian artist seems to lose his mind and behaves poorly.
New Video: ALIAS Teams Up with Virginie B and Meggie Lennon on Woozy “TRUTH OR TRUST”
Emmanuel Alias is a French-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, dilettante and polymath who had had a varied career in music before he started his eponymous psych rock project ALIAS. After spending nine years studying jazz […]
Emmanuel Alias is a French-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, dilettante and polymath whose musical career has managed to go through about four different paths before he started his eponymous psych rock project ALIAS. After spending 9 years studying jazz at the Darius Milhaud Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France, Alias relocated to Quebec in 2014. Landing at job at XS Music, Alias worked with Jean-Phi Gonclaves on composing music for HBO’s Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, ICI Télé’s Une autre histoire, Hubert et Fanny and Cerebrum et Mon fils, Mariloup Wolfe’s feature film Jouliks and for a number of Cirque du Soleil productions.
Since 2017, Alias hs also worked for Musique Nomade, where he produced multidisciplinary Oji-Crie’ and Mi’gmaq artist Anachnid‘s DREAMWEAVER, which was nominated for an Association québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Award and long-listed for the Polaris Prize. The French-born, Montreal-based artist also produced singles by Q-052, Annie Sama, Chances, iskwē and Beyries‘ “Out of Touch,” off her recent album Encounter. Additionally, he’s the musical and stage director of Anachnid concerts — and he’s accompanied Beyries on stage a few times.
Simultaneously, the French-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter, composer and producer has a had host of different projects to accommodate his need and desire to explore different genres releasing punk, hip-hop and ambient material under different monikers — until settling on his latest, eponymous project Alias, a psych rock inspired project that finds him crafting songs centered around wild, hallucinogenic stories that include the personification of dogs, dementia, the Wild West, killers, loneliness, space exploration. The whole affair sounds as though it could have been released decades ago — and as though it were released yesterday.
Alias’ debut EP It’s Not Funny So Stop Smilin’ was released last week through Simone Records. The EP’s latest single “Why Don’t You Wanna Dance” is a trippy and modern take on classic psych rock and glam rock featuring fuzzy power chords, soaring organ, twinkling synth arpeggios and a chugging, motorik groove paired with an age old tale of rejection, humiliation and paranoia that should feel familiar to the outcasts and weirdos amongst us.
New Video: Montreal Pysch Rock Supergroup Releases a Trippy Visual for Lysergic Debut Single
Deriving their name from a song by French songwriter Jacques Dutronc, written to mock the pricks swarming his flowerbeds, Hippie Hourrah is a new Montreal-based psych rock project seemingly inspired by that song’s spirit, featuring three of the city’s most accomplished musicians — Les Marinellis’ Cédric Marinelli, Elephant Stone’s Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Elephant Stone’s, Anemone’s and The Besnard Lakes’ Gabriel Lambert.
“Fantôme” is the band’s debut single — and the first single off the band’s forthcoming full-length debut, slated for a June 2021 through Simone Records. Centered around a hypnotic groove featuring shimmering sitar, gently buzzing synths, wah wah pedaled guitar and propulsive polyrhythm, the song possesses the sort of hazily lysergic air and mind expanding vibes that will remind listeners of the late 60s.
Directed by Joey Desjardins, the recently released, gorgeous video for “Fantôme” follows a woman, who through meditation opens her third eye, revealing the mysteries of the universe. “When I met Cédric Marinelli, he showed me the medal hanging from his neck” Joey Desjardins recalls. “It had a sun with an eye in the center of it. Cedric told me that each member of the band wears one, and they really enjoy this type of occult imagery. I really like these kinds of esoteric knick-knacks, which is reflected in the tone of the video. Since I loved the song and had wanted to create a psychedelic ghost tale for a while, there was a click. Gabriel Favreau (the animator and editor of the video) and I were really on the same page, which allowed us to quickly construct this spectral, hallucinatory journey.”