By Keith Walsh
Gilles Snowcat is a hard one to figure out. Despite the fact that he wears his rebellious heart on his sleeve at times, trying to unravel the layers of meaning in Gilles’ life and art requires interpreting the complex interplay between a seemingly endless stream of ideas and the flow of his “cartoon in the real world” persona. It’s not a task for the fainthearted!
All of which makes his latest release, a remaster of 2008’s “This Mouth,” more fun than it has any business being. Fans of “Nama Time” will recognize some of the material, which strikes a balance between experimental rock, art rock and melodic pop, in a sonic blend that plays as smooth as Belgian chocolate. Others will hear echoes of his earlier years as he transitioned from the funky, soulful project Awaken to a solo career. There’s plenty of Gilles’ artful keyboard work here, along with his smoky baritone, all showcasing clever songwriting that tricks the ear and tells the story of a life – or lives — lived near the edge.
It’s clear that Gilles Snowcat likes to do things his way, even when it comes to something as technical as a remaster. I asked him to explain what is involved in this new release and why he felt compelled to revisit “This Mouth” on its 10th Anniversary. Gilles also gives a hint of what’s coming next, with work on his new project – an album of brand new material – already underway. Enjoy!
Q. Remastering is quite a trend, but perhaps some don’t understand what it is and why it’s necessary, Please explain.
G.S. Mastering is a process in which a record company sells an old product by making believe it’s new. The main requirement is to have the word ‘remaster’ on the album cover, sometimes it helps to work a little on the sound too. The producer usually assigns nowadays machines (EQ, compressors, etc…) to make the old tapes sound better, or at least differently, since some remasters sound even worse than the original version.
In a word, beyond the marketing aspect, a remaster is mostly a useless thing, since the original sound is part of the personality of an album. Who cares if the drums of an album from 1974 sound muddy? That’s how history will remember the record anyway, so what’s the use of cleaning it? The dirt becomes art as time passes.
However, remasters can be an interesting documentary on how the instruments sound, and how the songs ended without fade-out, and things like that. However, it’s mostly musicians’ chicken soup for musicians’ ears, at best.
Q. Also, will the new version of “This Mouth” introduce a digital process where there once was analog?
G.S. No, it’s just the same thing as if you were listening to an old vinyl on a new player. There’s no remix or cheating, I don’t even have the original tapes anymore, since I destroy all my multi tracks once an album is released, so I’m sure no idiot would suddenly f@#k with them once I’m not on this world anymore. But here I realised I still had the original masters, and that I never really mastered them anyway, so why not giving the album an opportunity to sound good?
Q. What exactly is involved and why did you choose to remaster this particular album at this time?
G.S.It’s been 10 years I released it and there are still people discovering it and loving it, which is cool and strange at the same time since it’s very raw and dirty, there’s almost no production on it and just basic drum machines and stuff like that, lo-fi to the max.
It’s a special record, it’s very raw since it has been done in a short time, and at the time I had a box of bottles of German wine around the instruments, and I had to drink them all by the time the album would be released, so it made everything a bit special, and also the sound was a bit f@#ked-up, but the songwriting was great, I mean I had a vision, a kind of feeling about how the songs should be, even before they were written, and the pressure and the wine and the night made them become exactly what I had felt, and that’s a songwriter’s gift. Sometimes you can write a song by thinking of chords and melody and those technical things, it can be good, but the best of the best is when you have a ‘vision’ of a song before it’s written, ‘vision’ is not the right word since it’s not visual, it’s almost spiritual, like some forces that are working for you, it’s etheric, mystic, whatever you call it. And the songs in the end are great because they really are you DNA, you can carry them on stage and feel you give the audience something unique.
The flip side of that pressure and booze and night is that all the energy of the good forces went to the songwriting and not much into the production, hence the remaster for the 10thanniversary.
There’s also some experimentation with the voice capture, the microphone had some issues so I dismantled it and stick the cell to a conga, and it gave the voice some presence I didn’t expect. Fun and meaningful stuff…
Q. And please tell about the newest album you are recording…. any insights or glimpses, perhaps a hint of the styles, instruments and musicians involved? Is it in the direction of “Bareta,”or something different? Same producer as “Bareta?”
G.S. Any new release has to be strong enough to become the driving force pulling or pushing all the previous recordings, that’s a fun challenge, and the new album will be the new powerhouse of my own discography, simply put. It’s gonna be hot, hot stuff, that’s all I can say, I don’t mention any name since people come and go and some don’t even know yet they’ll be on the boat.
Thanks Gilles!
For more info, check out:
http://www.gilles-snowcat.com/
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