Interview: Braids

By Crax

With their 2011 debut album Native Speaker, Canadian electronicists Braids arrived in a shower of synths and looping vocals that recalled the sounds of Animal Collective before them. The band bade farewell to their Montreal roots and set off on a world tour that had them playing alongside the likes of Moby, Portishead, and Battles. Armed with these new influences, Braids returned to the studio to record their second studio album.

The result of those efforts is the majestic and sculptural Flourish // Perish, due out August 20. The drum-circle yelps of Animal Collective have been tempered and refined into a more melodic atmosphere. The album is still experimental and innovative in its sonic reach, but it's a patient album that breezes through 10 steadily pulsing tracks, exploring the infinite variations in one idea. We sat down with Braids last week, braving bums and sirens to discuss Flourish // Perish and how they got there.

Welcome back to New York. Welcome back, probably, right?  So what's the occasion?

Austin: The main occasion is Raphaelle was doing a photo shoot with New York Times Style this morning, so we're just sort've here doing some press and stuff.

Raphaelle: That's why I look kinda like a doll right now.

Tell us about the beginnings of the band.

Austin: Raphaelle and I met when we were 12 and 13. That was a long-ass time ago. [Laughs.] Yeah, so we were just hanging out. Not really playing any music together but then I guess Raph started playing singer-songwriter guitar stuff and then we got into high school and met Taylor and another girl Katie—who used to be in the band as well—and our other friend Vince as well, and we started playing music together. It just sort of clicked. There was a really strong connection and it was really just like light and really light and fun and we were rehearsing as much as we could; covering a lot of musical ground really quickly; changing our sound a lot and discovering what we liked.

Well that's what's nice about playing with your friends, right? There's no pressure.

Austin: Yeah, of course. And then we all moved to Montreal together, and at that point it was just the four of us, and then we were the four of us for four years or something. And we wrote our entire first record, Native Speaker, and put that out and did a full year of touring behind that.

Were you Braids at that point?

Raphaelle: Yeah, we were only not Braids for about a year and a half. We were the Neighborhood Council.

Austin: At the very beginning.

What led to that change?

Raphaelle: The name change? It just happened. I don't know. It was a stupid name and we were just fooling around before and then we wanted to be a band and decided to choose a name that we were passionate about.

So you started more singer-songwriter, folksy stuff?

Raphaelle: Yeah, at the very beginning.

Well this latest album is definitely a shift away from that.

Austin: Yeah, I mean, so was our first record. We put out a little EP when we were called the Neighborhood Council and we very quickly turned electric guitars and pretty heavy experimentation and lots of effects and vocal processing. Definitely breaking away from the form.

What factors influenced the move toward a more electronic sound?

Raphaelle: We were just listening to a lot of it. Some of the bands that we toured over Native Speaker, they're super into electronic music and they really turned us onto that.

Who were you touring with?

Raphaelle: Baths. Born Gold was another one. And then just on our own we started venturing into that genre more.

Austin: We started hearing things that we didn't even really know were possible, and it was like, "Oh!"

Raphaelle: We had never heard Aphex Twin, and that's such an important artist for any musician.. And that was really mind-blowing, being introduced to him. It was like, 'Wow! This is the Mozart of our time that I haven't heard and I'm 21.' Or however old I was when I listened to it. So yeah, that's pretty big. I think that was why we changed over.

Were you guys listening to anyone else new as you were recording Flourish?

Raphaelle: A lot of Portishead. I was kind of realizing we haven't talked about that.

Austin: We all really got into Radiohead too. We got really into Radiohead a year before, during the tour. I discovered Kid A, King of Limbs, In Rainbows like when we were touring with Baths around our first record. I think that for me was a huge, 'Wow.' It was just a totally new dynamic of band and a totally new way of writing and they're just really good band, like just being a band altogether and they create really beautiful music.

A lot more composition, and very carefully orchestrated pieces.

Austin: Exactly. And I don't know much about their approach or anything but just the way it sounds is amazing. So I guess coming into that and starting to listen to a lot more Portishead. Yeah, just tons of electronic music. Taylor got really into Autechre, and we started listening to a lot of Aphex Twin and Max Cooper and Stephen Bodsen...

Raphaelle: A lot of Pantha du Prince.

Austin: Yeah. We just started changing our palette; changing the music that we were hearing in our heads, and we decided that we needed to come up with a way of getting into our heads to get that music out.

How was international touring?

Austin: Yeah, we did three European tours on the last record, even got to play a random festival in Slovakia. It was really cool. It was this abandoned airbase, like military airbase in this valley. I think Portishead played that, and Moby played it. I got to see Battles to play for the first time there.

Raphaelle: I saw them in Calgary when they were a four-piece. I cried that concert. It was so amazing. Such a phenomenal concert.

Have you listened their record Gloss Drop, that came out last year?

Austin: Yeah, I haven't gotten listening to that one, but Mirrors was a really important record for me. It really changed a lot of things for me.

Any discernible differences while you were doing this world tour? I’m sure when you started playing shows in Canada, it felt pretty comfortable. Once you started going into other countries were you nervous about how people received your music?

Austin: I think that the reception and the outlook towards music is totally different based on the territories and stuff. We just got back from a press trip in Europe where we did like 30-some odd interviews in different cities and seeing people's different approach to their questions and the way that they listen to music and the way that they think about music based on territories is really interesting. It kind of offered a little bit of insight into people's reactions in those territories and stuff.

Raphaelle: Germany's approach is very philosophical. Like all the interviewers wanted to know the philosophy behind our approach to making art and it was super cool. That was definitely my favorite place to do interviews. They're really curious about the art itself and not so us as individuals and the gossip and things like that. We had a lot of really deep conversations.

Austin: Yeah, people in Amsterdam were always like...

Raphaelle: 'Tell us the gossip!'

Austin: Yeah and 'Tell us about the departure of Katie.' And we told them and then they were like, 'I feel like you're hiding so much. Tell me everything." We thought that was crazy. So generally speaking, we were pretty lucky. People were pretty receptive everywhere. I mean, definitely there were certain territories where it wasn't flying because of lack of representation...

Raphaelle: Nashville. Nashville didn't take.

What happened in Nashville?

Austin: We played a show for four people.

Raphaelle: It happens.

At Pigeons & Planes we like to introduce people to music they haven't heard before, so we did a feature today about comparing newer bands to more established artists. We compared you to Animal Collective, do you think that is apt?

Austin: Animal Collective was probably the most important band for us when we first started making music together, and I think that really opened our eyes to heavy experimentation and opened our eyes to what's possible from a sonic perspective and song-writing perspective. We really borrowed a lot from their group dynamic when we first started. We absolutely didn't want to have a lead songwriter. We wanted to have a totally collective, collaborative thing. Their record Feels was my gateway drug into experimental music.

I hear it a lot this time around, the way that you use the voice as an electronic instrument, not just limiting it to vocals and that sort of thing. You hear that a lot in their music as well.

Austin: It's funny because we built them up to be so much in our heads, and then like, at a certain point, we all kind of moved on a little bit and sort of left them on this pedestal in the history of our lives. We don't listen to that band casually anymore, it's like, if we're going to listen to it, then we're going to listen to it, you know? But it used to be all I listened to was Animal Collective records. People used to always ask me, 'What's your favorite record?' Hands down, it was Feels by Animal Collective. But now I've been listening to a lot more different music. I'm finding now that I don't have an idol in music, or a band that's like, 'If I could create a band, it'd be that.' I'm borrowing a lot more elements from a lot more different things. And I'm not sure if that's just from growing up and being in a different period of your life where you're not dependent on having emotional, musical idols. You can sort of grow up on your own and walk your own path a little bit more.

I think that there's this window for music—like the kind that you guys are making—that Animal Collective partially helped shove open for our age of people. Why do you think that this kind of music is catching on and why you want to make it?

Austin: It's just honest. It's so honest. It's so not involved with industry bullshit or trying to be a hit band or trying to get huge. That band is art in its purest form. Their growth has been so steady and really natural. Their ability to say, "Look, we just made one of the most important records of 2009." Or whenever they put out Merriweather. That was one of the most important records of that year. And they followed it up with something so different, and so not pop-oriented and it was crazy because they were poised to be this massive success. They reached such a huge amount of success with that record that they could've gone totally mainstream and they probably could've crossed over. But I think they were just like...

Raphaelle: 'We don't want to make that.'

Austin: 'What do we want to make? We're at this breaking point. What do we want to make?' And they created something that I think is significantly less accessible than Merriweather. I think that's a reflection of just being really honest and really pure with what you're hearing in your head, not being like, "People would like this." Or, "This is catchy." Or, "Oh man, we need this or we need that." No, it's just being honest and open about what the song needs and going off that. I think the honesty is attractive. People are drawn to that.

Raphaelle: I think that something that I take away from Animal Collective, is to just do exactly what you want to do and take it far as you want to go with it. And I think that's something that they definitely did. They're good role models.

How do you bring that into the studio?

Raphaelle: Just doing exactly what you want to do. Bjork is also another example of that for me. Just being totally herself, totally an individual and being really confident with that.

Austin: I think we had a period of time where we could just experiment and there wasn't that much pressure to write a record or anything. I think definitely on Flourish//Perish way more so than on Native Speaker. There was more pressure than there was the first time around because we had already put out something. There were expectations. But we tried to separate ourselves from that, and just write a bunch of songs, you know? I think the experimentation was cool because it gave us a chance to explore different directions and different avenues for different songs. The song "Amends" from our new record has seen so many different face-lifts. It's taken on so many different forms. And it was only in the couple weeks before we went into the studio to do the final mixing that we were like, "Oh! That's what this song is all about." We found out the root. We found out what it needed to be. And yeah, giving songs the time and the space they need to develop into what they need to be, and experimenting.

It feels like hip-hop is, in a similar way to electronic music, permeating other music a lot more. What are your thoughts on that?

Raphaelle: I feel like it always has. I don't know if there's an uprising to the same degree as electronic music. I feel like there's always been a lot of hip-hop influence since J.Lo and Mariah Carey and the late '90s and stuff.

I guess I feel like it has crossed more over into indie.

Raphaelle: Into indie, yeah. Definitely with Kendrick Lamar. Purity Ring, that's a great example. I love them, and he's [Corin Roddick] just a little hip-hop producer, almost.

Austin: Yeah, he's great. He's crazy. I mean he's like the most level-headed person. He's not actually crazy. So not crazy. But he just knows what he wants. He put out this amazing record with his band and then he was like, "Now I know how to make rap beats." And now he's just producing for people and stuff.

Raphaelle: Taylor, the other day, was like, "For the first time ever I had a connection with a hip-hop song on that Kendrick Lamar record."

Oh, which one?

Taylor: "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst."

Austin: I really like that record [good kid, m.A.A.d city] a lot. I'm really intrigued by the production side of hip-hop things, like the drum sounds are amazing on some stuff. Dr. Dre is so cool, and his style of production is amazing to me. There's definitely some hip-hop things that I'm like, 'Oh, this is really good!' But it's only been recently that I've been getting into it. And I think Corin [Roddick] has played a big influence in that being like, 'You should listen to this.'

Raphaelle: I think hip-hop still seems really tied up in lifestyle, and I feel like it would almost be inappropriate for me to cross over into that. Like it would seem really ingenuine or something. I feel like electronic music, if you're comparing the two, has had more of a crossover into indie music because electronic purists are kind of backing off a bit. They're allowing indie artists like Grimes and Purity Ring play at Berghain which is the super credible dance club in Berlin that they would've never gotten five years ago or whatever. And I feel like there isn't that same kind of forgiveness or openness with hip-hop yet. I don't know because I'm not really there—it's just so tied up in lifestyle.