LOOKOUT: How did you decide to apply to 2007's RBMA in Toronto? Did your decision have anything to do with Toronto as the place where you began to study music?

DR: I'm friends with Scott C (The Incubator), who served as one of Montreal's "Mr. X"s that year. He urged me to apply. It was the first year I had ever heard of RBMA, so I applied without really knowing that much about it. The decision didn't have anything to do with Toronto being my hometown; it was, however, a really different experience of the city for me. I moved to Montreal when I was 16 so I never went clubbing in Toronto, and I wasn't really ever immersed in Toronto's electronic or hip-hop scenes. It was like being a tourist at home, considering the majority of my musical experiences in Toronto happened at The Rex and the Top o' the Senator (which doesn't exist anymore).

Did all of the members of Indigone Trio apply for RBMA? How did you take your personal experience and translate it into something that the entire band could benefit from?

I was the only member of Indigone that applied to RBMA. Being able to work closely alongside engineers and producers, I got enough of the technical language of recording and mixing to make the recording of our album, Cycles, a much more fluid process. The awareness of music as sound, and how to deal with different kinds of sound, has definitely influenced my composition since RBMA.

How was RBMA different from other workshops you’ve participated in like the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop and the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music?

It's pretty remarkable how similar they all are, actually. I often refer to RBMA to my jazz-inclined friends as the "Banff Centre for electronic production." They're quite similar in the sense that they foster immense amounts of creativity in a short timespan. In all of the workshops, there's an expectation that you're in a creative, artistic headspace the whole time. That phenomenon of having the artistic impulse always turned "on" is really refreshing, something I still find hard to replicate in my daily life. The only major difference I can think of was that for BMI, there were concrete deadlines - we had a reading session with a real live big band every two months, and we were expected to bring in significant amounts of new material to the reading. At Banff, too, there were concerts and shows to prepare for. RBMA wasn't structured around deadlines but there was definitely an awareness of the fact that we only had two weeks to make the most amount of music possible.

Having studied jazz performance at McGill, did you learn anything unexpected from artists who had never gone to school for music?

I was blown away by the inherent musicality of people that had little or no formal training. Our ears are our guide, anyway. One thing I took away was this sense of being able to break the rules – if it sounds like it works, then it does, regardless if it's theoretically totally correct.

What kind of relationships – friendly or work-related – did you make during RBMA? Have you kept any of them?

Sarah Linhares and I have been working together since RBMA. We knew each other through radio and didn't actually know that the other had applied, or that the other played music, before RBMA! I'm still in touch with some of the RBMA alumni from our term. Heliponto, a house producer from Belo Horizonte, Brasil, produced a track with me during RBMA that came out on her record, Eletronia, and we have another project together on a back burner. I'm still in touch with Mara TK, Kez YM, and Camplaix, among others, and I hope to work with them all again soon.

Do you have any advice for this year’s RBMA applicants?

Take your time with the application and be honest. I know the 17-page questionnaire can be daunting, but the reality is that the answers given throughout the 17 pages is how RBMA creates an instant 30-person family.

I want to re-iterate something I said at the info session. It may appear that RBMA is geared strictly towards "electronic music." It's not. It's a balance of electronic music production, and music creation of all kinds. I encourage anyone who's remotely interested in learning any element of electronic music production – from improvising with Live or Max/MSP to recording their own albums to producing hip-hop, electro, or whatever – to apply.

LOOKOUT: See Mystery Lights is the first YACHT album after the induction of Claire. How have you both built on the old conception of YACHT as a solo act? Or is this reincarnation completely different from previous forms of YACHT?

Jona: Well, I think there's a similar spirit to the band. The core message and core goals are the same, but now they are shared with Claire.

Claire: There’s no distinction of before me and after me, we had this shared experience (The Marfa Lights) and it changed our perspectives. It’s something that we share as a common source of inspiration.

Jona: We came together through this paranormal phenomenon of Marfa Mystery Lights. There’s no explanation for the paranormal phenomenon of the Marfa Lights, and teams of scientists have been trying to figure it out. After we saw it together, we felt we need to continue our journey together in everything we do together.

I find the very existence of something like a "modern mystery" very odd and kind of disturbing and unnerving to curious people like myself who think there should be an explanation for everything. Were the lights the first or main reason why you both decided moved to Marfa, Texas?

Claire: Yes, it was the reason we moved there. We hadn’t been looking for it, it just came to us in a random way. Jona saw it while he was driving on a tour.

Jona: I had no idea what it was going to be. I thought it was going to be an explained natural beauty but it really changed me and ended up being really supernatural and unexplainable.

Claire: We decided we had to live amongst them and figure them out.

Montreal, much like your hometown of Portland, Oregon, has long and depressing winters, but a thriving artistic population. How did Portland influence your creativity and the making of your music?

Claire: It’s always interesting to make music and art in a place where you don’t have access to the tools other people have. We were lucky to have a cool music scene but it wasn’t always there. A lot of musical trends in the Northwest is born out of a DIY period.

Jona: Yeah, we didn’t have the means to make anything, but I don't mean in a political sense.

Claire: It’s interesting to make music with limitations and to have no big record label, no awesome venues, no professional studios.

The band is very stylized with the black and white represention. What’s the intention behind the black and white dualities? Are these dualities completely distinct from each other?

Claire: We’ve always been interested in duality. We both have had a renewed interest in the ritual history of the world. We like to study religion, the secret societies of the world and any codified set of beliefs. There are huge commonalities between different threads of ideological history, whether it be Inter-Babylonian, Syrian or contemporary Western religion. We are all motivated by the same impulses. We want an understanding of things that are beyond human understanding. The light and the dark are two different paths, there’s no fundamental evil or fundamental good. There’s no right or wrong path, we all live in this interconnected universe. We’re all just a bunch of monkeys trying to transcend our situation.

For more Q&A with YACHT, don't miss the March 4^th issue of The McGill Daily.

Listen:

Psychic City - YACHT

So Post All 'Em - YACHT

See A Penny (Pick It Up) - YACHT

LOOKOUT: About your debut album Toeachizown, the five different volumes each have a life of their own, but still form a comprehensive whole and has an underlying story . Can you tell me something about the different volumes and why you decided to put it together this way?

Dãm: I wanted to make a concept record like progressive rock records I used to listen to back in the day. They would have a theme around it, as opposed to a bunch of hit singles on the record. “I Wanna Thank You (For Steppin’ Into My Life)” is one song that I think could be on the radio right now and be a hit. But, I didn’t want to make a record of hit singles, I don’t even want to aspire to do that. I wanted to create the record I've always wanted to make… and why not make it? In Toeachizown, the first volume is more electric based, the second more serious, Sky more positive, Hood more dark.

Is there something about L.A. that makes it a unique place for funk? How did growing up on the West Coast influence your style of music?

The music we grew up with on the West Coast is a little more laid back. Even though we have sunshine, there’s the darkness and the light… We’ve cultivated something a bit different from East Coast approach.  The warm weather, the palm trees, and the driving culture of L.A. definitely influences my music.

Prince was a big inspiration for you. What Prince era do you draw influence from most?

1978-1987

I feel like you’ve coined the term modern funk. I don’t want to suggest a clear break in “old-fashioned funk” and modern funk, because there’s a definite continuation, but what is modern about your modern funk?

It’s a mix of subject matter, log extended tracks, instrumentals, reverb vocals... It’s a different approach. It’s the funk you’ve always wanted to have. The modern funk approach pertains to some of the science aspects of things, like of exploration of different worlds. Funk is more like funk 45 vibe. Modern funk is more electric based and appeals to post-disco funk. You know what I’m sayin'?

For more Q&A with Dam-Funk check the March 4^th issue of The McGill Daily.

Dam-Funk @ Club Lambi - Mar 5, 2010

Listen:

Speak The Truth - Dam-Funk

Toeachizown - Dam-Funk

Passion - Dam-Funk