The teeming crowd at Brisbane’s Alahambra Lounge have just had their bones rattled and their ears shaken by the sounds of a Canadian quartet who, though building buzz in their home country, are still a relatively unknown quantity outside of their native Toronto.
Here as one of over 120 acts playing across 12 stages over two nights for the BIGSOUND music conference (as well as a support slot on The Medics’ tour), it’s not hard to see The Darcys getting lost in the wash. But as one of the few international acts on a programme bristling with local emerging talent – they certainly fulfill their promise as one of the industry gathering’s best-kept secrets.
The group was first offered the slot off the back of a showcase the group played for UK’s Guardian paper in Brighton, England.
“To be honest,” begins the band’s lumberjack-built drummer, Wes Marskell, “I didn’t know that much about BIGSOUND, but I have heard a number of great things about Canadians receiving strong support in Australia.”
Indeed our nation’s love for a musical Canuck stretches the gamut from Dallas Greene’s City & Colour solo moniker, to Feist’s continued popularity down under, right through to the success of indie supergroup Broken Social Scene.
Sonically, The Darcys share little with their contemporaries – save except for an equal sense of grand ambition and artistic intent, and a terrific live show – as anyone who walked away from their second ever Australian show will no doubt tell you in breathless adoration.
Playing as intensely as they look, their serious focus results in experimental sheets of threaded noise, with elements of shoegaze guitars and droning keys lapping against Josh Couse’s languid tenor.
Their brooding art-rock atmosphere anchored by the visceral grooves of bassist Dave Hurlow and Marskell’s own penetrating drumming.
It helps that they have an interesting catalogue to draw from. Namely their self-titled debut – an exercise in discovering the breadth of their sonic scope with nods to Radiohead and the roar of Mogwai.
But perhaps even more daring and adventurous than The Darcys was its follow-up, a self-produced, song-for-song reimagining of Steely Dan’s 1977 classic Aja.
Originally conceived when their own eponymous album was in limbo as a project needed to encourage their spirits, The Darcys’ Aja makes the jazz-rock masterpiece sound like a blueprint drafted OK Computer-era Radiohead collaborating with Frames-era Oceansize.
Though they’ve recently only included their mutated takes on ‘Home At Last’ and ‘Peg’ as part of their live set, a recently announced American tour “is dedicated solely to our interpretation of Aja,” reveals Marskell. “We will be playing the entire record front to back before focusing on material from the new record.”
The tour can be seen as much a purging of their album-length cover as it is a tribute, before moving on to their third, and most ambitious, record in the space of twelve months.
As for how the wealth of touring will help shape the output of their latest album, Marskell says that: “Our writing process isn’t very democratic and most of the songs are not born from playing in a room.”
Recent activity from the studio tells of the completion of a new single, ‘Horses Fell’. At the suggestion that it may be the galvanizing element to help ‘crack’ the album – “I haven’t thought about it that way, but that is an interesting point,” Marskell responds.
Instead, he speaks to the complexity the band are aiming for with LP3, “[Horses Fell] has been quite a tricky song to track as it bridges a number of elements and influences,” explains the drummer.
“I’m not sure I am going to be happy or even satisfied with the record until it is packaged and ready for release.” Which should be early next year, he adds.
The band have already been hard at work in the studio “3 songs in 10 days, actually” corrects Marskell, noting that their work with wizard English producer Tom McFall has helped their fevered productivity.
“The sounds coming through the board are amazing. Tom has worked with REM, Weezer, The Killers, and a number of other huge bands, so immediately his stack of CDs appealed to us.”
More importantly though, the British desk jockey is prepared to match the group’s exhaustive work ethic, “he is willing to work 18 hour days getting the sounds and the ideas perfect. He’s not one to let go of an idea or let something fail.” Neither are The Darcys.
As impressive as the first two parts of The Darcys’ proposed album trilogy are – the Canadians have regularly described them as merely “a bridge” to their third album. “LP3 feels like the first real Darcys record,” declares Marskell.
Still proud of their first efforts – their eponymous debut being like the proverbial polaroid coming into focus and Aja a successful study in using their palette to interpret and arrange material – Marskell reasons they “don’t feel as mature or intelligent” when compared to their newer material.
“We tried to focus our ideas over the last two years and really distil our sound. I am very excited to release the new songs, but it’s a bit nerve racking as they sound nothing like our older records,” admits Marskell.
So how will it sound? “Like Neo-Soul” apparently, “most songs have a ton of backing vocals and the beats are very steady and kick heavy,” says the drummer.
“We had the idea to keep the songs simpler and with less layers, but that quickly changed. There are some sparse moments, but this has become a pretty enormous sounding record.”
If the titanic strength of their live show is anything to go by – that’s very enormous sounding indeed.
The trick though is working the complex new arrangements into something the band can actually perform. “A lot of the new songs have both electronic and soul influences,” details Marskell, “and as they stand, seem next to impossible to play live.”
Most of November will be spent planning just how to make the impossible a reality, “it’s going to be a long winter learning how to get the new show up and running.”
If the fruits of their labour thus far are anything to go by, it’s going to be something special. But with their whistelstop Australian visit coming to a close just as quickly as it began, can fans Down Under expect to see the new live show anytime soon?
“I want to be able to keep coming back to Australia,” Marskell offers. “I want this to be a market we can thrive in and visit all the time.” The feeling is most certainly mutual.
The Darcys and Aja are out now through Arts & Crafts. The Darcys play Melbourne’s The Toff In Town tonight with I, A Man as part of The Medics’ Foundations tour. Full details here.
