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Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine
Art Rock Reflex
By Chuck Molgat
Michael Dumontier and Drue Langlois don’t differentiate between the music they create as Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine, and the drawings they produce as core members of Winnipeg’s Royal Art Lodge (RAL) collective. “With the Eyeball Hurt stuff, a lot of the songs are about drawings, or we make the drawings about the songs,” says Dumontier. “The visual element is really connected. I would say almost everything we do is linked to the music in some way.”
The pair’s latest scrapbook of Residents-like aural illustrations, All The Beautiful Particles, bears out Dumontier’s theory in vivid black and white. The 28-track CD’s accompanying booklet features page after page of sketches and diagrams corresponding to song titles like “Whisker’s Banjo,” “Dog Bit You?” and “Bird-fight on a Wire.” But if the relative CD-artwork routine seems at all typical, it’s the closest the pair comes to adhering to any creative convention.
“A lot of these songs were recorded in a car while we were driving around the city,” says Dumontier, adding he and Langlois were often inspired by objects found on the roadside. “We would just find something and make a song about it and it would become kind of sacred. We would concentrate so much energy on it you could never look at it the same way again.”
The duo takes a similarly inspired approach to its home-made, one-of-a-kind instruments, as well. One of Dumontier’s favourites is the Auracon, an amplified road case fitted with strings, magnetic pick-ups and pluckable, thumb piano-like metal spikes protruding from its top. Langlois prefers his self-styled Ziggurat, an old carry-on travel case containing what looks like a bisected Fender product. “I had an electric guitar and I didn’t want it anymore,” says the soft spoken Langlois. “So we took it apart and rebuilt it in this case. It’s a lot easier to carry around.”
Recorded primarily on portable stereos, All The Beautiful Particles is easily the most lo-fi of a trio of new CDs issued simultaneously in late February by the RAL. The other two discs (Alien Hybrid’s Moriarty, and Albatross’s Songs of Deprivation Poverty and Regimentation, the latter of which features Langlois as well) feature the collective’s most well-known and successful member, Marcel Dzama, whose sought-after drawings currently sell for about $300 U.S. in the States and Europe.
Eyeball Hurt and the Medicine’s infrequent live performances usually entail a strong visual art element, too, including projected slides of the duo’s drawings and hand-made costumes. “We used to play exclusively in a tent that we made, but that was because of debilitating stage fright on my part,” says Dumontier. “Now we usually just wear masks.”
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Solvent Vs. Lowfish Analog Sound-clash
Jason Amm and Gregory De Rocher are the brains behind Toronto’s revered Suction imprint. Artists who have recorded for the label include Montreal’s David Kristian, Manchester England’s Brioche Kretzaal, Sweden’s Plexus, and Italy’s D’Arcangelo. Label operators by day, night finds them slipping into their Solvent (Amm) and Lowfish (De Rocher) guises, where they perform and record “robot music.” Fun, funky, and melodic are the best words to use when describing their brand of electron...Read More
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Peaches Bombastic Beat Babe
 She did the folk thing with Mermaid Café. She achieved her goal of being a “crazy singer” with Fancypants Hoodlum, an avant-jazz-rock band. She got a group of "rock’n’roll friends," and picked up instruments never previously played and developed a fun little foursome known simply as the Shit. Who is she? In her own words, she is Peaches, "an unstoppable, sexy, bomb-ass beat bitch. She just wants to debunk a lot of myths; for people in the rock’n’roll world, it's like ‘Hey, electronics are cool,’...Read More
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Weakerthans Enter Stage Left
Anyone who's followed the career of John K. Samson knows he’s not in any hurry. Back in his early days with proto-punks Propagandhi, the band would release material whenever it felt like it (we're still waiting for a follow-up to their 1996 entry, Less Talk More Rock).
Now fronting his own post-punk folk-rock combo, the Weakerthans, nothing much has changed. The band's first album, the much-lauded Fallow was originally released in early 1998 but they've only just finished re...Read More
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Cave In Live Through This
In the space of only a handful of releases, Boston, MA’s Cave In have gone from being one of the most innovative and damaging bands in the metal/hardcore underground to being one of the most experimental.
“We started like any other band, in the basement, writing songs, trying to be like other bands we liked,” recalls guitarist Adam McGrath. It was their second full-length, 1998’s Until Your Heart Stops on Hydra Head, that established Cave In (rounded out by singer/guitarist ...Read More
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Destroyer Call to Worship
“I hope it’s not just a pop record,” says Destroyer’s Daniel Bejar from Vancouver. “A lot of people just hear some arty lyrics and say ‘here’s some indie rock poet wannabe’ and don’t get closer than that. It would be so cool if I could actually explain some kind of operating system within the lyrics, pull it together, and say ‘This is what it’s about.’”
Destroyer is a far cry from the rest of the poets, from whom meaning is foisted upon the listener in the form of “whatever ...Read More
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Winnipeg Exclaim! Party - Feature: The Plan April 7 to 9, 2000
Some people are just never satisfied with what they have. Just take a look at the guys in Halifax quartet, the Plan. All of them boast membership in other, semi-established bands like Equation of State and North of America, yet for some reason they feel compelled to give something new a try.
"It's a different band really," guitarist/screamer Mike Catano offers from a truck stop somewhere near South Carolina in the midst of an ambitious ten-week tour of North America. "It's n...Read More
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Also in Winnipeg April 7 to 9, 2000
Christine Fellows
Expect more of the lush string arrangements and wistful sounds featured on the excellent debut, 2 Little Birds, from this Winnipeg-based folkie.
B’Ehl
Pretty, delicate pop and harmonised female vocals are the order of the day from this Winnipeg band, whose latest, Bright Eyes, is out now on Endearing.
Moneen
Double up with two appearances of rocking emo-waltz from this young Toronto band, whose debut EP is ca...Read More
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Halifax April 15, 2000 at the Marquee
Mike O’Neill
One half of indie pop duo the Inbreds flies the solo flag, and drops the bass for guitar and piano, with a set of new material that previews his first record, The Reverse Method, due in May.
Heavy Blinkers
Pure pop from the plethora of players, the Heavy Blinkers coax their pet sounds from a variety of strings, horns and theremin.
Slow Lover
Charismatic crooning with an elegant sense of style is what to expect fro...Read More
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Also in Toronto April 1, Reverb
Da Grassroots
Toronto’s famed production crew promises enthusiastic live energy from MCs Fatski, Arcee and Mr. Roam. Saukrates, who appears on their debut platter Passage Through Time, has also been joining them at recent Toronto shows.
Flashing Lights
Vigorous power pop from ex-Super Friend Matt Murphy and his Flashing Lights crew, featuring tunes from their acclaimed Where The Change Is album.
Grade
Burlington, ON hardcore b...Read More
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In an interesting twist of Hollywood fate, Chris and Paul Weitz have entered the final stretch of 2009 each in control of a major vampire franchise built from the pages of popular young adult fiction.
From one half of the brotherly team who brought us American Pie and About ...
Full Review
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