Tunes Consumed: the Poutine Silver Platter

This Republic not what one might think. Musically: a powerhouse of a band that sits comfortably among the ranks of another Arts & Crafts borderline-white-noise electro-pop act Broken Social Scene, The Republic is the embodiment of tranquility in the notion of sensory overload.

Having matured since their debut, the newest offering is instrumentally a powerful series of cascades in the grandest sense one might think that layerings of drums, bass, guitars (three), piano, and horns/bowed instruments may produce.

In calculus everything is a matter of limits. The way each mathematical concept will approach infinity, and most importantly, the speed at which that is achieved. It’s no grand stretch to put music into these same terms, with white-noise as our aural anchor of infinitude we can think of music as growing, expanding, approaching its own limit. Yet, the idea is never to reach it, as we all know white noise is not a pleasant thing (think: your TV’s snowy cackle). It’s enough to drive a man into the outer-reaches of madness.

We’re not there though. The snow is absent as this Republic makes clever use of its cast of seven members, in a way that each participates in order to build toward that central point. Each instrument adds a proverbial floor, wall, and cathedral ceiling to the body of sound all the while keeping a steadfast harmony, a clear and decisive plotted course, and more often than not leaving some head-space for vocals.

“Humble Peasants” is the most illustrative track of the band’s direction. It picks up pace as you hear each member don their instrument and find a place in the sound until the inevitable climax (infinity it is not). I can imagine this track playing inside the cabin of the space-elevator as it launches clear through our bubble, emerging from a made-for-theatre dust cloud meant to represent the atmosphere (fainciful, yes).

Population is a fitting title for the album, especially with a track like “Present of Future End” which dawdles around one lowly voice harking unto the world until at around the 2:20 mark it erupts into a crowd. You know those musicals where everyone has the same fanciful dream, and everyone’s mind is running the same circle of inner monologue as their feet run imagined dance-steps around the drabness of their everyday lives? Yeah, it’s just like that, only with drums and fuzz and horns.

The album is a hard thing to describe, but as Ryan Lenssen remarks (in one awesome article):

“[Population’s] juxtaposition between the music and the lyrics is just so grand,” Lenssen says. “The music itself sounds almost—almost—happy. People will look at the cover and see all the beautiful graphics but then they’re going to get into the philosophy of the record and that is much, much darker.” “If people were to truly understand what we were really saying and all of the musical choices and why they were there…this is way more calculated. This is murder in the first degree. This is malicious, unbridled anger and I think we’re sort of a little insane because of the way we present it. We are that scary clown. We are stabbing you in the front and smiling, brushing your cheek, saying ‘Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it lovely?’”

It is, it really is.

listen (headphones recommended):
The Most Serene Republic - Humble Peasants
The Most Serene Republic - Present of Future End
The Most Serene Republic - Sherry And Her Butterfly Net

Population will land October 2nd, and A&C should like to have your back on the pre-ordering front soon enough.