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Local Band Postcards Keep It Real with Electronic Sound
Great things come in twos: shoes, socks, eyes, mittens, ears, lungs, kidneys, chopsticks and now, local band Postcards.
Dimitri Ohan and Filip Minuta create rhythmic, textural music with drum machines, guitar and vocals. While the guitar has taken a backseat role in the recording of their sophomore record, their electronic aesthetic is nothing new.
“It’s always been electronic because recording is electronic. We’ve never been a straight jam band,” Ohan explained. “From the get-go it’s just [a matter of] layering the sounds and recording it. Seeing how it sounds. It was never really ‘organic’ ever.”
In the past, the group has used other musicians to flesh out their live sound, but are now taking a different approach.
“There have been a lot of people who have come and gone but I think we finally set on a duo because it was more satisfying having one vision,” Ohan said. “The two of us were always making the music and other people would come in [to perform live]. It seems more natural to be a duo.”
While live drums kept the beat on their self-titled release, the group now relies on synthesized rhythms.
“It seems more risky in a way. It’s still kind of a taboo; people expect to see a drummer. It’s fun to play with those expectations,” said Ohan. “We also like the whole aspect of pre-recorded tracks. It’s nice because we were always trying to reproduce a sound that we came up with [in the studio], but it would not be faithful to what we intended.
We’re able to capture that sound with pre-recorded [tracks].”
In addition to Montreal’s Fixture Records, the band has teamed up with FLA/Skrot Up, independent labels based in Texas and Denmark, for their new album.
“We bonded and said, ‘Why don’t we make a record together?’ and that’s what we’re hoping to finish soon,” said Ohan. “The general feeling of being like-minded and enjoying the music is so much better than anything else.”
The group experienced that same kind of communal enjoyment in Austin at South By Southwest earlier this year.
“We were lucky because we played with friends. It was the FLA/Skrot Up [showcase] with bands Rave Faction and Dirty Beaches from Montreal and a bunch of other people on the same wavelength as us,” he said.
For Postcards, it’s that community of like-minded people that is most important. They create music they want to hear for whoever wants to listen. The sound may change but the mentality is the same.
“Not even a genre, more of a feeling really. We just do whatever we do,” said Ohan. “You always try to keep the audience in mind but you don’t overdo it, otherwise you’re pandering.”
Postcards are playing with Dirty Beaches, Black Feelings and Rape Fiction on Oct. 14 at L’Interstice in Griffintown (242 Young St.) The show starts at 8:00 p.m.
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 09, published October 12, 2010.
