“Perhaps we're a literary band, but it's more likely that we're just dorks” : The Line of Best Fit speaks to Memoryhouse

Canadian nu-gazers Memoryhouse have spent the last year building on the underground success of their 4-track EP The Years and are about to release their first full length album, the considerably more accessible The Slideshow Effect on the mighty Sub Pop label before touring the UK in coming weeks. Above all else, the band come across as a project in the process of evolution and constant development – not something too familiar, perhaps, to many of their contemporaries.

Evan Abeele, formerly a classical composer, and the songwriter for the band reckons the progression from the EP to the first full length was a straightforward one, with the album being their “first chance to really focus on songwriting.”

He explains further, “I think with our earlier work, we were still developing our voice, and still fighting with the limitations of home recording. I’ve always felt reasonably confident in my role as a producer, but I’m just a terrible engineer. I don’t have the mind for it, and I especially don’t have the resources. So in…early recordings there was always a compromise with our sound. I think we tried the best we could with what we had, but it was never a truly satisfying experience because I knew we could always be better. And I think that’s ok. I think it’s healthy to go through that…I can respect the process one has to endure to become a better songwriter.”

Moving on to the actualities of recording The Slideshow Effect itself, he comments “I got to focus on the production and performance aspect with a greater amount of focus and precision. I didn’t have to worry about the innumerable variables that come with home recording on a non-existent budget. I got to put the emphasis where I felt it needed to be, which is the songs themselves.”

And what a set of songs they have – particularly potential hit ‘The Kids Were Wrong’, a sideways glance at hipster judgements on modern shoegaze music, a topic on which Abeele states;”I think that there is a common tendency for bands of that ilk to hide things behind atmospherics… I think we reached a point where we decided that if we are going to keep moving forward with this project then we’d have to be more upfront with ourselves in our music. We didn’t want to ‘hide’ anymore.”

Harking back once more to the forward steps the band has made, he states simply “We did that in the early days because we didn’t know what we were doing; we lacked a certain confidence, and more importantly, experience. We’ve been writing and recording and touring for a couple of years now, I think our sound would remain too stagnant if we didn’t push ourselves a bit harder.”

On the subject of whether the new record is indeed, more a pop album than anything else Abeele is sanguine, “I’d consider everything we’ve done up to this point ‘pop songs’. That’s what we’ve always wanted from this. The difference now is that the old stuff wasn’t particularly catchy, which doesn’t make it bad, but it lacked that certain ‘POP’ quality. The new stuff feels catchier to me, and more honest. People are going to feel dubious about us tweaking our sound to be catchier, but then, that’s what ‘The Kids Were Wrong’ is about.”

Another surprise on the record is the acoustic hum of ‘Punctum’, a song Abeele feels is “another example of us displaying that we’re willing to bare all in a songwriting sense”. He continues, “I felt that was something that made us unique, that we can do heavier, atmospheric music like ‘Kinds Of Light’, but manage to embody the other end of the spectrum…without missing a beat.”

An aspect of the band that rarely goes unnoticed are their literary tendencies, with Abeele claiming ”Perhaps we’re a literary band, but it’s more likely that we’re just dorks,” he explains. “I used to try to live through books, and draw some kind of understanding about myself in them. I think that’s how the Virginia Woolf concept came about on The Years EP. I’d trace my own concerns through hers,” and half-jokes, “it’s all a little self-indulgent – we have a weird songwriting method, which is somewhat akin to how one approaches writing a story.”

Aside from their admirably bookish leanings, they also have a strong interest in the visual aspects of live performance, vocalist Denise Nouvion is herself a photographer and their early live shows were essentially music and image collages, one informing the other and highlighting it’s power. Their most memorable work in this field was done with Jamie Harley, with whom Abeele says they are in the “early stages of planning some new collaborations” and anticipates releasing some kind of combined work with Harley “in the near future”. In the meanwhile, they’re currently laying off the dominance of visual projections at their shows: “We want to keep things fresh…aspects of the visual will remain, but…that’s still a work in progress.”

Another key feature in their work, at least thematically, has seemed to be the past, and a sense of nostalgia – just look at their name and what they choose to call their records. Abeele disagrees saying “I’ve always been very critical of nostalgia, in spite of our tag as nostalgia lovers. I think the LP is a bit more contemplative, but overall, less critical of the past. I think the LP reflects largely on making peace with the type of person you’re growing into, and I think there is a lot of positivity within that.”

With the topic turning to critical perception (The Years was extremely well received) Abeele is very honest in admitting: “I suppose a part of me really wants that validation” elucidating further, “the songs won’t please everyone, but I think regardless, the material is a confident step-up from our earlier efforts. The grumblings about lo-fi or lack thereof have already begun, but I think this record is a better representation of who we are, so I’m hoping people will keep an open mind.”

Clearly looking forward to their upcoming UK jaunt, Abeele saying he has a “great deal of affection for British pop and folk” alongside the more obvious influences (also tipping Canadian artists Bryan Webbof Constantines and Kathleen Edwards as artists he’s enjoying currently) and expects the shows here to boast “lots of new songs” and with a few changes from their last visit including some “electronic elements” and the addition of an extra guitar.

Seemingly a retro-influenced band that choose to move forward in a paradoxically progressive way, Memoryhouse seem to be strong candidates to push shoegaze, unwilling as it may be, a little further into the future, even if by small increments.

Memoryhouse will release The Slideshow Effect through Sub Pop on the 27 February, and they’ll be playing the following UK dates:

23 Mar – School Of Art, Glasgow
24 Mar -Whelan’s, Dublins
26 Mar – Deaf Institute, Manchester
27 Mar – Louisiana, Bristol
28 Mar – Cargo, London