Solar Year: “It feels great to play for complete strangers that are excited to see you perform.”

Last year’s artist du jour, arguably, was Grimes. Her frosty electronica/synthpop proved a rousing success with the release of her breakthrough LP, Visions, and she spearheaded a burgeoning movement from the Montreal music scene.

Her Inception-layered vox were imbued with dreams and her synth mastery erred towards alt. pop; the two strains combined to form an airtight amalgam that was as Top 40 as it was avant-garde. Her origins, and the Montreal electronic scene in general, revolve around the pivotal institution, Arbutus, where label mates and contemporaries d’Eon, Blue Hawaii and Doldrums hark from. The movement shows no sign of receding, and the latest in a long series of heavyweights are Solar Year.

The duo, comprising Ben Borden and David Ertel, self-released a warmly-welcomed, but little-known debut album, Waverly, last year – we were impressed: “They played hosts to a special pool party where underwater speakers released waves of their fluid, ambient ’80s/electro sound collages to those brave enough to swim in a potentially dirty, communal tub.” It’s now had a re-release, remastered for Ceremony / Splendour, with some extra tracks thrown in (and some collaborations), which we are equally fond of: “A spell-binding exploration into the throbbing melodic changes of Western religious and Gregorian choral music, ’80s new wave and 4AD gloom pop with sharply pointed production – ‘psalmgaze’ if you want a label.”

Montreal is proving itself a vital component in modern music. It’s been built on innate genius and a DIY ethos – the proponents of this new wave aid each other and ensure an environment where unique ideas can thrive. “We got so much encouragement and support from people in Montreal that we really needed in order to follow through with this whole album. There was a wonderful feeling that these people who were just our friends were beginning to come into their own and emerge from an increasingly strong and coherent scene,” David says, adding that those friendships were instrumental in the formation of their debut. “Getting feedback from our friends has been super helpful. We’re constantly bouncing ideas off of our friend Lydia Ainsworth who has a similar perspective on creating music. Seb Cowan from Arbutus Records and Radwan Moumneh have given us valuable feedback on music production.” That input from respected peers has enabled Solar Year to propel themselves to new heights. “During a large part of the recording of Waverly, Ben and I were mostly cut off from reality, staying in and staring at computer screens to finish these songs. Seeing our friends perform was usually our only exposure to the outside world, and their music influenced us a lot. People like Dresden Dresses, Blue Hawaii, Flow Child and Majical Cloudz.”

But it’s not just their friends and the locale that are inspiring the twosome. “The last song I was obsessed with was when I rediscovered ‘Oops’ by Tweet featuring Missy Elliott. I eventually started listening to the lyrics, which are amazing. Missy appears in a small cameo verse where she plays Tweet’s irresistible reflection in the mirror that eventually seduces Tweet after a long night of partying.” Sometimes, it’s not even aural ephemera that’s at the root of their strokes of brilliance. “I love to read about cyber crime, like Black Hat hackers stealing millions of credit cards and living it up, and Chinese hackers breaking into sacred online spaces like Google Gaia.”

The process of recording Waverly was very collaborative – not only with outside musicians, but with each other. “We try to avoid any separation of our roles in the process of making tracks. We’ll either hover over each other in front of the computer or pass the entire song back and forth to remix and refine each other’s ideas,” David notes, before detailing the pair’s work ethic. “The majority of the recording process consisted of us moving sound clips around on the computer. We would sometimes have improvisations which we would record and then resample and organise into tracks, or we’d get friends to come over and record things which we’d use as sampling material for our tracks. Recording vocals was usually pretty simple and we did it ourselves from home.” The process for actually writing the material was similarly patchwork. “We often take a kind of ‘automatic writing’ approach. We record a sort of glossolalia of vocal ideas and samples and notes. Then we use our ears to find the inspiration in certain moments of these recordings and filter the best parts. So in a weird way we are inspired by ourselves, but of course the inspiration ultimately comes from artists we love.”

Obviously the creation of electronic music begets a certain arsenal of toys. “ the laptop. It’s a little Pandora’s box of light and sound with endless possibilities. Maybe for some people the laptop can be overwhelming because it has too many options, but we love being messy and recording thousands of things with tons of effects and programming and then sifting through the mess.” That love of mess is a common thread through Solar Year – be it in the writing, recording and production of the record, or simply their sound, which is a kind of elegant, beguiling flux underpinned by a fractured beauty. Through all that mess, they’ve learned life lessons. The most important one? “How to share a vision for a huge creative project with an equal collaborator.”

Heading back to their humble beginnings, it wasn’t just an affinity for similar sounds that birthed Solar Year. “Agor suggested that Ben and I work together for an upcoming show put on by Arbutus Records. Ben and I actually didn’t know each other even though we had tons of friends in common. It was pretty wild show in an abandoned building that was eventually shut down by the police. What we played there was a very primordially soupy version of what would eventually evolve into our coherent Solar Year sound.” Pretty odd circumstances to cut their teeth, that’s for sure, but the impulsive sonic marriage has never been built on the norm or the usual. After forming and writing enough material for a proper gig, they finally debuted as Solar Year at a famous friend’s digs, a far-flung atmosphere from the raucous warehouse rave. “The first time we ever performed Solar Year songs in front of people was at a little show at Grimes’s house. We were nervous because it was just in her living room and our friends were sitting so close to us!”

Nowadays, their shows are more in line with what you’d expect – though they still try and make an impact rather than settling for stale. “The amazing thing about computer music is that the same tool that you use to compose your music can be used to perform it. We’re really into live electronics on the vocals and drums, much of which we are creating completely live. Lately we’ve been taking a more live DJ approach, where we create an electronic dance music style set that’s infused with our unique samples and moods.” The fact is, they love performing, and are constantly working on their craft in order to better the outfit. “It feels great to play for complete strangers that are excited to see you perform.”

The horizon is still burning bright for Solar Year, with an array of projects to be explored. “In late September we’re doing an installation-performance for Art Pop, an art festival that happens simultaneously with the Pop Montreal music festival. We’ve been commissioned to make an audiovisual piece by the PHI Centre in Montreal. We’ll be up there for three weeks in August to work on it and then we’re showing it at the centre at the end of August.” They’re avid multimedia artists as well as musicians, and they often create stunning visuals for their live performances.

Solar Year aren’t just a number in the rank’n’file emanating from the underground Montreal scene. Waverly is a grand collection of noises that prove their worth at the forefront of the movement – they may be the latest, and probably won’t be the last, in a string of superb acts from the area, but they’re definitely not a group to be overlooked or dismissed. There’s links to other Arbutus roster members, but they’re still very much a distinct project. They stand out as a duo poised to ascend into the elite echelons of Canada’s musical exports.

Waverly is available now via Splendour / Ceremony.