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Music

Blue Hawaii

BLUE HAWAII with PHÈDRE and DJ MOON KING at Wrongbar (1279 Queen West), Sunday (July 28), 7 pm, $10. RT, SS, TW.


Catch Blue Hawaii, together, while you can. After this tour Alexander Cowan will be moving back to Europe, and Raphaelle Standell-Preston will tour with her other band, the psychedelic three-piece, Braids.

It’s not the end, though, and it’s not the first time the Montreal ambient pop duo have been apart.

Their first album, Untogether (Arbutus), covers just that (if you couldn’t tell by the name). It’s a haunting album lush with Standell-Preston’s lithe vocals that float over, slice through or beautifully fuse with Cowan’s hypnotic electro beats.

Fittingly, it was written in isolation from one another, unlike their debut EP, Blooming Summer, which was about their romantic relationship (again, the name says it all).

“I think it was a really therapeutic undertaking for us. I would work on it from midnight to 6 am. It was such a different environment – I was alone in a dark room,” says Standell-Preston.

But the album is about more than the couple’s diverging paths it also speaks to Montreal’s niche music community, and the aftermath of a scene becoming suddenly trendy.

“I think it’s interesting that people talk about a music scene when a person lifts off and leaves that scene,” says Standell-Preston.

“When Grimes exploded, I felt like there was this air that shifted, that one of our own, one of our friends, did really well. I really wish we’d been more supportive of each other and not so challenged by it.”

Standell-Preston admits she was momentarily hung up on the competition – like so many of her peers, she says – but she’s over it now.

“The other day I had a beautiful thought,” she sings on Untogether’s closing track. “What happens if I didn’t really care at all?”

It’s not about apathy, but Blue Hawaii’s original intent: to make beautiful music.

“What happens if I didn’t think about who was going to come to my show or if it was going to sell out, or if I didn’t care about any of those things? I think that’s finally happening again.”

music@nowtoronto.com

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