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Music

Ohbijou

OHBIJOU and JULIE DOIRON at Trinity-St. Paul’s Church (427 Bloor West), Friday (September 30), 7 pm. $20. RT, SS, TW. See listing.


Three albums into their career, Toronto’s Ohbijou are shaking things up. The most apparent shift on their new album, Metal Meets (Last Gang), is their newfound love of electric guitars and echo effects, which Montreal producer Jace Lasek (of the Besnard Lakes) helped introduce into their sound.

“We didn’t know him before, but we wanted to find a wizard to work with sonically, and he was the perfect guy,” lead vocalist Casey Mecija explains over the din of the St. Lawrence Market.

“We hadn’t really tried to learn to use delay and other gadgets in the past, but after two albums we wanted to fiddle with things. We tried a bunch of ideas, and this was the sonic outfit that best suited the songs.

“The new instruments and sounds have made writing and playing music more exciting again.”

The new material is less likely to be described as indie folk, though that shimmering, ethereal beauty heard on their previous releases is still very much in evidence. And older songs are getting a new lease on life, too, rearranged to work with their new electrified lineup.

“We wanted to make sure it was easy for us to go into any venue. When you come in with a glockenspiel, the sound techs hate you. Now we don’t require anything too unusual for our live show. It makes our experience better to be able to just plug in and worry about playing rather than thinking about how people are going to hear the mandolin. No one ever hears the mandolin anyway.”

Beyond ditching the finicky acoustic instruments, the group is also adjusting to moving out of their former band house on Bellwoods. Mecija feels that change has also helped them grow as a band.

“The Bellwoods house era is pretty much over. We were very much localized in the Queen West music scene. But with this album there’s more depth and complexity brought on by travelling and being outside of our usual habitation.”

Shaking up old routines is definitely on Mecija’s mind right now. She’s also gone back to school to work on her master’s degree in sociology and equity studies, which she feels helps feed back into the songwriting process by providing new inspiration.

“Music takes up so much of your life, and I think it can turn off parts of your brain that you need. When you’re in a band, it’s really easy to just talk about music all the time. The world is so much more complex than what you see as a musician sitting in a tour van.

“At one point we were giving out readings to discuss in the van, but ‘band school’ didn’t really work out as well as I’d hoped.”

benjaminb@nowtoronto.com

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