Evidenced by the pre-show tweet, “thunderstorm/dark & stormy night + first show of the year + prop coffin + frat house = you tell me,” even Majical Cloudz was unsure of what its show with Ben Seratan ’10 at Eclectic last Thursday would entail. Consisting of singer-songwriter Devon Welsh and producer Matthew Otto, the band makes music that could vaguely be classified as “synth-pop,” but its stark sonic minimalism and emotional intimacy both seem in opposition to the upbeat grandiosity generally associated with the genre.

Hailing from Montreal, the group fits into a loose and varied collective of Canadian artists, all connected by their difficulty to place neatly into any recognizable genre trends. Like previous label-mates Grimes, Doldrums, and Braids, Majical Cloudz sprang from the metaphoric left-field in forming a highly personal, idiosyncratic sound and aesthetic. Earlier this year, the band released its second album, Impersonator, on Matador Records to high critical praise.

Majical Cloudz is far less grim in-person than their music might suggest, and the show incorporated spontaneous antics that included the following: pogoing to melancholic musical musings on identity-loss, an a cappella interlude on friendship that silenced a crowd of drunk college kids, and one meditation on death sung from within the prop coffin (ending with Devon triumphantly rising from within, in some serendipitous metaphor of conquering the afterlife). After the show, I sat down with Devon on Eclectic’s ten-foot throne-sofa to discuss his recent experiences on tour.

 

The Argus: This coffin was an interesting element to the show tonight…

Devon Welsh: Oh no, yeah, first thing in the interview, I want to go on record: we do not bring a coffin with us on the road. That was just here. But I think it was ironically fitting, ’cause a lot of our songs touch on death…but more in a positive light, rather than a kind of death-obsession. We drive a four-door Hyundai rental car—so no room for coffins.

 

A: This was your first college campus show. How did you feel it went? What do you think of the venue?

DW: There were things I really liked about the environment and the show itself and there were things that could’ve been different, but the good parts were kinda inseparable from the parts that were more a struggle. The energy of a lot of young people at college seeing a show in September—that’s a lot of positive energy. That’s all you can ask for. These are people who are—what’s the word—unjaded in their musical experience. My experience touring has been that shows with young people, all-ages shows, are the best environments for that reason.

But the struggle that comes with that is it just becomes, like, a wild party: People come not only to see the show, but to hang out. At a typical venue space, you pay for the ticket, you go to see the show, and that’s the only reason you’re there. It was different here, but I think that’s a good thing. I don’t think a band needs everyone always paying attention all the time. And a lot of people were [paying attention]. I appreciated the energy of the whole thing.

 

A: It was interesting how the a cappella really quieted people down, though.

DW: Yeah, yeah, the a cappella brought people in. In normal venue spaces, that song often has the effect of really focusing people, but I was unsure when we started playing it tonight whether it was gonna focus people or be the end of focus.

 

A: How has the transition been from playing as an opening act to touring as the headliners at every show? Has it changed the performance style at all?

DW: It’s a total world of difference. If it doesn’t go well as an opener, you shrug it off, because, well, they weren’t there to hear your music. But as a headliner, people are coming because they’re interested in your music and they want to see it in a live context. If it’s a bad show, and there’s not a lot of people there…Sorry, that’s an incorrect distinction, sometimes it can be a great show with only ten people there. But yeah, all of the burden of success is on you: making sure the environment is right, the lighting, the songs that play beforehand….It’s all under your control. Being a support act is kind of like riding a bike with the training wheels on; there’s a safety net. As a headliner, the wheels are off, and a world of responsibility and creative freedom open up to you.

 

A: Many artists gravitate more toward either the recording process or the performance. How have the two compared for you?

DW: If I had to choose one thing that’s integral to the life of the band I’d have to choose the live performance. And I think the single live show is where I think we’re best, as opposed to the notion of “the tour.” I think the amount that bands have to tour today is too much. I think it overextends the creative life of the act. I don’t know if that’s answering the question. I feel the most important aspect of the band is the live context, because I see our music as being more than just the songs themselves: it’s more about the way that they can interact with an audience, talk to people. This show may not have been a good example of that: a lot of energy was spent keeping the focus. But when you have the focus, there’s a lot you can do beyond the music itself.

 

A: One word that everyone seems to toss around when describing your music is “confessional.” Do you ever reveal things in your public life as Majical Cloudz that you don’t reveal in personal interactions?

DW: Yeah, lots of things. Most of the things in the songs that we play are probably things that I just find a lyrical way of expressing that I don’t express in everyday life. It’s reflective thinking that doesn’t really have a space in your public life day-to-day.

 

A: You’ve called your act theatrical in the past. When I write music, I sometimes have a fear of giving off too heavy an affectation, like I’m getting inauthentically or self-indulgently cheesy. What are your thoughts on melodrama in music, yours and others?

DW: That’s a really fine line and I feel like our music kind of walks that line to a certain extent. I don’t know if there’s really an easy answer to that. I think the way to avoid melodrama is not by toning it down or reserving yourself, but by thinking about what the audience is going to be hearing and experiencing, and making your expression clear. A person can unload their emotions on a microphone, and that’s all authentic to them. But if it’s not structured properly it comes off to an audience as emotional overflow. But if you consider the audience’s reception of that emotional content, if the fat is trimmed around that expression, then you can avoid detouring into melodrama. It’s the difference between a long flowery sentence that’s packed with meaningless adjectives and adverbs, versus very descriptive purposeful writing. But to a certain extent, it’s also in the eye of the beholder.

 

A: Some artists build a persona for themselves. Your friend, Claire Boucher, states in interviews that she consciously keeps the identity of Grimes, that image or alias, separate from her personal identity as Claire. Have you ever felt the urge to double your identity in that sense?

DW: For me, it’s not a deliberate attempt to separate those personalities so much as, this musical project and my life as a musician express one side of who I am as a person, and there are many other sides to me that just don’t have a place in what I do as a musician. Like the music that we make is really serious, but people who are my friends would not think of me as a serious person. But that just doesn’t have a place in what we do. That’s just not how I choose to express myself musically, for whatever reason.

As a band, I try not be bound to a very serious engagement with an audience. There are shows where we play the same songs, but it’s a totally not serious event at all. There’s lots of joking around, lots of humor. I try to keep that intact. I think it’s taxing when there’s a band that has this rigidly monotonous emotional perspective. “It’s a serious band, they’re emotional, they’re tortured, and at every show they’re tortured on stage.” And that’s melodrama. That’s melodrama because it so clearly doesn’t represent nearly who they are. That can be avoided when there’s nuance to the expression. When it feels like a real person who has intense emotions but is not a Hollywood veneer, or whatever.

 

A: There definitely seems to be a theme of identity loss in the album.

DW: Yeah, that was really more just an unintentional subconscious thing going on in my head. All the songs were all just written at different times. The first few songs were written when I was in a space where I was very unsure of who I was or what I was doing, so the first songs written for the record were written as a reaching out to myself to explain myself as a human being. Yeah I guess they’re all concerned with identity, I don’t know why. I guess at some level, it’s just something that preoccupies me. There’s a few themes that I didn’t even think about until the record came out, and it was in people’s hands, and new perspectives came out. There were these lyrical themes that came down to even the name of the album that I didn’t even plan out.

 

A: You guys are a fairly new act. How have your experiences with the music industry been?

DW: My experience in the industry was basically that we initially weren’t in the industry at all, until we started to feel like what we were doing as a band in our early stages was something that had a lot of power to it. We stumbled upon something that felt very meaningful to both of us. It was the only thing I wanted to do with my life: write music, tour, blah, blah, blah….We took a step toward the business, and in a couple months things just started to happen really fast. I started to realize that the way in which we would exist as a band would be up to us, and there were varying degrees to which we could engage with the industry.

 

A: Your friend, James Brooks, of Elite Gymnastics has voiced some heavily critical opinions on the music business.

DW: People like James have had an influence on me in terms of raising issues that I had not even thought of: the role of alcohol at live shows, how non-all-ages shows can be preventive to creative success….He’s inspiring in the sense that he poses questions that as a musician, if I have any self-respect, I need to answer. But yeah, my experiences in the industry have been good; we’ve been very lucky. The industry has received us pretty warmly. But we’re not a perfect puzzle piece for the industry. Our music is not a fit for bar spaces, it’s not really upbeat, it’s not music that can sell a lifestyle, and I don’t really believe in those things….I don’t drink alcohol anymore, I don’t engage with aspects of the industry that have to do with appearance or image anymore, you know what I mean? We’re going to tour in Europe and then have some indefinite time off to work on the next record. It’s a constant learning process. Just trying to maintain the notion that we have agency over our own destiny as a band.

 

A: Matthew seems to play an interesting role in the band. Does he consider himself more a collaborator or…?

DW: It’s kind of a unique relationship. The songs are all mine, and they’re all very personal songs, and there’s an element to the project where I’m personally interacting with audiences through the internet, through the music….So it started off as my project, and to a certain extent it continues to be that. But his role in the band is very much, in another sense, on an even playing field. We have worked together 50/50 on coming up with the sound of our music, the development of the aesthetic, the band as an idea—it came through our partnership. Before that it was just this raw thing with no real direction yet…The extent to which the writing process occurs.

 

A: Cool.

DW: Sweet.