On January 29, 2016, post-rock outfit Pandaléon launched its third album, Atone. It’s a solid, ambient rock offering that’s in good company with the likes of Sigur Ros, Kinski, Flaming Lips, Swans, et al. Without going as far as calling it a concept album, there’s clearly a thread that ties Atone together, a clear and unique art direction at play. The result is in no small part attributable to the peculiar path the trio and their sound engineer chose for recording these ten songs. They went back to their old primary school, which has been abandoned for about 15 years, and holed up there for five weeks. But to better understand this approach, we need to travel back in time…

Here, then, are three young men – aged 23, 24 and 25, respectively – who were raised in the countryside somewhere between Montréal and Ottawa. Brothers Frédéric and Jean-Philippe Levac grew up in St-Bernardin, where their parents and grandparents ran a dairy farm. Their friend Marc-André Labelle was born a few kilometres away, a village called L’Orignal (population 2,000). “We loved our childhood. It was the kind of environment where everyone contributes. Remote, but united,” says Fred.

Here, then, we have three young musicians who love to re-invent themselves, tweak sounds, and whose interest in composing and recording music is boundless. The two brothers start making music together early on. Frédéric plays keyboards and sings, Jean-Philippe plays drums. In their teens, they set up in an old barn on the family’s property and turn it into a rehearsal space, studio and even a small, intimate concert venue. They call it “La Piaule” (loosely translated, “The Pad”). That’s where they write all their music. It’s a lab. A hideout. Their paradise on Earth.

Marc-André Labelle enters their life at the end of high school. Right from the start, during his first visit at La Piaule, the Levac brothers are blown away by his playing and his personality. The chemistry is perfect, the band is born! “Being in a band is intense. We share a lot. You learn a lot about yourself and what type of musician you are. Each member has to be fully engaged, and that’s how it is for us,” says Fred over the phone from La Piaule. The fourth wheel of this well-oiled machine is Nicolas Séguin, a close friend and the band’s official sound engineer. He’s an integral part of the project, whether live or in the studio.

 CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA

When the themes of childhood, the past and family come flowing out of Fred’s writing process, the trio decided that this time they wanted to step out of their comfort zone. “We go by our old primary school every day,” says Fred. “It’s a tiny rural school that had about 40 students back then, and they had to close it while my brother and I were attending. We knew the acoustics in that place would be awesome. We jumped on the opportunity.”

So the four young men set up camp in their old St-Bernardin school for five weeks last summer, equipped with a water tank, mattresses, their instruments and recording equipment. “We slept there, we lived there, we had to go outside to brush our teeth,” Jean-Philippe explains in the documentary about their experience that you can watch on their website. “We forgot to eat because we were so busy and involved… We forgot to call our girlfriends, we forgot everything, really.”
“The school itself played an immense role in the whole process,” says Fred. “We spent days testing each room’s acoustics and experimenting with their natural volume and reverberation. Stick my drums in a gymnasium and I go nuts!” The pictures and videos documenting the process clearly show how chaotic their surroundings were while they tried to create a workspace for the duration of the project.

“The school itself played an immense role in the whole process,” says Fred. “We spent days testing each room’s acoustics and experimenting with their natural volume and reverberation. Stick my drums in a gymnasium and I go nuts!” The pictures and videos documenting the process clearly show how chaotic their surroundings were while they tried to create a workspace for the duration of the project.

GRIEF

Even though, musically, the end result quenched their thirst for exploration and yielded a sonically rich album – especially the guitar work – from a human standpoint, it was different. “It was very peculiar,” says Fred. “On the first night, we were super-excited, thrilled to be going outside of our comfort zone. Then we dove head first into this childhood nostalgia. We worked on our music 18 hours a day for five weeks straight, in total isolation; let’s just say we reached quite a high degree of intensity. It was the best recording session ever!”

“Leaving the place was rough,” Fred continues. “The day we left, no one said a word. We took the studio apart, bundled the cords, and took the equipment out in complete silence.” A form of grief? “Undoubtedly. Artistically, I was satisfied by this experience and the recordings we got out of it, but mentally, I was exhausted. It took two solid weeks before I plugged everything back at La Piaule.”

So where is Pandaléon headed after such an experience? “We can’t wait to get onstage!” says Fred. “We really enjoy getting lost in our music when we play live. It’s intoxicating.” Will Atone’s follow-up require another such intense experience? “I don’t know,” he says. “We’ll see. It’s likely that we’ll try recording outside of La Piaule for the next album, just to see how differently we are influenced by a different environment.” A reggae album recorded in Jamaica, maybe? “Ha, ha! Who knows? We’ll go where the music takes us.”

One thing’s for sure, these four lads will not cease exploring, re-inventing themselves, and living their love for music and recording to the fullest. For these guys, the trip is as important as the destination.