Dusted is the latest project from Holy F*ck’s Brian Borcherdt and producer Leon Taheny (of Final Fantasy and Bruce Peninsula), who recorded their debut album in a garage-turned-studio. The result? A lo-fi and dreamy new album called Total Dust. It may be mellower than what we’re used to from Holy F*ck, but Borcherdt’s astral lulling and melancholic influences remain the driving force behind the duo.
Always reinventing himself (including a stint as an alt-country singer), Borcherdt has reached the perfect harmony between electro and pop-rock, making Total Dust the soundtrack to the summer, fittingly released on July 10. But for those who just can’t wait until then, Dusted will play more than just album tracks at their upcoming apperance at NXNE and other shows. We caught up with Borcherdt to talk about the new album.
So how did Dusted get started?
I’ve been writing and recording for quite a while. I’ve wanted to get a new band started for a while, but it’s been tricky because I’ve been non-stop touring with Holy F*ck. It’s going on six, maybe seven years — time is just flying. We started working together before we really knew what it was going to be.
How does it compare to your work with Holy F*ck?
It’s very different. Holy F*ck is a super fun band for me… but it doesn’t really require the same type of songwriting. When you’re on the road, it’s not like sitting in your apartment and picking up your acoustic guitar. I’m glad — I had no pressure or interest whatsoever to bring that stuff to Holy F*ck. It would have been an awkward transition, and it wouldn’t have been welcome there.
What was it like collaborating with Leon Taheny?
Leon recently opened a new studio, and he was expressing interest. He had been swallowed up by the studio. I was the opposite — I was swallowed up by the touring life. I spent all my time in the van or at an airport. We were coming at it from two different angles but we really wanted to do something together. Everything was coming together, it was just taking that extra step to say, ‘‘Okay, we’re definitely going to do this, and we’re going to make it happen.’‘ The album has been done for a year, and we’ve started booking live shows so it can become a real thing.
I hear you guys recorded the album in Leon’s garage-turned-studio. Can you tell me a bit about that?
It’s an ideal spot for two people working on something. It was very much a studio friendship. He was pressing record, and I was doing the performing, and then we’d listen to it and we didn’t want to do a lot to it. We’re never trying to go for that over-the-top rock ‘n’ roll thing — we’re never gonna be the Foo Fighters [laughs].
There seems to be a lot of instruments backing this album — strings, drum machines, tambourines — how does that translate for just the two of you on stage?
Sometimes it sounds like there’s a lot of instrumentation, overwhelming the senses, but songs like ‘‘(Into the) Atmosphere’‘ and ‘‘Cut Them Free’‘ both have minimal percussion and a drum machine. It sounds thoroughly planned, like a big rhythmic thing, but when you really distill it down, it’s a kick pattern on the drum machine and maybe little clackity-clacks on the snare drum. It ended up being a lot easier to pull off on stage than we initially thought it would be, provided that Leon is taking on the somewhat difficult challenge of playing bass lines and the drums at the same time.
Total Dust sounds a lot more lo-fi and mellow than Holy F*ck. I’m curious to know who some of your musical influences were when you were recording?
I have eclectic taste in music, but when it comes down to it I can very rarely sit down and listen to a solo singer/songwriter, not modern stuff anyway. Maybe Neil Young. But where my interest lies is probably closer to Holy F*ck’s stuff. I’d be more likely to listen to a noisy, weird record or a folk record from the late ‘60s.
I know you’ve had quite a few solo projects in the past. Is it challenging to always be experimenting and reinventing yourself as an artist?
Yeah, that must be it, otherwise I wouldn’t keep doing it. I’m doing it because I’m searching for something. I don’t want to dazzle people, I’m trying to find something. The challenge for me is trying to do it right, and do it the way I like it. It’s one thing to have people acknowledge what you’re doing and say, ‘‘That’s cool,” but, do I think it’s cool? That’s one of the problems I have. I’ve been playing guitar for almost as long as I can remember, but I never really have become that great at it! I’ve never approached it technically. It’s like a puzzle: I just pick up a guitar and start strumming. It’s always something new. I don’t really go back to something I was working on a few days before. Finding melodies I like and hopefully finding emotional connections – and the funny thing is, it’s still not enough to be a song! It doesn’t have words yet, it doesn’t have anything, it’s just this thing. But to me, that’s where the fun is. That’s where it began and ended, all in one afternoon.
Can you give us any hints about the upcoming full-length?
This doesn’t really describe it very well in its aesthetic values, but I feel like finally I am totally finding that spot, like okay, these are the songs I started playing, and it ended up being something that I like. Maybe it’s singer/songwriter music for people who don’t like singer/songwriter music. It’s drone-y and moody, but there’s a joy and fun to it. I think it’s something people can share with their friends as opposed to maybe things you’d only listen to alone because they’re so personal.
Are you looking forward to playing with Bruce Peninsula and NXNE in the coming weeks?
Definitely. So far the shows have been super fun but super short, because most of our songs are short. We’re trying to recreate our favourite moments on the record. These shows coming up, we’re definitely playing new songs that aren’t on the record, it’ll be the first time we’re playing them.