And now for something completely different. Last week we brought you The Danger Bees, a band very much bounded inside the traditionalist songwriting and singular vision of David Macmichael. Here at the other end of the spectrum lies Pidgin, a local five-piece act that relies on intuitive composition and operates almost completely outside of the realm of language and established genre constraints.
Well, okay. Before we go ahead and unilaterally award them the Nobel Prize for innovation, it bears mentioning that Pidgin are, at their core, still a rock band. Nor is the idea of bringing an orchestral compositional style into the rock context completely their own (ahem, Godspeed You Black Emperor). But what makes Pidgin an interesting listening experience is that there really isn't anybody in Canadian music doing precisely this — not with these chords, or with these melodies, or with this level of jazzy schmaltz.
Like Godspeed, Pidgin are a self-styled "punk" band that don't sound very much like anybody's conception of punk. Keys, horns and washed-out effects drizzle jazz chords, while subdued scat vocal sequences space out their big instrumental swells. If there is anything punk about their ethos, it's their insistence on breaking the rules entirely and simply playing what feels good to them. Except, instead of playing loud, fast and aggressive, they simply violate every songwriting convention in the book (an approach that might find them branded as post-rock once they garner a little more attention).
That contradiction (punk for all the least punk reasons) is borne out in their name as well: "pidgin speak" is the third language that happens when a non-native speaker reconstructs a foreign language with only some regard for the rules. The irony being that vocalist/guitarist and composer Jason Li found this name — meant to convey the band's preference for musical language over other forms of language — in an Ernest Hemingway book. I caught up with Corey Wong (guitars, keys and production) and Li to have a suitably abstract chat about their music.
You've said that Pidgin is “an attempt to communicate by any means necessary.” What is it that you're trying to communicate, if you had to put it into words?
CW: Well, I think it really has to do with place, with where you came from and an attempt to capture that place. We really like Portishead, and they named that band after the Scottish town they were from. That dark sound seems to evoke a particular place really well.
Isn't every person's perception of a place fairly individual to them? Like, mightn't my perception of Hamilton sound a lot like your perception of Niagara Falls?
JL: Everyone has their own personal absorption or intake, for sure… I mean, I guess in this case it's kind of like not asking for directions.
CW: It's about intuition, and finding your own way instrumentally. Naturally, that way is going to be individual. We want it to be individual, actually.
JL: This is something I think about frequently, and there's… well, we do feel road blind a part of the time. It's not like we aren't self-aware like that. Of course we're always asking ourselves the question, is this self-indulgent? Are we going to be perceived as idealists? But I prefer to think about the whole thing as a musical pilgrimage.
Well, how do you measure success with something so personal? I mean, if you're sitting down to write a pop song, you write two verses, a chorus, and a bridge, and then you can say, “How exciting is the chorus? How well did I tell the story in the verse? How does the bridge transit into the last chorus?” But with Pidgin, there's no road map.
JL: I really feel like it comes down to sincerity. The question for me is, can I dedicate myself to this material? Am I completely dedicated to it?
CW: With our live shows, we really try to give it everything we have. When the performance is over and you're soaked in sweat, that's how you know that you've done a good job. Every time we go out there, it just has to feel totally sincere and passionate, because, like, this is my shit, you know? Maybe, again, it sounds idealistic, but the material really does need to feel that way for me. Another thing that we value highly is spontaneity. When the material just appears, when we find it intuitively, that's the stuff that feels the most authentic to us.
What's next for Pidgin?
CW: We're going to record another E.P. pretty soon. I'm proud of this one, but the next one's going to be even better. And you can catch us at El Mocambo on Nov. 10th.
Pidgin are:
Jason Li — vocals/rhythm guitar
Corey Wong — lead guitar/keys
Taylor Wong — drums
Matt Cumberbatch — bass
Matt Boudreau — saxophone