La La Land

Plants and Animals latest offering, La La Land, is louder, and tougher, but also showcases them their smoothest and most cohesive to-date. Inspired by a rediscovery of electric guitars, amplification and fuzz pedals, it takes us up and away from Parc Avenue’s Montreal-in-the-summer vibe, and out into the rock n’ roll ether. The album was recorded at the band’s hometown go-to studio in Montreal, The Treatment Room, and at Studio La Frette outside Paris—a brokedown old mansion filled with vintage gear and a killer board in the cellar instead of wine.

Though plenty of wine went into the album. As Warren puts it, “the Paris stuff is like a nice Bordeaux and the Montreal stuff is more like a baked potato. Sessions in Paris ended by 10pm, sessions in Montreal by 6am.” Rum and cokes inspired the initial Treatment Room sessions in late 2008. The album’s first track, “Tom Cruz,” eventually came out of these late nights. As the Woodman tells it, “it was December, pre-Christmas, so we fuelled the session with rum and cokes. They made us feel like Tom Cruise. It gave us killer smiles and made our enemies wither.”

Ultimately it’s this sense of hilarious confidence that currently characterizes Plants and Animals, and also gives La La Land its cohesion. The Woodman’s drums sound bigger and groovier, Nic colours the album with extra guitars and keyboards like a mad painter, and Warren’s vocals have taken even more ambitious strides.

Tom Cruz is followed by the one-two punch of “Swinging Bells” and “American Idol,” which actually began as one song, and ended up being tracked into two during the mastering process. Also pulled from the Treatment Room sessions, “Swinging Bells” starts off with Plants and Animals at their most eerie and off-kilter, with delicate dabs of rickety 70s piano, but quickly builds to a rousing “la la la” peak that seems to introduce the record in earnest. The “la la las” that in part inspired the album name eventually land in “American Idol,” the upbeat sequel that, according to Nic Basque, “brought to life one of our musical dreams: to record a rock sax solo.” And there’s no irony here. With the help of Arcade Fire horn player Colin Stetson, the song more than lives up to its over-the-top title.

“Undone Melody” might be the best track on the record, if not also its emotional centerpiece. One of the only songs to have been fleshed-out and played on tour before the band went to record, fans of previous P&A songs like “Faerie Dance” and “Lola Who?” will see the logical progression here. At six minutes it’s not the longest song they’ve ever recorded, but it certainly stands up as one of their most epic and immediately engaging.

If “Undone Melody” is the album’s emotional centerpiece, “Kon Tiki” is its sexy soul. Inspired by a cheesy California hotel Plants and Animals found themselves in on tour, you can pretty much smell the sunset on this one. “’Kon Tiki’ is making it to the coast,” Woody says. “We did the North American circle a few times and California always felt like the pinnacle, the instinctive arrival point. One night we found a nice hotel to chill-out in called the Kon Tiki. We followed the trade winds across America and ended up in a trashy coastal dance bar. Continental zenith.”

“Game Shows” is another epic builder that starts soft, builds quickly and then takes a curious twist before a classic rock outro effectively closes side one of the album. Brad Barr stopped by the studio the day they were tracking this one and guests on piano. By the time it’s done it’s also apparent that Plants and Animals are still a band interested in crafting a complete album that flows seamlessly from beginning to end.

Side two opens with “The Mama Papa,” the most straight ahead song on the record, but also maybe the catchiest. “The Mama Papa we recorded three different ways,” Woody says. “Same song, trying different flavours. It's like pasta. You always want more. Spicy tomato, pesto or a costal clam hot pepper linguine.”

“Fake It” is the first song the band recorded in France, and the drummer’s favourite. It’s not hard to see why. It goes a lot of places, but never seems forced. And when it crashes it crashes hard and with conviction. It also features one of Warren’s most interesting vocal deliveries on the record, a highlight when you consider his voice has suddenly become of the band’s strongest suits.

Celebration was originally supposed to close the album. Another La Frette offering, it was written almost on the spot with a simple chord progression Warren came up with sitting in the garden outside the studio. “We worked quickly on a structure with Warren playing some soul guitar,” Nic says, “with me on the B3 and Woody on drums. We brought the tape back to Montreal and added a world a fuzz guitars and some horns. Our first plan was to end it with the pretty birds from La Frette singing at the end but instead we crashed a jet on another planet.”

“Future from the 80s” and “Jeans Jeans Jeans” register like the perfect encore. “Future…” boasts the best spacey coasting on the album (and some French horn courtesy of Pietro Amato), before “Jeans Jeans Jeans” rips the whole thing to shreds with some very dirty guitars. “‘Jeans Jeans Jeans’ is about the getting barbecue going in a Trans Am on the way to the beach,” Woody says, “it’s pretty much a straight off the floor track.”

“We got fat making the record but got skinny mixing it,” Warren jokes. After handing over album-mixing duties to someone other than Warren for the first time, the band decided they weren’t happy with the results, and camped out at the Treatment Room for two weeks in the fall of 2009 to remix the record. Warren even setup a tent in the studio, working around the clock to wrap things up. Many late nights and even more bad working titles later, La La Land was done.

In many ways La La Land is just as eclectic as Parc Avenue, but there’s something more mature holding it all together now. As they might say in the movies, La La Land isn’t a place—it’s a state of mind. Plants and Animals have never been a band with much interest in posturing or unnecessary theatrics, but on La La Land the curtain isn’t just pulled back, it’s gone entirely.

Plants and Animals announce US tour, new single/video

Plants and Animals have just announced their most exhaustive North American tour to-date, with the addition of over 20 US dates (and packed SXSW schedule) to their already announced Canadian itinerary. They'll be heading down to Brooklyn next week for a sneak-peak, opening for Broken Bells on March 10th, before their CMW appearances in Toronto. You can see the full list of shows here.

The band has also released a new video for another song from La La Land, entitled The Mama Papa. Directed by Sinbad Richardson, inspired by Frederico Fellini, and starring P&A, and Joe Cobden.