The Montreal-based Valleys have been generating a fair bit of buzz lately, with their ‘psych-folk’ sounds fitting in well with the Semprini record label (also home to Pas Chic Chic, Chocolat and others). Key members Marc St. Louis and Matilda Perks founded the band four years ago and have since been cruising around (as a four-piece), playing around Montreal.

Playing NxNE on the 19th, Marc sat down for an interview before their show at Rancho Relaxo. Their albumSometimes Water Kills People is set to be released on Semprini in September.

The Singing Lamb: So, if you don’t mind me saying, you look a bit nervous!

Marc St. Louis: Ha! Well, a bit. We’ve mostly just played in places with about five people in them. [laughs] This is one of the first times where we’re sure we won’t know anyone in the audience.

Are you used to playing Toronto?

Not at all, actually. We’ve only played here four times before, never at NxNE.

What did you think of the city, in general?

Toronto’s really nice. I might just be saying this because I mostly spend my time in Montreal, but it’s a welcome change. We’re staying the whole weekend, which should be nice. It seems in Toronto that there’s something interesting to see any night you want.

Any particular artists you’d like to see?

It’s definitely be nice to see No Age and Health later on, but I’m not sure if I’ll get to.

Does there seem to be any glaring differences between the Montreal music scene and the Toronto one? From what you know?

Well, not a lot of people want to admit it, but the Montreal scene is actually pretty competitive. I mean, I know that all music scenes are competitive in some ways, but in Quebec it’s kind of unspoken and a little more intense. There’s no grudges held or any of that kind of stuff, and the bands are kind of communal there, but at the same time there’s always the feeling hanging over everything of wanting to get up there first, you know?

It’s just kind of tacitly implied?

Exactly. I mean, I don’t want to sound like all the artists in Montreal are ego-driven people, but as always there’s the competitiveness of it all. There’s fewer venues in Montreal, so it’s very much an issue of size.

Well, so now that you’re going to be playing in front of more people, and later when the album comes out, what can people expect from your live shows?

Well, the live show starts out treating the melody kind of delicately, in a way. And then it goes more ambient with the melodies and we kind of warp it in a bunch of different ways.

So you improvise a lot?

Yeah, definitely. We don’t really let the songs have segues. Like, instead of putting a guitar solo in we’ll kind of make it freer and looser, very on-the-spot. Pascal (Oliver, bandmate) is really good with improvising, since he knows his equipment well. It’s a very intricate set-up which I’m still trying to understand.

It seems that’s where you guys differ from the bands you’re compared to, like Yo La Tengo.

Yeah, we get that a lot, but I guess it’s more because we have the male-female vocals going on.

And which of you do you think is the more confident singer?

Neither! [laughs] We’re still trying to lock everything down vocally.

And how did the partnership between you two come up? Were you in bands before Valleys?

We were in a bunch of little bands before, mostly very folk-y or some slower feedback jams. When we were living in New York, our friend Rachel Lipson asked us to be her backing band in the UK, so we did that for a while and learned a lot. And we’ve been together as Valleys for four years. Four years this May.

And how have you and the band been reacting to the press acclaim?

It’s very encouraging. I think if you play songs by yourself, you might learn a lot but you might feel a bit distant. When you get feedback like we’ve been getting, it’s all worth it.

That kind of thing is very refreshing to hear. Most bands seem to pretend like they don’t give a damn about what the press thinks.

Not us. I love getting feedback.

Okay, and one last question: if you were a singing animal, what would you be?

Probably a buffalo. Because they’re big and I like them.

***

Valleys wordlessly took the stage at 11 that night, and Marc would have seemed to be right about nervousness – there were plenty more at the venue than five. When they began to gently strum their guitars, though, they provided a stark (and very welcome) rebuttal to the loud blues-rock bands that had preceded them.

The live experience was truly exciting, though, because each song seemed to be unpredictable from moment to moment. In one five-minute song, the group could sound like Glenn Branca’s early-80s guitar experiments and the minimalist American composers of the 70s. There was never a single moment where one could suspect a mapped-out structure – everything seemed sonically and emotionally real…more a suggestion of melody rather than the blatant expression of it. This worked staggeringly well for the band.

Valleys certainly have their own style, but the band that they seemed to call up most was Explosions in the Sky. And while that band creates triumphant grandiosity with only a few guitars as they spin and swirl around each other, Valleys go one step further by managing to do the same things with a much more improvised aesthetic – and with not as many guitars.

A friend observed to me during the concert that the band would be a fantastic group to sit in a living room with as they waded through one of their space-y jams. And it’s easy to see why – the vocal interplay between Matilda and Marc is both charming and endearing (which might have been helped by Marc when he looked up at the crowd with alarmingly sad eyes). And the gauzy textures that were provided behind them fit in to a relaxed and yet edgy sound that would indeed seem most appropriate for living room introspection. Listening to Valleys is like listening to a band that are going down a pathway whose destination is unclear…taking each step with relish and anticipation, but smart enough to be wary of what they find at the end.

For more Valleys,
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/valleysvalleysvalleys