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Why I love Platitudes (or Why Platitudes Rules) by Catherine Debard

 In Why This Rules

Platitudes

It’s quite funny to say Platitudes is one of the most unique and exciting bands in the Montreal DIY music scene these days, as the word ‘platitudes’ means the complete opposite, some dull, boring cliché that lingers. That’s how they trick you, though. Platitudes thinks about platitudes, it explores meticulously its shadowy corners and dull commonplaces, the tacit Banal that quietly shapes our human experience. Hey, let’s talk about finances, about work, about waking up in the morning, let us all contemplate how things are universal, absurd, funny and sad. What to think about when you think about it, if you ever think about it? Or does it make you uncomfortable, maybe?

What I really love about Platitudes, is how they show us music can be both serious and playful, intellectual and sensory, exciting and reflexive; they show us music is an effective communication tool that can also make you feel soooooo good. These qualities are not contradictory, they feed each other! Every performance or project they present is unique; you genuinely have no idea what topic  they will scrutinize for you each time or the methodology they will use to do so. There is a latent logistics to their work, and a strong sense of aesthetics I really dig. I just enjoy letting these two businesslike experimental musicians blow my mind.

Here I go on and on, but I haven’t even started talking about Platitudes’ sound yet! I don’t like attributing genres to music, who am I to translate  their aural magic with trivial words for ya? I love how slowly, subtly, the layers of analog synthesizer guide me into a succession of strange hypnotic landscapes. And I love how the saxophone roams and expresses itself energetically, or in drone-y meditative waves, either processed in the craziest ways (some sounds, you didn’t even think a sax could make!) or dry, raw, vital. You add in the mix their special touch of keen, witty spoken word moments (both literary and accessible), delivered effortlessly by these two radio-friendly artists, and you have it all.

Catherine Debard is a musician and visual artist that, among many great things, performs music as YlangYlang.

Platitudes plays Kazoo! Fest 2018 on Friday April 13th with Joseph Shabason and Nicole Rampersaud & Germaine Liu at Heritage Hall (83 Essex St.)

platitudes.space

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