News Au Palais: ‘We Wanted To Perform In The Fetal Position’

Elise and David Commathe are a Canadian brother and sister act, who by the looks of things are always on the same wavelength. Perhaps this was the biggest factor towards making the incredibly coherent darkness the lurks within the pair’s debut, ‘Tender Mercy’ EP, recently released with one of ‘First On’’s most trusted labels, The Sounds of Sweet Nothing. As a consequence of working and recording in near pitch black conditions, by being intent on creating one, hard-hitting introductory offering, Au Palais have announced themselves with aplomb. Having made the perfect first steps from being a new-born, work now shifts towards the production of a debut album. DIY asked both Elise and David about their work ethic, conquering stage-fright, the influence of The Knife on their work and what we can expect from this tantalising debut…

You recorded all of your early stuff at night, and it really seems to show on record. Is that something you’d like to continue doing; playing shows in dimly lit rooms & recording songs in the early hours?
Elise: I think it definitely benefits our music and helps create a coherent sound to our new work that we continue to work and record at later times. Lately we’ve even started practicing and rehearsing primarily at night. I think the majority if not all of the music writing happens at night.
David: At least in the initial stages, recording at night was more a result of the circumstances we were working under. When I was writing the songs that would later become the ‘Tender Mercy’ EP I was training as a paramedic and it seemed that I was just perpetually on the night shift, and it seemed like I never slept; I would be awake all night for days at a time, sitting in my room with my headphones on and my keyboard in my lap. There was something about the isolation of working at night that really suited us; the dark romance and intensity of it really worked with our music.

You haven’t cited The Knife as one of your influences but I feel like there’s a connection between their work and the synths in ‘Because The Night’ and ‘Pathos’. Would I be right in thinking that?
E: In many ways I think it must be hard for any current electro-pop band to ignore The Knife. I wonder if it’s just a given that they are so influential that it doesn’t get discussed. For me personally Deep Cuts was on repeat for like an entire year of my life. I have so much respect for The Knife, maybe they should be our sibling-duo idols?
D: The first time I heard ‘Silent Shout’ was something of an epiphany for me; I had never even considered that you could use the tools of techno to make songs like that. It was this dark, otherworldly music that sounded like nothing else on the planet, but was still built out of recognizable components taken from dance music.

What are your other prevailing inspirations?
E: David and I draw from different sources. I consider more of the pop aspects and really pay attention to certain artists’ performance styles. For me personally Patti Smith is a massive influence, lyrically and in terms of her personal style. She is such a strong artist and force really. Kate Bush is another example, she creates these worlds within her music and I think that’s something we aspire towards.
D: I grew up listening to really noisy, asbtract post-punk and American underground music - the more abrasive the better. In fact, for years that was pretty much all I listened to; there is something about that music that can really inspire a sort of puritanical arrogance in listeners. This seems insane to me now, but in high school I refused to listen to electronic music or even go dancing because it seemed ‘fake’ or ‘inauthentic’ in a way that I was never able to fully articulate. It is, I think, a very North American thing, and so fittingly I didn’t really discover techno until I was living abroad. If there is anything that techno has in common with those earlier post-punk bands, it’s a dedication to exploring new sounds, while also fully committing to an over-arching mood or aesthetic.
In terms of specific touch-points for the band, though, I think we both got very into the first This Mortal Coil album at around the same time - fortuitously, right when Au Palais started to come together for real as a project. We definitely had that album and sound in the back of our minds when we were recording ‘Tender Mercy’.

How did you come to releasing the EP on Sounds of Sweet Nothing?
E: Ned Hodge (who started the label) was a mutual friend of mine, and as Au Palais started getting attention I contacted him to get his opinion on the music and it all rolled out quickly from there.
D: It happened quickly and completely randomly. Ned has a freaky knack for finding undiscovered music, and a lot of (well-placed) confidence in the bands he discovers.

Elise, you’re a graphic designer? Do you design all the band’s artwork?
E: Yes that was me! I feel that it’s important for the music to be presented with equal thought and care to the design. I often think of the music in terms of almost an art director, and just want to make sure that there is a cohesive and consistent Au Palais design aesthetic as well.
D: Elise has sent me back to work on a lot of tracks she wasn’t totally happy with. ‘David, I’m going to need you to come into the office this Saturday; this bassline just doesn’t feel ominous enough.’

As EPs go, yours has an amazing amount of coherence and flow between the tracks. Did you intend to capture one dark sound and focus in on it for the entirety of the EP?
D: We were very conscious of the fact that this EP was going to be our introduction to the world and that it was important to present ourselves and our aesthetic as clearly as possible, so a lot of thought went into the tracks that were included, and the way that they were produced. Admittedly, it can be a little artistically limiting, and nearly an album’s worth of otherwise good material was omitted simply because it didn’t fit with the other songs on the EP. I’m not sure that we’ll keep this same approach in the future - there is already a much broader range of sounds and influences on the forthcoming album —- but I think it paid off on the EP.
I mentioned earlier about an over-all mood to a song or album being important in post-punk and techno, and that was something I very consciously tried to bring to Au Palais. There is an extremely pretentious story here: I remember reading a magazine piece once that had mistranslated the Baudelaire line ‘Luxe, calme et volupté’ as ‘Dark, calm and voluptuous’ and that stuck in my head. It became something of a mantra for us while we were recording those songs. Au Palais: Dark, calm, and voluptuous.

I read that you suffer(ed) from stage-fright, Elise. Is that something you’ve conquered already or is more confidence coming as you play each show?
E: I’ve definitely been making progress with it. The first show we did as Au Palais was fairly terrifying for me. I tried to convince David that it would be totally acceptable if I performed the entire set curled in the fetal position on the stage. I think I shouted the words ‘Fetal position singing can be OUR THING!’ at him. Luckily I’ve moved on from that point, and truly am okay once I start singing, it’s just scary leading up to that point!

Have you any specific plans for 2012? Lots of touring? The release of a full-length?
E: 2012 will see the release of our full-length, we’ve been working a lot on it, and just tested out some newest tracks the other night at a show in Toronto. We’ll be doing SXSW which is really exciting, and ideally start touring a lot more.
D: We have a lot of exciting stuff we’re working on. Stay tuned. Particularly if you like early 90s house music.

Au Palais - Tender Mercy EP by TheSoundsOfSweetNothing