News Majical Cloudz: ‘I Don’t Want People To Focus On My Own Stories’

What constitutes a scene and what’s just a jumbling together of interesting bands who happen to hail from the same city? It’s something that’s impossible to define without involving those who supposedly characterise a movement’s fame. Devon Welsh aka Majical Cloudz is one of many Montreal musicians now being asked about a community of like-minded talents who are currently, respectively, off someplace else. They’re travelling the world and they’re rarely all in one city at once. What began in a tiny neighbourhood has now spread its wings, landing its parts in different day-to-day situations.

This one involves Devon speaking to us inside the corner of an Irish bar. All the seats are taken up so we’re huddled next to a dartboard. Dressed in the white-top, black-jeans attire that’s become a staple of his live shows, and day-to-day life Devon is calm and peaceful in person, but anyone tempted to start a scuffle to get a spot a darts will likely think again.



Is it true that you played music growing up in a tight-knit community of musicians? You read such mixed things about it from different people…
There is basically…You’re talking about the Montreal group of musicians. There’s a fairly close-knit group of friends. We’ve been playing shows together since basically 2009, in various different projects. Over the last year or so it’s started to pick-up. It was a scene that a lot of people knew had a lot of potential and then it was just a matter of time until everyone was able to tour and where a lot of people found out about it. And now, it’s at the point where that scene no longer exists in the same way because no-one’s ever in the same city as another. But that’s…There’s two different perspectives on a how a scene can function. There’s people who’ll think a community needs to stay put in a city and you play the music for that tiny group of people. You set up local labels and you do it that way. Or you can look at it as how a success of a music community is indicated by when that community is no longer together because they’ve outgrown that place. I feel like from the beginning everyone that was involved in that community in Montreal wanted to be able to tour the world and be able to play their music for a lot of people.

Do you feel like some people are drawn to the city in an automatic flash of hype, so to speak?
I think at least it brings curiosity. It’s a good thing. At least a lot of people are now talking about that Montreal thing so if you’re a new musician in Montreal at least people will be curious. I don’t think it will always hold people’s attention for very long because…either you like the music or you don’t. People give that music a chance because that band may be associated with other bands that they would like and I think that works for everybody because everyone who’s being successful from Montreal deserves it.

I saw some footage of you playing live for the first time and you’re in the same attire as you’re in today. Why did that stick?
That actually preceded us even playing as a band. I just started getting into the idea of wearing a uniform. It wasn’t even a choice. I guess in some ways I’m really neurotic and that manifested itself into suddenly wanting to have the same outfit all the time. I normally wear the same type of clothes. I have a bunch of white shirts. I guess, once I started doing that I decided it’d be cool to play in those clothes all the time so there was a common visual thread but it’s mostly just about my life in general. It’s not just about music or performance.

And musically as well. It’s almost like there was a turning point. But was there a specific moment, a song, even a night of recording where it all changed?
Yeah, I think it happened when I stopped playing music for a little bit. I kind of gave up on it for a few months. It was just a few months where I thought that I would maybe not be playing music again or writing music again. I just started doing it again for myself as a personal experiment. I never intended to show people that music and I was just testing ideas I was having. And it turned out to be that style of music. It was a lot more personal. The first song that I did was ‘This Is Magic’. That just set the template for my thinking on a lot of the other songs.

The album is very much a personal expression. How does it feel to have people applauding something that’s such an individual expression? When I listen to it I think of so many different emotions, probably not the same ones you had when you were writing the record.
Yeah exactly. I think when people applaud the music they’re not necessarily applauding the personal content that I put into it. What they’re reacting to is the honesty that goes into making music that is really personal and it allows them to get in touch with their own feelings. So I don’t see it as a vindication. I don’t see them as approving of my own personal feelings or me as a person. I feel like they’re applauding the action of making music that is trying to be open and honest and then that triggers something in themselves. When I listen to music that is emotionally open and confessional, I feel things about my own life. And it allows me to get in touch with emotions that are coming from personal places. So when people are having emotional reactions at our shows, the music allows them to get to that place themselves, rather than experience my own emotions. That’s boring. I don’t want people to focus on my own stories.



Your record appears to be simple on the outside, but it’s actually quite meticulous. Open, sparse sounds feel intentionally put together to the furthest degree.
Yeah, well when I write songs they’re very simple in the sense of, I just try to say no to as many possibilities as I can when I’m writing a song. I try and stick to something that is really simple and straightforward. When we’re mixing the song and producing it, when me and Matt are working on it together. We’ll add things that are more detail-orientated. Because sometimes it can be too simple. Sometimes when you try to make something really simple it sounds unfinished, so we let the details creep back in, but just enough. I think the best outcome for a song is when the instrumentals sound kind of gray. They don’t put out like in a contemporary electronic production where everything is bursting at the seams. It’s better if it feels kind of flat. There’s something to me that’s soothing about that when I’m making the music. I don’t want it to violate my personal space. I like to hear soothing, soft, gray sounds that don’t jump in.

Sometimes it’s like they’re all fighting each other to get your attention.
Exactly, yeah. They’re trying to get in your face. I just like that about music in general, the opposite. So that’s how I do it myself.

The focus is always your voice though. Have you always known that you had that kind of singing voice or is it something that’s developed?
I don’t think I always have had this singing voice. I think I just had to teach myself how to sing over the course of many years. I did acting when I was younger and so from that, I learned how to use my voice in a good way but not necessarily to sing. I had to teach myself how to have good pitch. I grew up using my voice in a lot of different ways.

I try and sing along to the songs but I can’t. It’s so boldly projected.
That’s probably coming from the acting background. That’s how I learned to sing, by singing along to records. When I’d be driving places. One summer I worked at a provincial park store and I would just drive in a truck every day and listen to music. That was one summer where I became a lot more confident singing. That’s definitely how I taught myself.

Did you teach yourself in anything else musically?
I taught myself to play guitar and I taught keyboard too. No music lessons. Guitar was when I was 14 or 15 and piano, keyboard, was just slowly over time just from writing songs on my friend’s organ that he had at his house. My dad has a keyboard at his house too. I couldn’t pick up a guitar and play someone else’s song. I just do it by ear.

Musically have you always listened to music that is quite spacious? Your music is minimal by definition but it’s not like the minimal, electronic strand.
I’ve listened to so many different types of music that…Something that I would call minimal is some Elliott Smith records. His self-titled album specifically because it’s just guitar overdubs and vocal overdubs. The drums he uses in self-titled or ‘either/or’, you hear drums that are barely there. The drums don’t overpower you. They’re just tiny. It sounds like they were just recorded in one room. Minimal music doesn’t overwhelm you. I’ve listened to a lot and I don’t think I was reacting against anything or trying to sound like anything specifically. More just influenced personally by what I wanted. On those Elliott Smith albums, his voice is the thing that you’re listening to. The lyrics and the narratives. I listened to him so much that I can’t really listen to it anymore. It’s music that’s been done to death in my own mind. For only a year I’d listen to his albums. I’d do ‘either/or’ for a week and a half and then I’d switch to ‘XO’ and then ‘Figure 8’ and then I’d go back. And then everything in between.



‘Impersonator’ is released on 27th May via Matador.