Interview Meet Canshaker Pi, the Stephen Malkmus-produced Amsterdam hotshots

“There’s this South Park episode where they do a song about queefing, which is blowing air out of your vagina and making farting noises. I was singing it to check the mic and Stephen was in the control room listening. After, he goes ‘Nice vibrato on those queefs’. That was a highlight,” chuckles Canshaker Pi guitarist Boris de Klerk as the rest of his bandmates [lead vocalist Willem Smit, bassist Ruben van Weegberg and drummer Nick Bolland] simultaneously laugh in retrospective bafflement. They’ve got good reason to be baffled, as well. Namely because the Stephen they’re referring to is none other than Pavement lynchpin Stephen Malkmus – the man who basically pioneered ’90s slacker rock and who also sat at the production helm of the band’s 2016 self-titled debut LP.

See, though the Amsterdam quartet may have only lately started making noise on British shores with the release of recent single ‘Pressure From Above’ – a rattling spiral of wonkily unwinding guitars that they describe as their first “catchy pop song” (we’d argue they’ve got a few more), Canshaker Pi have been pricking up discerning ears elsewhere for a while now. As teens, Willem and Ruben’s former band Palio Superspeed Donkey became breakout Dutch favourites, while Canshaker themselves – all still barely in their twenties - are already heading into album two, having recently supported The Cribs, Parquet Courts and Car Seat Headrest among others.