Lou Canon Introduces Us To The Many Voices and Mood World of 'Audomatic Body'

Lou Canon's new album, Audomatic Body, was recently unleashed upon the world, conjuring a strange world that lulls the listener into considering compelling questions about identity and desire that stretch far beyond the normal considerations of the everyday. But maybe the everyday should stretch further.

The Canadian singer-songwriter has crafted the new release with careful consideration of a new way of thinking in the plural--focusing on the fact that together we have many voices and they need to be heard. Lou Canon is also heavily invested in the visual imagery that accompanies her work, and you'll find that operating in her album cover, the images for her singles, and in her music videos, too.

Lou Canon previously appeared on our Tower Livestream show, but also joins us to today to dive a little deeper into the fluid world of musical work.

Hannah Means-Shannon: I think that musicians have all been affected very differently by quarantine, depending on what they had intended to work on or are able to work on. You have a new album, as well as singles and videos. Did you manage to lock all that down before this happened?

Lou Canon: Yes, most of it we did. We had planned to release the album at the end of May and reconsidered and bumped it to July. The video “Ancient Chamber” was filmed beforehand. But I had a video planned for “Next to You” that was supposed to be filmed in California. I have a friend who is a director in Russian River, which is where I stayed when I did a bunch of writing for this record.

We were in the process of interviewing dancers, with a wonderful script, and I was supposed to go there right after South by Southwest, but things got closed down. That video changed and morphed into a user-generated video, where I asked fans to contribute clips with things written on their bodies. The visual component has definitely changed because I’m more restricted, but I’m still happy with where it’s going.

I would have had this awesome video from Russian River, but it’s turned into a lyrical video. I hope we will still make that video, but I don’t know when it will be. Until we have a vaccine, who knows what will happen? I’m just taking it a day at a time.

HMS: I think it’s really awesome that you adapted to the new video with a different mode that would be possible right now. A lot of people probably would have just shelved it, and you’re also including fan engagement.

LC: It’s just reworking things. I’m thinking of doing another couple of press photos with the person who shot my album cover and singles images. Now that’s turned into, “Let’s meet in a park, from a distance.” It’ll end with a glass of wine on distant blankets, but let’s try to get a little work done in an awkward time.

It’s funny because my creative process is pretty heavily dependent on new spaces, so this whole quarantine has made me rethink the way that I work and rework the way that I’m creative. Instead of setting up a little space on someone’s kitchen table or at the foot of a motel, suddenly I’m in my same old space, and I’m rearranging and pulling things apart, and really just trying to look at this old space with new eyes. I think it’s been really rewarding. In a lot of ways, it’s a much healthier and effective way of working.

HMS: I’m hearing a lot of conversations about spaces and how they affect work right now, people asking how do they find a way into work again, because things don’t feel the same. So you’ve kind of rededicated personal space in a way that makes it feel new?

LC: Yes. I’m quite fortunate that at the back of my house I have a garage space that I’ve converted into a rehearsal space. That’s where I rehearse after I’ve done the recording and I pull things apart and put them back together, figuring out how to perform it. It’s the after part of being creative. But since I’m not performing now, and I don’t know when I’ll be doing a show, I’m looking to other types of creativity, like more writing, and around the visual components of this project.

Within the first week, I had repainted the walls, and was moving things around, and went through the basement and started putting up all these vintage parasols on the ceiling. It converted it into a completely new space, and suddenly I wanted to be there. I wanted to write and work in there. I’ve always looked to new environments to do that, but I thought, “No, I just need to look at it with new eyes.”

HMS: That’s a great story. I think a lot of people can relate to that and it might even give them some ideas. Did it make you wonder why you hadn’t done it before? Or is it more about right now?

LC: It did make me examine what I’d done in the past, asking why I felt that need to be removed from my environment to work. I think it had to do with the break in routine, and a lot of my peaks in creativity come when I’m removed from routine. When I don’t have my family calling six times a day when I’m in the middle of something. In the time that I dedicate to that, people tend to back off, and I can dive into that world on my own. But now that I’m home, I just think that I need to navigate that in a new way. It feels good to be able to do it here, because I was a bit panicky at first, wondering how I could move forward in this time, when we’re supposed to be quite stagnant.

HMS: Do you think this is a development for you, that you’ll be able to have this in your toolbox now?

LC: I think so. And I just don’t know when this is ending. I think there will be a lasting impact on our behaviors. I began to wonder, “Will we ever be lip-kissing friends again? Or hugging in that way?” And of course, we will eventually, but until I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I’m trying to get comfortable with this new set up.

HMS: You mentioned the photo shoots for the album and the singles. Is there anything you can share with us about why the ones we’ve seen are the final results you choose?

LC: Though I’m sure this is true for a lot of people, for me, in particular, the visual component of my record carries an equal weight to the music itself. Ultimately, I try hard to build this visual world around the music. I’ve had many great influences in that. You can look at Bjork, or Kate Bush, or David Bowie. That’s always been key for me. I tend to work with people who I trust, and a lot of women on the visual side of the project.

This one in particular started with this fabric, that you see on the cover. It was just me in a fabric store, and I chose this fabric. Then I had my mother over and we sewed this bedskirt one night, and things evolved from there. The place the photographs were taken is the space of a good friend of mine, and the four of us went over there one night and ate lasagna and created this.

I take a lot of joy in these little details, like on the ancient chamber video, I spent a lot time obsessing over what that wardrobe was going to be, because it was going to be me moving in front of a screen. So, what was I wearing, and how was that translating? It was cutting holes in tights, and painting them with nail polish, and having my mother over with her sewing machine. It’s incredible to have a mother who knows how to sew. I draw out these sketches and she brings them to life with me.

I’ve always had an active role with the visual side of things, and I went into the shoot for that album cover knowing what I wanted and, at the same time, not totally knowing. It was formed from those moments of those four brains bouncing off each other and creating this energy that culminates in the album cover.

HMS: This is such interesting stuff. Did you have a sense of the colors that you wanted for the album and for the photography?

LC: Yes. Immediately, at the start of it, I did a deep dive into art books, and scoured the internet, and then created a mood board. Which is what I shared with the director, and I shared with my sister, who is a production designer. Predominantly the colors that were coming up were that green, that was the color of that silk, and the red. That green and that red came up through the underwear, through the eye makeup, through the lipstick.

So, I definitely go in with a decided palette and I know where I want the color world to take us. The week before we shot, I was doing bizarre things like ordering red rope online to be delivered to my house. So that turned into my ankles tied in red rope on a yellow carpet. I don’t know what it is, but I have this attraction toward images that are unusual, or awkward, or thought-provoking. And that’s how I end up half-way under a chair with rope tied around my ankles. Or in a bathtub full of water standing on a chair. These unusual, unexplainable, awkward positions are the ones in which I feel most comfortable.

HMS: There’s a lot to be said for that in terms of the viewer interacting. The description you just gave reminds me of early Surrealism. But for an image to pose a question rather than fully explaining itself seems like a very good idea, particularly in music. Because if there’s just one image or a couple of images, the audience is going to keep returning to that image over and over. And a lot of musicians and fans have told me that they obsessively look at the images for the music they like.

LC: Yes, exactly. That it represents the musical world that they enter into when they put an album on.

HMS: Do you think the images you generate express the music they are attached to, or do they stand alongside the music and create a dialog through that interaction?

LC: I would say that they express the music that I’m creating, although would mother say that? Maybe not. For me, they do. Would they for the listener? I’m not totally sure. I get asked the question all the time about how I would describe my sound, and it’s kind of the most dreaded question, in part because it’s not something that comes easily for me. I don’t really think that I fit neatly into a genre.

In my bio, I describe my sound as “swampy waters filled with electric eels”. I think that’s maybe, in part, how I’d describe the visual to my work, too. How cool are electric eels? I’m fascinated by them. They are not even an eel, but more of a fish, and they give off this electric charge to find their mates or their prey.

HMS: I think, also, we naturally have a reaction that electricity and water shouldn’t go together, that there’s something dangerous there. There’s an elemental clash there.

LC: I’ve never thought of it that way, but that kind of nails it.

HMS: I was going to ask you how you felt about the term “electronica” and how that works for you, since that’s the most consistent word applied to your music online. But you don’t have to talk about genre if you’re sick of it.

LC: In part, I wonder what the difference is between “electronic” and “electronica”? Does the “a” on the end make it feminine?

HMS: [Laughs]

LC: Right? But yes, I think the root of my music is electronic. A lot of my writing starts with a drum machine, with a sound. I’m very much beat-driven. It makes sense, it’s just all of the words around “electronic” that I struggle with.

HMS: I think that since it’s a technology word, what it means will keep changing. And who writes the Bible on that? It will have to continue to be very open and odd anyway.

To talk about the album and way that it’s set up, I see a little bit about the idea of the chorus that’s there as part of the structure. But within the album itself, I’m impressed by the range of sound, the range of musical tempos and approaches. Can you tell us more about what you intended with structure and how the songs relate to each other?

LC: Sure. To start with the idea of the chorus, this is one of the things that really sets this album apart from my last one, among many things. The vision really shifted and changed. It started with new little pieces from a piece of equipment I bought called an OP-1. It’s essentially a little synthesizer and sampler all in one, the size of a computer keyboard. I became really enamored with sampling my voice on this OP-1 and shift the pitch of my voice. Through hearing that, I became aware of the songs on this record as not just singular, and not just my own. I became fixated on having these other voices throughout the record, and I think in the end, there’s somewhere around ten.

The chorus was the introduction and start of it, introducing voices collectively that later appear on the album, and the idea of our collaborative effort together. The whole idea was that we would be singing together and setting the flavor for the album, tempering the mood, provoking contemplation from the listener. Asking the audience to soften, and turn inward, and be sensuous. When I described my sound, I should have used the word “sensuous” because I think it’s a really important part of the makeup of this album.

I’ve been diving into Black literature lately, including a book by James Baldwin called The Fire Next Time. He has a quote in there that really stuck out for me, that to be sensual is to respect and rejoice in the force of life itself. To be present in everything that you’re doing from the act of loving someone to the act of making bread. I think this idea of being present and sensuousness is what connects the whole record.

I go through a lot of themes in this album, and some of them are sexuality, and loss, and rejuvenation. This sensuousness and presentness binds and connects all of the songs.

HMS: I kind of got the sense that this album creates its own world, but the world is very much a mood world, a separate space to the side of normal reality, where the audience is invited or challenged to reconsider how they view sexuality, how they view the life force, the elements, like you said.

LC: That’s exactly it, yes.

HMS: Because we can have such a skewed version of that in the world that we normally live in. We’ve been influenced by so many things over the generations, a lot of those were not great directions.

LC: No. Not at all. Yes, the idea of the chorus, pulling it back to Ancient Greek Theater, was the idea of having as many as fifty of them on stage, and they’d be singing, and dancing, and speaking in unison. But ultimately, they would be this collective voice, shaping your insight, and nudging you to expect what’s coming. Encouraging you to foster a deeper understanding for what you were viewing. So that was kind of the idea of that song. To open people up and create this mood of sensuousness, of shifting your body and mind from the automatic to the intentional.

HMS: Wow, yes, and the title of the album, too. Did you intend the “aud” part to relate to sound?

LC: I did, yes. It’s a combination of the Greek rooted word, “auto”, meaning “self” and “aud” meaning “to hear”. That was the play on “automatic”.

HMS: That’s incredible.

LC: But how many times have people come back to me and asked, “Is it spelled like this or is it an error?” And I have to say, “No, it’s intentional. Spell it that way.”

HMS: I’m a little surprised that people thought it was spelled wrong, because it’s a music album title, after all.

LC: Right? I think people are afraid of mistakes.

HMS: Why do you think that it’s important to consider or reconsider sexuality vs considering or reconsidering gender, if that makes any sense? It seems like gender discussion is, thankfully, becoming more common. But sexuality is almost a bigger topic to bring in.

LC: Learning to be comfortable, and confident, and being able to express what we need—in society this has become a hushed topic. There’s an awkwardness to talking about sexuality. I think that that’s just so wrong. It’s such a huge part of our makeup and who we are, how we interpret the world. I think the two are very closely connected.

HMS: I see them as being very related. Unsurprisingly, people feel most comfortable with fixed points, and the polarity of gender is something that people are familiar with, and thankfully things are changing there, but that discussion is still built from fixed points. I think when you start talking about sexuality, that’s much more fluid, a changing thing. That might be a little daunting to verbalize and think about. It’s definitely not as common for people to talk about it. Which is part of why it’s great that you are doing so.

LC: I think in “Mouth of the River”, there are eight or nine voices saying, “Come and find our sexuality.” For me, that was important that it wasn’t a single voice, but it was everyone, and for everyone.

HMS: That’s a great point about creating music that gives an impression of plurality, of size, of community. That’s really cool.

As a side-note, the use of spoken words on this album: is that something that you take from things you’ve liked in music, or does that go back to the Chorus idea?

LC: When I was touring my last record, there was a song on Suspicious called “Rosary” and I started telling a narrative about this song, giving the details of this song through spoken word. I became fixated on how melodic, and sing-song, and beautiful spoken word can be delivered in a song. Through that experience of performing it live, I really felt like I wanted to have that included in my next record. It happened organically. I didn’t sit down and think, “Where am I going to put this?”

Spoken word appears in “Mouth of the River” and it’s in French. It reads almost like a poem that was taken from my journal. That segment really is the belly of this record, the beating pulse of the record. It’s a really special moment in the record and I also love the way that it sounds.

Interestingly enough, it’s not my voice. I was recording in Montreal, and it’s a woman named Fanny Holder who delivers the spoken word portion.

HMS: It’s a really powerful element and I’m happy to hear you unpack the weight of that for the whole album. Because it does feel like that. Spoken word has a definite impact in the context of music. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s there. It’s possible that it reminds us that words are almost magical, that they have power, and we forget that because we use them all the time. But put into music, they return to a mode that has power again.

Well, to ask your own Tower Motto question, which is “No Music, No Life” or “Know Music, Know Life”, what might those mean to you in your life?

LC: It’s exactly as it’s expressed. Music has always been a huge part of my life, even as a kid. Even in these times, the world is kind of turned upside down, with these devastating pieces of information coming to life. We’re in this moment in time when it’s really important that we should be supporting Black and Indigenous communities and their voices. I find myself turning to comfort in music and I find myself digging through my vinyl collection lately, listening to Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, John Coltrane, Erykah Badu, and in some ways it just helps you breathe.