Ky Brooks have established themselves as a crucial figure on the Montréal underground scene, having co-founded DIY space La Plante a decade ago and counting stints with bands like noise-punk trio Lungbutter, queer punk collective Femmaggots and experimental/improv trio Nag, amongst many other projects. They have launched their solo project under the name Ky. Comes May 12th, they will release their debut album, Power Is The Pharmacy, through Constellation Records. Ky has shared some thoughts about it:
“The album is mainly about grief, death, the fear of loss, losing dreams, losing youth, people, public space, ultimately oneself. The poems are about losing urban space, time and naivete, and wishing things could move backwards in time—how can things ever be healed when life is a process of undoing, of gaining only to lose? A couple of songs are meditations of the impossibility of knowing what to do after losing a friend. A lot of imagery is also informed by sci fi writers I love. I imagine this parrot-like AI looking over a plain of destroyed cities, talking to itself about losing our beautiful world, confused at being made in the image of a species that has really done itself in.”
The thrilling and danceable single ‘The Dancer’ is the latest single to emerge from the album and Ky also had this to say about the track:
“I wrote this song while staying in the woods during the first summer of COVID. My partner at the time (the titular dancer) and I had left Montreal because it felt unsafe to be around people, and I had this feeling of life passing by so quickly, especially in the absence of normal social contact- normal early-thirties ennui accentuated by the experience of intense loneliness that characterized the early pandemic. I thought the song was meant to be an emotional ballad of some kind, and worked and re-worked it with piano and guitar but never got anywhere. Then I was messing around with my volca fm synth and came up with this loping, irregular synth sequence, and I realized it could be delivered in a more bitter way. Josh came up with the bassline after an afternoon music-listening session when we got back to Montreal, and Farley heroically found a way to play drums that work with the irregular rhythm. Finally, Mat added a guitar filigree over everything. The animated music video was created by my friend Eric Bent- we were imagining a kind of soft, pastel style like the matisse painting ‘la danse’”
‘The Dancer’ comes with an accompanying animated video made by Eric Bent and you can watch it below.
