Music – Vancouver
Within five minutes of sitting down with the enigmatic Electro-rock duo V V O L V E S, one thing is for sure: these kids aren’t your typical husband and wife duo. She’s the forefront force, wailing like a beautiful, raven-haired film-noir banshee, and he’s the sonic river through which she wades. Visually, before I’d even exchanged a single word with the pair, they struck me as otherworldly - like ethereal beings floating through time and space. After our initial greeting, it also became clear that they were all jokes and giggles, and this juxtaposition of down to earth tangibility and mythical creature-esque qualities are what make them so unique and engaging. And that’s before we even get to the MUSIC.
Antonia’s background is impressive to say the least. A professional vocalist, songwriter and instructor for the last fifteen years, with a MMus degree in music composition from the University of Calgary, she admits that V V O L V E S is the love child of her lifetime of musical influences - from rock outfits like Tori Amos and Tool to compositional greats the likes of Gershwin and Stravinsky. “V V O L V E S is all of things I was too afraid to feel, and too young to understand. This music is fully and truthfully ME this time, no bullshit. I owe it to him [Austin],” she says, as she coyly blows him a kiss.
Austin blushes. He’s no slouch either. A multi-instrumentalist who feels just as at home shredding on his Gretsch (Joni Black) as he does crushing it on the drums. He brings his love of nineties era punk-rock and prowess at electronic soundscapes to the table and, in his own words, “it was like magic. Everything about it. It just flowed out of us. It’s easy to write with her, to play with her, to love her.” It would be nauseating how much the two are enamoured with each other if it hadn’t produced the duo’s first EP - Leave the Light On.
Self-produced and recorded right here in Vancouver, BC, Leave the Light On is about as unconventional as it gets. It doesn’t know what it is, in the best of ways. Is it dance music? Is it psychedelic rock? Does it make you want to get up off your ass and do something about the world? Yes, yes and YES.