Interview: Au Palais

Someone has kidnapped Au Palais and supplanted them with two infectiously upbeat doppelgängers. This is the only way to explain how, as purveyors of brooding, small-hours pop, the brother-sisterly duo of Elise and David Commathe is practically bouncing off the walls with bonhomie, telling amusing family anecdotes and ribbing each other in an affectionate, sibling sort of way. It’s not what you’d expect from a band whose forthcoming EP, ‘Tender Mercy’, plays like M83 having an blazing row on matters existential with Austra and Zola Jesus. The eponymous track is a schizophrenic mix of spooky, glacial refrains and scuzzy bass while ‘Pathos’, with its neurotic, high- pitched synths and obsessive lyrics (“Lost it by the starlight/Found it by the streetlight”) could well be the soundtrack to insanity.

Somewhat riskily, David had never heard his sister sing until they recorded their first track together. He was working as a minimal techno DJ in Tokyo when Elise had a dream about the two of them forming a band, called him up and said, “David, we have to do this!”. It soon became apparent that living in different time zones was not conducive to making music, so the Toronto natives relocated to London. Now we’ve come to find out more from the pair first-hand, but to be honest, we could probably have put the Dictaphone on the table, gone for a wander and left them to it.

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The Stool Pigeon: What have they done with the real Elise and David Commathe?

Elise: Ha! I think there’s a sort of duality to us. A lot of people only see me when I’m all [makes a noise like a rutting Duracell bunny with its ears on fire], but I think when we’re writing our music is actually when we’re in our more low moments.

David: And making music is a very solitary thing, it’s sitting alone in your room for hours…

You record at night, is that correct?

E: Yeah, but a lot of that has to do with because we weren’t living in the same city or time zone.

D: And when I was writing the initial batch of songs I was doing my year training for the ambulance, and it seemed like I was always on the night shift. At one time it felt like I was only awake at night.

SP: So doing it at night was a purely logistical thing?

D: No no, it was very effective…

E: When I went back to Canada it became really intentional – we always waited till night before we started recording.

SP: You must have a dark side somewhere, though  — the first line on the EP is ‘Sometimes it’s good to be a killer’. That’s a metaphor. Right?

D: Uh yes, otherwise this’d be for a very different kind of magazine! I found it grating how every single pop song is about how love is the only source of joy or sadness, it’s only love and nothing else, so I wrote that song specifically about finding joy in determination or solitude or whatever. So that’s what it’s really about.

SP: What made you both decide to move to London?

E: I love the city. I just found that there was this dark side of London, and I’m kinda drawn to it. I know I’m really upbeat right now but ask anyone, I’m actually a ridiculously moody person.

Au Palais – Tender Mercy by Sound Injections

SP: David, you only relocated here a couple of weeks ago. Are you aware that the weather is not always like this in October [we’re slap bang in the middle of our Indian summer]? Or even in summer? Or ever, really?

D: Oh, but it has such a reputation for being warm and sunny in London!

SP: Are you liking it so far, though?

D: Sure. One of the things I love about London is the bass music coming out of it, it’s like the fucking forefront of music in the world.

SP: So now you are both in the same city, how does Au Palais work?

D: I do most of the music, I produce most of the music…

E: I’m really good at editing, so David will play me a song and I’ll be like, ‘Great, but cut this, cut that…’

D: Left to my own devices I’d write these 20 minute, experimental pieces… It’s pretty brutal.

E: I like to think I ‘art direct’!

D: I write the lyrics, although there are times when Elise has read the lyrics and got them wrong in her head, but her version was better.

E: We have a song called ‘Pathos’ and I misread what was written…

D: It was actually called ‘Patho’, because I was studying for a pathophysiology exam.

SP: So what inspires you when you’re writing?

D: When I was in high school, I listened to a lot of noisy post punk music, almost to the point of obsession. When I was writing the songs for Au Palais though, I was working with a different palate. Originally, the songs were almost jaunty synth-pop. The bass line from ‘Tender Mercy’ started life as a bouncy Moroder thing that I just layered and layered until it was overwhelming and certainly not bouncy.  I’ve been particularly influenced by some of the artists coming out the London bass scene like L-Vis 1990, Kingdom and so on. It’s got the tension and darkness that I like from minimal music, but also the restlessness and experimentalism from post-punk that got me into music in the first place.

E: For me, Patti Smith is an incredible influence, her stage presence, her poetic sensibility, her style… Kate Bush, too — she’s just so emotive, with such powerful lyrics. I’m very fascinated by her. Otherwise we’re both really into This Mortal Coil. I love the moodiness of ‘It Will End In Tears’.

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