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Music from the Heart

Vancouver’s Mother Mother steps out of the studio in time to take the stage as a headliner at the LIVE At Squamish festival
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Who: Mother Mother

When: Sunday, Sept. 5

Where: Stawamus Stage, LIVE At Squamish festival

Cost: Weekend pass, $145.50, single day ticket, $79, kids under 12 free!

The winds of change seem to be blowing for B.C.'s indie sweethearts, Mother Mother.

With Ryan Guldemond on guitar and vocals, sister Molly Guldemond on vocals and keyboard, Jasmin Parkin on keyboard and vocals, Ali Siadat on drums, and Jeremy Page on bass, the five-piece band has taken an original approach to making modern pop/rock, fusing vocal harmonies with offbeat lyrics and quirky, powerful instrumentation.

Since independently releasing their first album in 2005 (which was later re-released in 2007 as Touch Up ) and dropping the follow-up effort, O My Heart in 2008, their sound has evolved in leaps and bounds. And while the differences are partially due to the fact that one was produced independently and the other, professionally, some major creative changes have also taken place.

Their debut album led with a twangy, country-inspired track, Dirty Town, while the title track on O My Heart is decidedly heavier, with a more melancholy feel.

"When we did Touch Up , we weren't really like a whole band. So inherently it was more acoustic and stripped down. And so over time, when we toured that material, the material itself sort of transformed into something heavier and more electric," Ryan said. "So it was a kind of natural progression for, I guess, the production value and the sonic aesthetic to change to something beefier, just because we're a whole band with drums and bass and more electric guitar. Just those elements alone can really turn something into rock, whereas before it was folk or whatever."

Where Touch Up features eclectic hints of various genres, on O My Heart the artists felt more of an affinity with songs like Polynesia and Oh Anna - darker tracks that transitioned easily into the rock vein. The end result is a remarkable fluidity and energy that carries forward from start to finish.

Produced by Howard Redekopp (of Tegan and Sara, The New Pornographers), and released on Last Gang Records, that sophomore album has garnered plenty of accolades: in 2008, iTunes Canada positioned O My Heart as the third Best Canadian Album of The Year and third best Indie Album of The Year.

But their success has led them into something of a strange transition period, moving away from their indie label and into the mainstream.

"I guess our goal is to break free from the indie band label and culture and I guess try and change the mainstream. I mean, that probably sounds a little lofty or something, but it would be really cool if wacky music could somehow insinuate itself into the mainstream.

"...We want to be in everyone's face, but we don't want to make too many concessions to do that. We want the people on the other side to make the concessions. We want people to wake up and start liking cool music and not being afraid to veer in different directions."

While the Mother Mother crew does dig many different forms of music, they aren't actually aiming to create stylistic diversity in their own music. Rather, their instrumentation defines the genre of any given track.

"The song that survives by itself without the help of infiltration, I think that's kind of a good sign of whether or not a song is good. If you can just sit down with an acoustic guitar and sing it and it works and creates an energy."

The group's writing process is collaborative in some ways, with Ryan creating the framework of most of their songs - lyrics, melodies and chord progressions - or the "campfire version" of each song.

"It's like you go to build a house and the house has a certain feng shui, but what really brings it to life, I guess, is what you put in it," he reflected. "...So as a band, we decorate."

But as time passes, Ryan sees aspects of the industry starting to creep in.

"At the beginning, you have no real belief that it's going to go anywhere. You have dreams, but they're very much dreams. And that's a beautiful thing because you're free from the constraints of the reality, because you're living in a dreamland, and then all of a sudden your dream starts to take shape and become a reality, and people try and instill rules.

"We understand what it is that we've instigated, which is this relationship with the public - we're not doing this solely for ourselves, we're doing this to be heard and with that comes listening back to some of what the public wants. But also it's like a give and take relationship. As much as you should observe where the current state of music is at and where public consumption is at, you need to try and dictate some of that yourself."

While they've been spending a lot of time on the road lately, even making their way overseas for their first UK tour, Mother Mother has still managed to find the time to get some work done in the studio. They've just finished recording and are almost done mixing.  They hope to release a new album early next year.

"On our next record, you're not going to find the Vaudevillian number and the rockier number and the country tune. It's not going to be like that. It's going to be more one vein, but hopefully it's unique unto itself."

And this time around, they've kept the production process in-house, with Ryan at the helm.

During the Olympics, the Vancouver-based band played a few high-profile gigs. Prior to the Games they took the stage at some major festivals with mainstream artists like Pearl Jam, The Killers and Spoon. They have performed on a diverse array of festival/showcase stages including SXSW, CMJ, Pop Montreal, V-Fest, Ottawa Blues Fest, Dawson City Music Festival, Ed Fest, Rifflandia Music Festival and both the Vancouver and Montreal International Jazz Festivals.

Next up is the LIVE At Squamish music festival.

"It's nice that there's another local region to carry the torch after things like Pemberton (Festival) and when things like Lollapalooza used to come through and that kind of stuff," Ryan added. "I think it's kind of important to have a big musical bash."