Working with Juno-Award winning producer and musician Joel Plaskett, Bend The River knew they wanted to push their sound with their new EP, Through the Long Night, but it wasn’t until they got into the studio that they discovered they’d be hitting the 70s in a big way. Over the course of four tracks, the band blaze through classic Americana, folk, pop and soul.
Creating music, at least popular music, usually requires the artist to keep their feet on something recognizable, familiar and accessible while reaching out to grasp at something uniquely original. Then again, we’ve got short memories and everything old inevitably becomes new again. While digging deep in the pockets of giants Bend The River come up with something shiny of their own.
The way ‘Through the Long Night’ skips through those genres makes it feel like we’re just scratching the surface of a larger story. There’s enough air between the songs to suggest that the EP aimed for something big, and perhaps they accomplished that, but we got the abridged version.
“I never did an EP before,” says Bend The River’s Ronok Sarkar. “The shorter format doesn’t let you dig in the same way. But we knew we were going for a short punch of different styles from the start.
Rather than leaving us hanging it’s just enough to whet our whistles. They’ve made their point: Bend The River are still here, they’ve got chops. Now go out buy their other albums. There’s plenty more where that came from.
On the other hand, putting together such a broad sounding EP might be an inevitability when you’ve got Joel Plaskett producing, and you’re just trying to make the best use of your time.
“We committed to having Joel set the direction from the start and he totally did. The seventies vibe just sort of came about on its own. The more we listened back, the more it seemed to materialize,” says Sarkar. “I don’t think anyone was consciously doing it. But it was there so we basically just let things go in the direction they seemed to want to go.”
“At one level, it’s a question about how much do we want to use instruments and sounds that sound familiar; piano’s and acoustic guitars and Rhodes, and tape and analog gear, etc.
But it’s also a question about how much do we connect with the past vs how much do we throw it all in for something new. Does it make more sense to tell the story in a language that everyone can understand, or to try and give everyone something that they’ve never heard before? What will resonate more is up to each listener. There’s no right answer.
This dynamic is really at the heart of music always. Music that resonates will almost always remind the listener of something. But the good stuff should always sound new as much as it does that.
It would seem that with all the technology available today, there would be all these kids just blowing people’s minds. A new Sgt Peppers coming out of some kid’s basement in Cole Harbour every couple of years.
But it doesn’t work that way. All the tools don’t really help. It’s gonna always end up with being able to find that spot that bridges the new and the old. And you can’t set out to do it. It just has to kind of happen. So, it’s definitely something that we struggle with. But I don’t imagine any more or less than any one else.”
While Sarkar makes that return to a classic sound seems like an organic twist of fate, the idea of never quite letting go of the past fits easily with the theme of Through the Long Night. As Sarkar explains, the whole EP is about coming to terms with our time and places in the universe, or rather, the inability to do so.
“In a way,” says Sarkar, “the EP was trying to exist in that gray area, between the past and moving on – both musically and thematically. ‘Remnants’ is about holding on to a relationship too long. ‘White Line’ is about being caught between taking responsibility and facing the future. ‘Another Shade of Blue’ (quite explicitly) is about a man’s inability to move on. And ‘Through the Long Night’ about woman’s emotion struggle to escape her past.”
At least that’s what it’s supposed to be about lyrically. As far as I’m concerned it’s all about that Rhodes, which, as we all know, are both beautiful and timeless.
While Through the Long Night might lack certain sonic consistencies, there’s strength in its diversity and it ties together beautifully thematically. Taken as individual tracks any of them could safely standalone (though perhaps none so well as the closing title track, but that’s splitting hairs).
At times the band shift from pure Americana of “White Line”, to Sarkar’s Petty-esque vocals dominating on the soulful and lyrically powerful “Another Shade of Blue,” to a track might be mistaken for The Band with the piano/guitar slow build on “Through the Long Night.” Bend the River may not be reinventing the wheel, but they made it roll smooth as butter and powered it with a Rhodes piano.
“In the end, all music is based on stuff that’s come before to some degree. I’ve heard stuff that’s not, and it’s dreadful.”
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