Quiet Clapping, the latest EP from Fredericton-based chamber pop duo Pallmer, is a great slumbering beast. You can hear the organic rhythm of its heartbeat, the slow rise and fall of its breathing and even its thoughts flittering about. It’s a spectacular example of what Pallmer do best: well-appointed minimalism with classical roots and modern applications.
If anything takes center stage on Quiet Clapping, it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the ebb and flow of Emily Kennedy and Mark Kleyn’s strings. More than any single riff or lyric, there’s a natural movement to “Fences,” “Bathroom Mirror” and “Bricks” that seems effortlessly capable of gently lulling you off into Pallmer’s fairy tale. Kennedy’s own vocals seem like more of an accompaniment to something great; skimming just below the surface as the mood suits.
“We wanted the recording to embody the intimacy of the songs; to be able to push and pull, and to break away from having to fit into the confines of a click,” says Kennedy.
In that sense of escaping the click, the EP takes us on a journey of self-realization. There’s a shift over the course of five songs, moving from the insecurities of “Fences” to the far more self-assured lyrics of “Brick.” “Look at us now, look at how we’ve grown,” sings Kennedy on the closing track, but for much of Quiet Clapping it seems like we’re trying to escape a vaguely uncomfortable and pervasive sense of scrutiny.
“Bathroom Mirror” gently addresses an uneasy fear that each of us lives as though we’re walking on eggshells and putting on a brave face, lest anyone notice our glass houses. While the album hides these little barbs amidst a lush field of bow strokes and plucked strings, thematically it all seems symptomatic of small-town life.
“I find a lot of New Brunswickers have a grass-is-greener outlook on their home province,” says Kennedy. “I know I did.”
“I left for a large chunk of my 20s, and every once in a while, that feeling returns – the feeling that elsewhere will be better, that living in a larger city is the only way to ‘make it’ – whatever that means. I wrote the lyrics to ‘Quiet Clapping’ after realizing one night that this grass-is-greener fantasy was stopping me from appreciating what was right in front of me.”
Coincidentally, the album was recorded at one of New Brunswick’s underappreciated arts centres, interAction. Once the Germain Street Baptist Church, the location is a sprawling gothic revival landmark in Saint John, which has been converted to a performing arts school and venue, among other things. Working with producer Corey Bonnevie (Monopolized Records), they made use of the building’s ample space, taking advantage of the natural resonance of the large dance studio and taking an avant-garde approach to including the occasional quirk of the ageing structure into the recording process, while applying loop pedals and effects to their more traditional instruments.
On “Fences,” in particular, Pallmer notes that they adopted the techniques of experimental artists like Philip Glass or Steve Reich to apply a textural drone to the track. Rather than simply overlay the track with any general ambiance, Bonnevie used the building itself to generate a perfect acoustic match.
“The tune starts off with a viola loop, but gradually builds to a dense climax near the end, where we break down a revolving pattern into smaller and smaller chunks. The viola part in the last instrumental section is inspired by the 8th movement of Philip Glass’s ‘In the Summer House’,” says Kennedy.
“Corey generated the drone at the opening of the song by looping some demo vocals, and recording the looped drone through the room at interAction, so that the reverb fit with the rest of the recordings.”
Although the duo has leaned into the de rigueur use of loop pedals, they took it as a personal challenge to create a proper denouement on “Bricks” to close out the album with a cheerfully minimalistic love song. For what Kennedy says is the most intimate song she has ever written, they ditch the tech and get to the point, delivering an honest sense of appreciation and growth in seven quick lines. “Bricks,” perhaps, provides the conclusion to the EP’s larger theme: that by coming together it allows the rest of the voices to become some distant and inconsequential noise.
Quiet Clapping works well on several levels, though none so well as a moody concept album. It’s easy to get swept up in the ebb and flow of it, but with a total runtime of 20 minutes that minimalistic approach means it’s over all too soon.