Courtesy of Thump
Imagine if Buffy the Vampire Slayer was set in the 80s, or if Trainspotting was set in Paris. This will help set the scene for the French-Canadian minimal wave music of Essaie Pas (“don’t tryÛ).
Husband-wife duo Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau, better known as Essaie Pas, could be compared to the dynamism of disbanded Crystal Castles, but for the techno scene.
“Demain Est Une Autre Nuit” (“Tomorrow is another nightÛ) (2016) is their newest album released this February 19. “Demain Est Une Autre Nuit” is Essaie Pas’ fourth album with DFA Records – the label founded in 2001 by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, Tom Goldsworthy, and Jonathan Galkin in New York City.
There’s a palpable club-like alienation present in the music of Essaie Pas. This is significant when you discover that their latest album was written during a period when Davidson and Guerineau lost both their studio and apartment in MontrÌ©al. In the same way that their lives’ footholds were shattered, we experience the same sense of disconnection in “Demain Est Une Autre Nuit.” The album title then takes on a more menacing significance, rather than simply a hedonistic, sensual suggestion.
A particularly poignant phrase from the Fader’s review of their newest album explores how Essaie Pas’ “lack of a physical home base for their music also translates into that same abyss, the darkness of nighttime, in which the idea that the sun might never rise gives birth to the fantasy that anything can be possible.” The album was influenced by the industrial, vacated building of Les Filles Electroniques (independent festival producer), where Essaie Pas recorded “Demain Est Une Autre Nuit” during off-hours.
Essaie Pas described the sense of liberation one experiences during the night: “Night is a place of freedom, a place where fantasies and obsessions are not tied by moral constraints.” Certainly emotions and senses become acute in the night, and perhaps this is a large part of why we feel so drawn to the sensuous void of “Demain Est Une Autre Nuit.” The album retains the nostalgia of 80s minimal wave, while adhering to the multi-textural and violent aspects of modern techno. Essaie Pas’ vintage-modern aesthetic pulsates with abstract desire.