Booster Fawn embark on an epic existential quest to have their cake and eat it too in their stunning new single and video À quoi ça sert? — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
Taken from the adventurously experimental Montreal indie-rock collective’s recently released EP Pour maman, his lastest release À quoi ça sert? is a shape-shifting, shambling marathon of sound: More than 10 minutes of noisy guitars, clattering drums, sombre horns and swirling keyboards that ebb and flow, rise and fall, dance and duck and dodge — all as Booster Fawn mastermind Joshua Marc Seguin ponders the meaning of life:
“À quoi ça sert d’être ici?
D’être ici et puis d’être en vie?
Je vis une vie de marde,
Remplie de fausses prières et d’inconsistances.
J’ai rencontré un homme sage,
À la grande fenêtre de ma chambre dans la grange à la campagne.
Il m’as dit quoi faire,
Où aller et quoi dire.
Il m’as dit:
‘Prends soins d’tes amitiés,
Respecte tes amoureuses,
Et puis jusqu’à la fin,
Adore ta mère.
Bois pas trop d’alcool,
Ça c’est jamais bon,
Mais lis des bons livres,
Pour un esprit sain dans un corps sain.’’
Translation:
“What’s the point of being here?
To be here and then to be alive?
I live a shitty life,
Filled with false prayers and inconsistencies.
I met a wise man,
At the big window of my room in the barn in the country.
He told me what to do,
Where to go and what to say.
He told me:
‘Take care of your friendships,
Respect your lovers,
And then until the end,
Love your mother.
Don’t drink too much alcohol,
That’s never good,
But read good books,
For a healthy mind in a healthy body.’ ”
“If I took the direction I did with this project it was to show people that being an artist is not always fun,” Seguin explains. “My life, speaking personally, can be very mundane. There are days when the only task is to send emails and manage the band. I’m not always on stage wearing beautiful clothes and singing my life story. I’m far from complaining here, it’s just that I feel like people on the outside don’t see this aspect of an artist’s life much. That’s what I wanted to show. Gabie (the director of the music video) and I had this vision to take the viewer on a long trip with us. Since the music video — like the song — lasts more than 10 minutes, I think we succeeded.”
In the video, we see Seguin riding the transit system while writing poetry and eating cake in the eerie suburbs. The clip is a tribute to Ron Silliman’s poem BART and a nod to another video: Tintoretto, It’s For You by Destroyer. The film was directed by Montreal filmmaker and musician Gabie Che.
“What you see on the screen is a journey to the edge of the city and back,” Seguin says. “It also represents a journey to the edge of self. When I’m writing a song, I sometimes have to dig very deeply to retrieve the emotion I want to express. The cake you see represents both the perceived pleasure from the outside of the artist’s life as well as my most distant childhood memories. Doing what I do is awesome, but I definitely had too much cake that day.”
A visionary musical collective creating a mesmerizing blend of pop, folk and rock music while transcending traditional genre norms, Booster Fawn have a singular sound that skillfully captures the beauty, complexities and mysteries of earthly existence. The collective draw inspiration from an array of musical genres and artists, including Leonard Cohen, Wolf Parade, Pink Floyd and The Smiths. This diverse range of influences enriches their music, making them a standout force in the music scene.
Originally from a single-parent family in North Lancaster, Ont., Seguin has been following the Montreal music scene since 2004; it inspired him to make music and move there in 2008. Before finding as voice as Booster Fawn, Seguin was a professional snowskater. Because of his background editing skateboard and snowskate videos, he directs and edits the band videos.
His music has been compared to that of David Bowie, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Elton John, The Cure, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bob Dylan, Florence And The Machine, Soft Boys, Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock, Modest Mouse, Velvet Underground, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Lou Reed, Flaming Lips, Radiohead and Arcade Fire.
Watch the video for À quoi ça sert? above, listen to Pour Maman below and join Booster Fawn on their website, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
