As summer ended and fall strolled in, Wavelength's Kevin Shutterbug met up with the heart of the Lullabye Arkestra. Over beer and black Russians, Kevin, Katia Taylor and Justin Small discussed the new album, the ever-expanding Arkestra roster and a little soul music.

RUMORS HAVE BEEN CIRCULATING ABOUT THE NEW LULLABYE ARKESTRA RECORD FOR ABOUT A YEAR NOW. IS THERE ANY MORE TRUTH TO THOS E RUMORS?

It exists. It's physical. Not entirely, but about 90%. We still have to close our record. It's a solid record from beginning to end, with a lot of drastic movements, from really heavy to some sensitive quiet moments, but it still needs an out. We've finished writing the last song, but we haven't recorded it yet.

WILL IT BE A FULL LENGTH?

Yeah. It's gone through a lot of phases. We did a huge block of recording about a year ago, and thought that would be the record. Since then we've scuttled a bunch of those songs because a different sound has sort of happened. We were writing at the same time as recording, so all of a sudden we got excited about the new material and wanted to record that. We recorded three new songs and they had very different feel and we decided to work really hard on some other new ones, which made a lot of the older material seem out of place. We also had some new member additions that changed the direction of the sound.

WHO WERE SOME OF THE NEW MEMBERS?

As it stands now, we've got about 20 people on the record; it's an army of people, playing and singing on choruses and just making it really grandiose. Most importantly was Julie Penner who put violin on a couple of songs, and that really changed the dynamic of what we were doing.

SHE PLAYED LIVE WITH YOU AS THE 'œLULLABYE ARKESTRA SOUL REVUE'? AT THE HORSESHOE IN AUGUST RIGHT?

Yeah, she's played a few shows with us, but that was a little different from what she's done for us on the record. Adding her to the recording has made it a lot more dramatic sounding.

I WAS READING A REVIEW OF THE NEW CONSTANTINES RECORD, AND IT WAS SAYING THAT THEIR MOONLIGHTING AS A NEIL YOUNG COVER BAND HAS REALLY INFLUENCED THEIR OWN WRITING. HAS LEARNING AND PLAYING SOUL COVERS INFLUENCED YOUR OWN WRITING?

Oh, definitely. It was like doing a quick study of soul music. There's something about learning a different style of song structure and the links between different artists; it can really get into your head. But there's a fine line between studying and ripping off. Any which way we do a soul song will end up being our own way, which is a little less smooth. The last song to close the album will be a kind of a blend of that soul sound and our heavy material and what Julie brings to the songs. Speaking pure sonics, we don't have a guitar player, so Julie ended up adding those elements that really change the dynamic between the heavy songs and soul tunes and in turn made it more of a darker record, which was actually a pleasant surprise. So instead of '˜Party! Party! Crazy!' the record became considerably more serious. This newfound seriousness is what made us not want to put it out too soon. We wanted to really shape it.

IT SOUNDS CONSIDERABLY MORE SHAPED THAN THE BZASTER RECORD.

We tend to think of that as just a demo now. Since then it's been sort of a struggle for us. Our live shows and attitude always seem be thought of by people as an almost a vanity project, or some silly side party project. It never really felt like we could be considered as a real contender to put out a valid record like a Do Make album or something. That first record was recorded in one weekend and mixed in another, while we were living in Montreal and traveling to Toronto to do it.

HAVE YOU RE-RECORDED ANY OF THE OLD MATERIAL?

We do a couple of the old songs. There's a brand new version of All I Can Give Ya and You Make Me Shake.

ANY IDEA OF A POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE?

We keep setting deadlines to bring it out, and we keep having to change those deadlines. Everyone involved has so many other projects going on that it's just hard to organize. We don't want to make the record into a chore, so we're just going to let it find its own way out on its own time. We've been recording it at Ohad [Benchetrit]'s house, which allows us to work whenever time becomes available without having to worry about renting a studio and being super organized to get the most out of the time you pay for.

SO THIS RECORDING PROCESS IS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF THE FIRST?

Yeah, and it seems that for the next, a blend of the two ways of working might be best. Actually rehearsing a whole album before going in to record. There's something to be said about over analyzing the record, which is maybe what we've been doing with this record.

SOMETIMES WHEN YOU FIRST THINK SOMETHING IS DONE YOU NEED TO JUST PUT IT ASIDE AND MOVE ON.

That's what we have been doing, but we've just been doing that a lot. We've got 20 CDs at home with 20 different mixes of the record. We just need to say this is it and never listen to it again until it's packaged and released.

WITH AN ARMY OF PEOPLE ON THE RECORD, WILL THAT TRANSLATE INTO YOUR LIVE SHOW? I MEAN, YOUR STAGE IS USUALLY A MASS CONGREGATION ALREADY.

We keep getting new members. Our newest members are Joanne Goldsmith and Bryce Krushner. That Horseshoe show in August was only missing Jay Baird, which would've been the full Arkestra, and that's about 12 people. And we're a two piece band. When we get a show lined up we basically just do a role call and see who's available. We recently played as a duo in Hamilton and it felt really good to know that we could go in, just the two of us, and just pummel through the set and audience.

IN WHAT FORM WILL THE MIGHTY ARK BE ON THE 30TH?

We'll be bringing the full army. We've got some plans for that night.