purveyors of: midnight on the autobahn

Hitting Toronto from Amsterdam via Paris, cool-hearted synthsters, Marienbad are bringing their je ne sais quoi to Wavelength this month. The beats and bleeps Benjamin Gibson and Martin McLaughlin produce are the sounds of multicoloured 8-bit stars flashing past the screen of a speeding NES spaceship. Or as they put it, music “for the city at night.”

If the history of rock'n'roll were a movie, what would you leave on the cutting room floor?

The part where Michael Jackson stopped making good, funky albums and became a freak and a laughingstock.

Like almost anything, literature benefits from a soundtrack. What books should come with a copy of your album attached to the cover?

Tropic of Cancer.

What do you think of the Spanish power pop band, Marienbad?

Funny you should ask--they are actually former members from our band who broke off to form their own faction.  We wish them the best.

In what ways do you wish Toronto was more like Europe?

In Europe we knew very few people and spent all of our time working on music. It would be nice to have the freedom to work on music as often as we did there.  Also, the atmosphere in Amsterdam and Paris was very exciting and influential on our music.

And vice versa?

We found it very hard to get live shows in Europe and we have had a much easier time in Toronto. We've found people to be much more receptive to what we are doing here. Toronto is full of dance-people.

What band besides yourselves should everybody stop what they're doing and listen to?

Suicide.

By Evan Dickson