Jean Grünewald Discusses Montreal Dances Across Borders' New Compilation "Volume 2"

Volume 2 album art courtesy by Thomas Lopez and Elisa Gleize

On September 28th, 2021, Montreal Dances Across Borders  followed-up their 2020 project Volume 1 with another exciting compilation project: Volume 2. This anticipated release from the Montreal collective brings together 10 incredible electronic artists for a more-than-worthy cause; with 100% of Bandcamp going to Solidarity Across Borders, a Montreal-based migrant support network working to combat the unjust realities faced by immigrants and refugees. 

While the compilation’s sound is experimental and eclectic, the participants’ unanimous support for the project’s cause acts as a base for it’s overall sonic unity. Despite its variety, each track inspires dance, movement and energy. 

Volume 2 features tracks from: HRT, LE SERVICE HUMAIN, PULSUM, AN_NA - Red Wine, s.talbot, HUMAN JUNGLE, Inside Blur, K-10, Remote Access and DBY. It was curated by Jean Grünewald and Louis Paulhus with artwork by Thomas Lopez and Elisa Gleize. The entire project was mastered by Elliott Sebag.

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Volume 2 album art courtesy by Thomas Lopez and Elisa Gleize

Jean (AKA ottoman.grüw), one-half of the curatorial duo behind the project, spoke with me about challenging borders in a multitude of ways. 

Simone Tissenbaum for Also Cool Mag: I read in a summary you wrote about the project that music embodied in spaces is inherently political… What does that mean specifically for Montreal Dances Across Borders?

Jean Grünewald: The project was created to remind us that [dance] music, embodied in spaces, is above all political. The idea of ‘dancing across borders’ relates specifically to this kind of music. Underground dance and techno music survives the shared cultural knowledge of marginalized groups that is ongoingly threatened by systemic oppression. The spaces where this music is played, whether it’s a warehouse or a club, allow for moments of togetherness... Moments where you can acknowledge and celebrate different realities. The hope is that this can create more empathy, solidarity and respect between different people.

Also Cool: I understand that the music itself is political, and clearly the spaces in which that music is shared become political as well. What does that mean for digital spaces? How is it the same, or different, when we’re talking about this type of music being experienced in a digital sphere?

Jean Grünewald: There’s a paradox in the way that digital releases are connecting but also fragmenting. If there was a pandemic in an era without digital networks, there would have been no compilation at all. This is certainly connected to the idea of borders, dancing across borders, getting rid of the borders… It’s something that digital methods do.

AC: I’m curious then, not to be harsh on the digital realm, but to consider what might be lost inside of it. Obviously there is a connecting factor, but what is being lost right now in a world where live music and shows and events are harder to come by?

JG: With less [in-person] events, I’m wondering how much our feelings of togetherness and empathy are fed. Because when you’re going to a show, whatever it may be, you have people close to you. If they’re reacting in a certain way... you hear that, you see that. Even though you’ve never seen these people before, spoken to them, and may never see them again, there is a connection that is made. You’re testifying the existence of those other people at this specific moment, while you’re also testifying of your own existence.

AC: Is this project designed to address the lack of connectedness you think we’re collectively experiencing?

JG: Maybe [this compilation] is not a whole solution, but it’s an attempt at remedying the situation. In the same way that it’s directly connecting the artists involved, it’s indirectly connecting the people that are listening to the compilation, with listening to the album acting as a shared experience. 

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With such thoughtful and politically-engaged creation and curation, you can expect nothing less than a moving piece of work, both physically and emotionally.  

The project is available on Bandcamp in a PWYC format with all proceeds being directed to Solidarity Across Borders. 

Montreal Dances Across Borders

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Simone Tissenbaum is a Montreal-based dancer, educator, and writer. 

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Won't You Come Through? The Black Creatures Talk Grief, Community Care, and Neopets

The Black Creatures by DOMvisions

Won’t you come through and kick back with The Black Creatures? The Kansas City based power duo have released their music video for D'ummm, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s been on repeat all morning. It’s the perfect mix of sweet, laidback tunes and community love. The track is off their 2020 album Wild Echoes.

Their music provides a deep introspective look into themes of grief, love, and mental health, particularly within the Black community. Jade and Xavier wanted to make music that allows people to imagine things that may not exist right now. They explain, “Music is very political. It permits us to draw out the blueprints for what we want to create.”

I had got the chance to chat with Jade and Xavier, covering everything from meaningful community activism, to what their songs would look like as Neopets. Check it out below.

Malaika Astorga for Also Cool: For those who don’t know you, how would you describe yourselves as individuals and as a band?

Jade of The Black Creatures: I'm Jade Green, a singer, prison abolitionist, and Pan-Afrikanist. I'm nonbinary, and I want a world without starvation, homelessness, or police. The Black Creatures became a thing when I was going through a really hopeless time in my life, and since then it's the only thing that has consistently made sense.

Xavier of The Black Creatures: I'm Xavier and I would describe myself as unimportant in the same way that trees, rocks, birds, water, and dirt are. I'm the same as everything else: here.

We, as a band, are a collection of our greatest inspirations and fears, filtered through our understanding of music to support and uplift people who are like who we were as kids; the lonely, confused, hurt, angry, joyful, passionate, and curious.

Also Cool: What’s the music scene like in Kansas City? I know you met over the Internet initially in your senior year, and I’m wondering what the IRL and online creatives spaces in your scene are like. I’m also interested in what serpentine green lipstick has to do with your friendship.

Jade: My experience being in the KC music scene for the last seven years has been mostly what I made it. But the environment is undeniable; the music scene here is almost as segregated as the rest of KC, the home of redlining (which is the practice of drawing districts into ridiculous shapes to preserve its whiteness, property values, and funding).

At first, I was really green - I didn't come from a family of musicians, I was sort of shunned (and simultaneously emulated) by the white punk kids I ran with in high school, and I really had no background in being a recording artist. At first I felt like everyone was laughing at me all the time. When I stopped caring about what people thought of me and just started focusing on learning and growing, it really changed the trajectory of the band I think.

Xavier: The KC music scene is admittedly underrated. No one outside of Kansas City would expect so much amazing music so many incredible artists to come out of the Midwest. There's an unparalleled range of styles and approaches here. While I don't deny other places having an equally wide variety, I just think (at least for us) there's a lot of intermingling. We've played shows with punk bands, jazz artists, rappers, metal bands, noise artists, DJs, the list goes on. There is a surprising number of shows and festivals from local to nationwide, all put together by artists and performers from HERE. Or maybe I'm just not well travelled; ask me again in a few years!

The Black Creatures by Beth Taye

AC: I love your undying chaotic love for creative creation. From Sonic, to Charmed, to a huge range of musical inspiration, you seem to pull your creative forces from many different places. What are some of the most influential pieces of media, whether they’re musical or visual, been for both of you as artists and people?

J: Media consumption was very important for me growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. Watching The Fifth Element as a child gave life to my love for funk, outer space, and opera. Video games like Final Fantasy X-II & Kingdom Hearts opened my mind up to even more otherworldly possibilities, and companionship that spans beyond time. Musically it was Aaliyah, The Gorillaz, Dir en grey, and Missy Elliott that inspired me then and now to make visceral, unapologetic music - hoping it heals and breaks some curses along the way.

X: Within production and lyric writing, I've been inspired by things completely unrelated to music like Shigeru Miyamoto's approach to game design in Super Mario Bros, teaching all of the mechanics of the game in the first level in the first few seconds. I copy this approach musically by introducing the listener to a theme through melody or rhythm to kind of define the "rules" of engaging with that particular song. Or, like in visual mediums, white space (think of the unpainted parts of art on canvas) can be used to actually fill out the piece, or direct the eye, or cause tension.

Ultimately, a relationship between a song and the listener can be informed by silence. Many films have definitely inspired some work, like Annihilation, Interstellar, The Boy, and The Blair Witch Project to name a few!

The Black Creatures by Beth Taye

AC: You’ve mentioned that your activism is very community-oriented, and IRL. In an age of digital activism and performative infographics, can you tell us a bit about how you connect to your communities IRL, and the importance of maintaining that kind of connection?

J: I'm learning now what Angela Davis meant when she said the personal is the political. The most sustainable efforts of "activism" I engage in are part of my daily life: urban farming, conflict resolution services, working with children, volunteering at Food Not Bombs KC, helping Black and Indigenous folks buy houses in this predatory housing market situation our city has... speaking of which, my friend is about to lose their house because the city decided they want to build a shopping center there. In a city with several abandoned shopping centers already... yeah. I guess another form of daily activism I engage in is bringing contradictions to light. I don't say this to brag, but to give other people ideas on how to make trouble for the dying culture that wants to take us with it.

X: Honestly, keeping a network of colleagues, associates, and friends who know people who provide information, resources and/or services, and people who simply have needs is another way we approach this. At every level of society something can be done in some capacity; it can be as simple as connecting a hungry friend with someone who provides regular meals, to something as frontlines as connecting activists with someone who knows the right information.

AC: If your songs are like Neopets, can you tell us what D’ummm and Wretched (It Goes) would look like?

J: D'ummm gotta be MAD BUBBLEGUM CUTE. Like a purple-and-white Polish Frizzle chicken with nasturtium and phlox blossoms in the feathers. Chunky and funky. Life of the party. Wretched would be like a Hotep tuxedo penguin with a Kufi (hat) who speaks nothing but the truth. He also chews up shrimp to feed his children. He has braved many storms and he is loyal.

AC: Your project ranges across the Internet, from your music to your YouTube videos. How do you find balance creating content and creating just for yourselves?

J: Honestly, a lot of what I put into The Black Creatures then and now started as personal journal entries and notepad notes. What's wonderful about being part of this musical project is that Xavier has always encouraged my personal growth. If I ever was "too much," he wouldn't show it — we would just find a different way to exert all that energy and it always turns out alright.

X: Understanding my own limits is incredibly important to me. So is knowing when to say no. Finding balance, for me, is mostly about knowing myself well enough to avoid overwhelming myself. It's admittedly an ongoing process because the goal is to always know myself better. I try to extend that to the band as a whole. So, as a band, our combined processes keep us mostly balanced in regards to our workload.

AC: Who are some artists/musicians from your scene that we should know about?

J: God I LOVE THIS QUESTION! PLEEEEASE check out Les Izmore, Bath Consolidated, Collidescope, and Betty Maun.

X: I strongly recommend TideCruz, Mess, Ebony Tusks, Bad Alaskan, VP3... how long can this list be????!?!?

AC: Last but not least, what do you have coming up this year? Is there anything you want to shoutout/highlight?

J: We are planning to give everyone a new video from us before Valentine's Day, and a lot more later... but I don't want to spoil anything (yet)! You're the first to know about our upcoming video.

X: Issa mystery.

The Black Creatures

Website I Instagram I FB

YouTube I Spotify

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Kue Varo: A Chat About Art, Community, and Reclaiming Self

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Photo credit: Ariana Molly

Kue Varo (She/Her He/Him They/Them) is the solo project of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kat Spreen. After years playing in bands, Kue moved from Calgary to Montreal to find her own voice, looking inwards to explore the complexities of identity and self representation - uninhibited and all uniquely hers. The title of her debut album, Daffodil 11 - coming out on January 28th! - was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s Slapstick, the famous novelist’s exploration of the idea of building social support networks to counter the loneliness imposed by a capitalist world.

Also Cool got to chat with Kue about her sensitivity to color and light, her love of art, and her collaboration with Ariana Molly on the sultry music video for “Just Don’t Lie” - the first single off Daffodil 11.

Maya for Also Cool: Kue Varo - what does the name signify? How did this musical project come to be?

KV: Kue Varo is a gender ambiguous name which was on my radar because I perform in drag sometimes. I just wanted [a name] that wasn't super gendered. Kue is actually from Star Trek - the character Q - but I spell it with a “K” because my given name starts with it. I tried to keep that part uniform. I went by a different name in a project before this one, so I wanted a smooth transition - and for my fanbase to find me if they wanted to.

Varo is the last name of my favorite surrealist painter, so I borrowed from her name - Remedios Varo. She's had a really huge impact on me. I found her paintings one day - I just decided when I was like 12 or something that I needed a favorite painter - it was just really important to me.

I needed to know - who paints the things I really connect with? So I spent probably two weeks just Googling - going to online galleries all over the world and searching for someone who paints the way I like it. And I ended up finding one of Varo's paintings. I just instantly was like, "This is exactly what I love. This is what I would paint if I were a painter." So my love of her work still stands today. She had enough of an impact that I wanted to take on some of that - the energy that surrounds her art.

AC: Do you think that your painting reflects that as well?

Color is really, really important to me. I'm very sensitive to light in general - more so than most people. It can cause a lot of headaches, unfortunately, but because of it I can tell subtle differences in color really well. So in that respect, yes - I think we both share a love of rich, intense colors. I'm not a visual artist by trade, I do music. Painting is very much therapeutic for me - I don't have mad skills - I just love to do it.

I've been playing music [in front of other people] for about a decade. As a 20 year old I played in bands in my hometown and in a city just outside of Calgary. It was always with a bunch of guys - no shade to that - but I definitely let it stifle my creative voice in a lot of ways.

After years of dedicating myself to that project, I decided, along with a move to Montreal, that I wanted to find my own voice again, and really take the song writing part to heart. That's why I started playing music [in the first place]. When I was a kid, I learned piano not because I wanted to play piano, but because I wanted to write songs.

It was a huge missing piece and was making me really sad in ways that I didn't even realize. That's why this project exists. It's me reclaiming myself - as a voice and as a conduit to the creative forces that be. I don't take full credit for everything I write.

When things flow out of you, you're sort of taking from the collective conscious and you just get to be the translator, which is where your unique voice comes in.

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AC: How did joining the Montreal DIY scene been for you creatively? In terms of possibilities for collaboration or any new influences you had during this time?

KV: The first bit was really hard because I didn't have any contacts when I first moved here. It was obviously a huge leap and didn't happen really quickly, but with the creation of this album I ended up meeting some other people who also came from Calgary. [One of them] happened to be working in a studio - Rena Kozak, the producer of the album. I hadn't worked with a female producer before, so I was really excited to collaborate with someone who wasn't a guy - for reasons like I mentioned before. I play music with a bunch of guys still, and I love them, but it's really nice just to have somebody else around. She really helped me get the most out of what I was doing.

Now I share a studio space, like a co-op studio space, with some people who run a label called Baby Horse Records. They're all friends of mine, they're all musicians, and they're all super talented.

I've been welcomed by two different groups and I'm very much in love with both of them - I'm very lucky. This is a really good time to ask me that question because I feel very full and accepted - and lucky.

AC: I've been like rethinking my relationships with people lately and have been really mindful and appreciative of the support and sense of community I feel.

I heard that the title of your album Daffodil 11 is from Vonnegut's Slapstick - which also ties into the whole idea of community building. Was that on your mind when you were writing the songs?

KV: Slapstick is my favorite book and Vonnegut is my favorite author. I've read almost all of his works and I'm trying to collect the last few books. Yeah, Slapstick was heavy on my mind. I actually have a tattoo that's also in part because of [that book]. It was the perfect thing for me to read when I started letting the voices of adulthood come in and say, "There needs to be a good outcome for a good deed to mean anything."

The idea of doing something fully and authentically, without attachment to the outcome - just because it's the decent human thing to do - really speaks to me. That was really heavy on my heart when I was making the album and is still. Hopefully it will be forever because I think it's an important virtue.

AC: You mentioned that you sometimes perform in drag and that you are gender fluid. Can you talk about expressing your identity as an artist - do your drag performances ever reflect your day-to-day experience?

KV: I flip-flop around, it so depends on how I feel when I wake up in the morning. Clothes are very important to me because they're me expressing myself and how I feel every day. I'm sure that I'm also really vain. I'm sure that's a thing too, but I like to think it's because I'm just an expressive person. So I'll just love myself - I'll keep that lie (laughs) .

I definitely have boy days and girl days and I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who's around me a lot - because my whole demeanor changes a little bit.

I like Carl Jung a lot because he also always speaks of having two sides to himself - the scientist and the spiritualist. There's always this duality within him and I've always felt that duality within myself. I grew up in a pretty religious setting that had some serious, hardcore gender roles imposed. So luckily my family is really cool and loving, but there's still a lot of me decluttering all those experiences.

I definitely take advantage of that in art because. I mean the best part about - well not the best part, but the best superficial part, I suppose - about being an artist is that you get to play dress-up and nobody really cares. Which, in Montreal, is not as big of a deal because people are very expressive with the way they dress anyway.

Coming from a super small, super conservative, really just prairie town Alberta, the whole idea of playing dress-up is a much bigger deal. I guess the duality is an everyday experience - and that's totally normal. In terms of dressing up in drag, it's only for performances, as like with who you are as an artist.

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AC: You also introduced yourself as being neurodivergent - how do you think being on the spectrum enriches your experience and your expression of it? You said earlier that you're sensitive to light and see differences in colors very well. Musically, do you think there's also an expression of that?

KV: I think, because it's a processing difference, it would have to have some influence on how I'm going to output what I've processed. Also socially, I think. I'm quite good at pretending to be good at socializing now.

It's been 20-some years - it's been a long time and I didn't know what was up. I was a really late diagnosis. Having the ability to reframe my entire life with things that made sense was really awesome. Sensorily, being a musician can sometimes be a little tough. I have to know when my limits are coming because otherwise it's like, "time to go into a dark room for a while", but it must serve me in some way artistically. At least being a slightly different perspective is valuable. I think it would be impossible for literally how I experience the whole world not to change how I make art about it.

AC: The video that you made with Ariana is so amazing - what is the story behind the song "Just Don't Lie"?

KV: I have residual effects of being a super self-righteous person. In my youth I was really well-intentioned, but my intensity factor wase a bit much for a lot of people. This is also part of being on the spectrum - lying is typically really, really difficult to comprehend. I can't speak for everyone, but hearing from other people that I know are on the spectrum, lying [takes time to understand].

It's taken me until now to realize that small lies are okay and everybody does them. So the song is me poking fun at myself, my younger self, for being so adamant with what I expected from other people. That's why I say, "Forgive how intense I am, because I want it to be right."

AC: What about the video itself?

KV: It was a lot of fun to make. Ariana came up with pretty much all of it. I basically told her to just go crazy. I wanted to do something fun and she loved the song, so I just gave her free reign . All of it had themes that we both felt matched the song, so a lot of things happening and then happening in reverse. A lot of symbolism - like water and fire. We're both pretty into the subliminal power of symbolism. That's how it came to be - it's largely her. So I won't take credit.

AC: And the aesthetic? It's sultry, romantic - was that something you were going for initially?

KV: Yeah, that's part of my artist female persona. I describe it as my artist male persona being a cross between a 1960's bad-ass beat poet and a grungy nineties guy. And then my female persona is more of a sixties to seventies pop goddess, dream-girl type.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Written by Kue Varo (Katrina Spreen)
Produced, Recorded, Mixed by Rena Kozak
Bass: Rena Kozak
Drums: Chris Dadge
Synth: Scott Munro
Lead Guitar: Kue Varo
Rhythm Guitar: Matthew Spreen
Vocals: Kue Varo
Video: Ariana Molly

January 28th is the official album release day - it has taken almost two years!

Follow Kue Varo on Instagram

You can find the first single, "Just Don't Lie" on Spotify and everywhere else.