Truro's Instruments make rare appearance

Reclusive post-rock trio hits the Paragon with The Lodge and Dreamsploitation

by Stephanie Johns

Truro's INSTRUMENTS makes a rare appearance on Thursday, November 5 at The Paragon Theatre (with The Lodge and Dreamsploitation). Described as a "reclusive post-rock trio," the group is set on making each show special. "We are really intent on doing things on our own terms," says J LaPointe. "In a lot of cases that means when we do play a show we are really choosy about where we play, we try to control the circumstances of it, enough to make it suit what we do."

The band, comprised of LaPointe, Jon Hutt and Daniel McDonald, places a lot of importance on recording. "We have a pretty strict policy in the band that we don't play songs live until they are recorded." The trio's last album, National Laboratory, available on Endemik Music, finds the band exploring "musique concrete and electroacoustic territory," with a darker feel than its first record, Nominal. Endemik, based out of Montreal, is spearheading a project that brings INSTRUMENTS' atmospheric rock to hip-hop, with remixes from other labelmates. "We've always been really interested in the idea of having people remix our songs. Endemik is primarily a hip-hop label, it's not really a stretch for them," says LaPointe. "We've done a number of remixes for artists on that label as well."

The group has more hip-hop collaborations on the horizon as well. "We've talked about doing a split 12-inch with Sixtoo," says LaPointe. "I don't know what's going to come of that because he's notoriously hard to pin down, but that's something we'd really like to do if we could work it out. We're all from the same town, Truro, so we have a long history with him."

Overall, INSTRUMENTS would like "to keep it interesting for ourselves and keep it long-term," says LaPointe. "I'd kind of like to be the band that is still around in 10 or 15 years as opposed to burning ourselves out too quick so we take things as they come and try to keep things interesting for ourselves."

INSTRUMENTS w/The Lodge, Dreamsploitation

Thursday, November 5, 10pm

The Paragon Theatre, 2037 Gottingen Street, $8

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