They may have played their final show as a band last month, but you haven't heard the last of Hilotrons. The Ottawa alt-pop act is gearing up to release At Least There's Commotion, the followup to their 2008 Polaris Music Prize-nominated album, Happymatic. Today, CBC Music is proud to debut the video for "Emergency," a Hilotrons cover of the Yellow Jacket Avenger track, which will appear on the album.
"One of the greatest records ever made is Double Nature, by the Yellow Jacket Avenger [a.k.a. Geoffrey Pye]", says Hilotrons frontman Mike Dubue. "I've always wanted to pay tribute to this record. 'Emergency' is a song from it that I frequently covered and it proved to be a great candidate to track after messing around with the arrangement of the song using an Oberheim Matrix 1000 and a Mellotron."
After deciding that his vocals didn't quite fit the bill for "Emergency," Dubue enlisted the talents of Ottawa singer-songwriter Sacha Gabriel. "The end result is a definite nod to Kate Bush," says Dubue, "and Geoffrey Pye really loves the cover, so I win in my little world."
The video was directed by Lesley Marshall, and stars Ottawa actress Margo MacDonald. It tells the story of a middle-aged woman's struggle with alcoholism through an experimental and impressionist filmmaking approach. "We worked on a tight timeline and I worked from a feminist perspective to tackle a story that has been present throughout our group of friends and artists," Marshall explains in her statement on the video.
The video was directed by Lesley Marshall, and stars Ottawa actress Margo MacDonald. It tells the story of a middle-aged woman's struggle with alcoholism through an experimental and impressionist filmmaking approach. "We worked on a tight timeline and I worked from a feminist perspective to tackle a story that has been present throughout our group of friends and artists," Marshall explains in her statement on the video.
"Emergency" is currently being offered as a free download on Soundcloud. Watch for At Least There's Commotion, out Feb. 5, 2013, on Kelp Records.
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