Ottawa is a land of extremes: summer ducked out early this year and temperatures plummeted, leaving the citizens of O-Town cold and confused.
Some show-goers at Pressed on Sept. 16 reacted to the uninvited reminder that summer is out by clinging to the good times, wearing shorts and t-shirts—maybe a sweater as an afterthought—while others showed up with hat-and-mitt winter attire.
They came to see Monomyth and Nap Eyes, who with their psychedelic pop incantations brought some temperate, coastal Halifax warmth to the cafe.
They were joined by local grunge pop mainstays Organ Eyes. Together the three bands made everyone forget the frigid outdoors.
Monomyth have been touring for their recent album Saturnalia Regalia, released on Mint Records out of Vancouver. The Halifax trio consists of three songwriters who share vocal duties on nearly every song summoning off-kilter harmonies that are at once beautifully catchy and unsettling.
Monomyth has been touring with Nap Eyes, which is convenient since two of Monomyth’s members form Nap Eyes’ rhythm section.
“We save a lot of gas money. Also, Nigel [Nap Eyes frontman] is my roommate,” said Monomyth songwriter and Nap Eyes bassist Josh Salter. “If I’m away from the house then he has to be away from the house too, that’s how I feel.”
The remoteness fosters an idiosyncratic variety of neo-psychedelia that has been blowing up in Halifax and trickling into Montreal.
Salter himself described the band’s sound as “quarter-Quivers, quarter Bird World, a quarter-Grubbies, and a quarter Heaven For Real . . . put them all in a blender and there you go: Monomyth.”
Something about Monomyth and Nap Eyes jives really well with music fans of Ottawa.
The two bands played a show at Gabba Hey! in the spring opening for local spook-punks The Yips record release.
“That was the drunkest I’ve ever played and that was maybe the best show I’ve ever played,” Seamus Dalton of Monomyth and Nap Eyes said.
“I haven’t played a show that felt like that in a long time, like maybe since my first band when I still had friends from high school and university,” said Salter.
“It was the perfect storm of amazing venue—Gabba Hey! is enormous—and our friends Legato Vipers got us drunk on eight per cent tallcans and a bottle of Jameson. We were looking at photos afterward and apparently someone was like stroking my hair? There was a guy in a Mohawk who touched Andrew’s nipples?”
The bands and the crowd weren’t quite as rowdy this time around, due to the early Tuesday evening show time and the smaller venue. It was a low-key, intimate affair where the windows fogged. The crowd did dance straight through both sets. They sang along to Nap Eyes’ “No Fear of Hellfire” and Monomyth’s “Candleholder.”
It’s good to know Ottawa’s love for the bands is mutual.
