Interview with Mars Red Sky guitarist/vocalist Julien Pras and drummer Mathieu “Matgaz”
By Christopher J. Harrington
Some bands fit nice and squarely into fixed locations, offering few excursions from these residences. Other more audacious bands position themselves into sparse and more elaborate quadrants: locations where unique innovation meets an outward sincerity. There are no expectations, no precise formulas in these quadrants. Only a freedom of arrangement, musically and artistically. Bordeaux, France’s Mars Red Sky are a band who dwell in such quadrants. Sure, they cull from an established array of sonic palettes—psychedelic, doom, trance, avant-garde, pop, folk—but none of these rather limited style-tags do the band a smidgen of justice. These guys are all over the place, defying angles, grooving new patterns, and forging surrealistic compositions that you’ll be humming for weeks. The band’s newest incarnation, APEX III (Praise for the Burning Soul)—out March 4 via Listenable Records—is a mesmerizing, lush doom prophecy. You’ll play the record five times over the day you get it; it’s that enthralling.
“We have no specific formula or textbook kind of method of composing,” says guitarist and vocalist Julien Pras. “What we usually like to do is fool around with a pattern, whatever it is, play it over and over and see where we can go from there. And since we like a lot of different genres, the possibilities are limitless. Sometimes, we manage to tie everything up together pretty quickly, and sometimes, we get lost in a direction that seemed like a good idea and it takes more time.”
Where the band really excels is in their examination and arrangement of spatial relationships. They seem to find the nucleus of every idea they have and fit them all snugly together without losing a speck of integrity. Space is the key. Drummer Mathieu “Matgaz” Gazeau agrees. He says the idea of space in music is akin to the natural spaces of life. “It’s exactly like us as human beings: we need to breathe to move and to stay alive,” he notes. “And in our music, it’s the same thing. We’ve learned to leave room for each other, to have instrumental parts that can be played in unison, but also which complete each other. And if we think something doesn’t feel good, it’s probably because it doesn’t breathe; so, we make it happen by changing one part or another.”
APEX III (Praise for the Burning Soul) has a particularly warm intimacy to it. The inclusion and connection of all parts is paramount. The band, not surprisingly, have been close for a while. “[Bassist and vocalist] Jimmy [Kinast] and I have been friends for two decades, and we’ve known Mathieu through other bands he was in,” Pras relays. “Actually, the band, as it is now, is the second and hopefully final incarnation since we began as a two piece with the band’s former drummer, who left four and a half years ago and enticed us to pursue on without him. I’ve known Mathieu for a long time and saw him basically reshape another band’s aesthetic, just with his playing. He seemed like the obvious candidate, and we were lucky enough that he was interested and willing to join in.”
Compared to earlier recordings, there’s much advancement to Mars Red Sky’s sound on the new album: the compositions are thicker, stronger, budding with a darker simulation. “It’s not a change in form, it’s just a natural evolution,” Gazeau states. “Our only concern is to not repeat ourselves; we’re proud of our first album, and the second one too, but they’re done. If you want to hear them, they’re here, and we keep playing those songs onstage, but the goal for a band is to evolve and not keep saying the same things. I think at least we say something new with this album.”
In a lot of ways, listening to APEX III (Praise for the Burning Soul) is like experiencing all your favorite extreme ‘70s bands for the first time again. There’s an unmistakable freshness, excitement, and originality to the music. It’s like nothing you’ve ever heard before, again.
Pick up APEX III (Praise for the Burning Soul) here.
