Interview with Mathieu Lachance

May 24, 2023

So, a while ago I posted the album Sourde by Jacquemort online after picking it up from a small record shop and not being able to find any info about it on the internet. At the end of the post, I asked for anyone with more information to contact me, not really expecting anything to come of it. This morning the guy behind the album emailed me.

In the email, he detailed that the album is his second demo, only fifty copies were made, and he is still making music today!

So, straight out of the Québec Underground, here is Mathieu Lachance!

Ok, so first of all: can I ask you some questions to put on my blog like, interview-style?

Sure! I find all of this very weird and funny. I made that tape when I was 19 I think. Now I'm 51!

You said you still make music, is there anywhere we can find it?

Yes I just made a EP that is on Bandcamp: coppergear.bandcamp.com
I started making music by the name Coppergear.

How was Sourde recorded/produced?

First with a 4 track tape recorder (I know... I'm old). Yannick Plamondon helped me with that part (I was just starting music I didn't know anything). Yannick Plamondon is a well known contemperary music composer now. Then we put every track on a 8 track reel to reel recorder.
Martin Bédard helped me with this part with one of his friends (Luc Trottier). Then I added more music tracks and they mixed everything.

Would you consider yourselves a "band"?

No. It was a solo project with some collaboraters.
You know what? Martin Bédard is a electro acoustic music teacher and a well known composer too now! But it's an pretty underground scene so nobody's really famous.
And after the mix I made 50 tapes and my friend Carl Poulin made the cover and I sold about 30 and gave the rest. That's about it since there was was no way to make a live show of that (at the time, now we have samplers and loopers and other stuff to make it possible). Computers...

Yes, those are a bit more convenient, I imagine :p

👍

Did you make any more music under the name Jacquemort, or with this group of people?

Not with the name Jacquemort but I made a few tracks with Martin Bédard then I went into a more experimental punk phase.

Do you have the names of any of these projects, can they be found online?

This is the album of the punk band "l'heure du crime" on which I was the composer and guitar player (but not the singer): lheureducrime.bandcamp.com/album/catharsis

Lachance in "l'heure du crime" live in Montréal at age 23

Alright, about Katapult Communikations [the label]... I couldn't find any info about the it online, do they have anymore releases?

Katapult was a distributor. And I asked my friend (who made it) about it this morning and he doesn't remember anything... He said he was too wasted at the time to remember anything now!

After my punk phase I started a band called QUAI M-83 and it was more a electronic/alternative band. Still the composer/guitarist but not singer. We were signed on a indie label that did not do anything to distribute our music and eventually that band split up also... In between these projects I made a lot of music just by myself and did not bother to make cd's or anything. You can't find this album on the web (yet):

Left to right: Mélanie Caron, Mathieu Lachance, Marie-Ève Bouchard

But I spoke to the violin player (Marie-Eve Bouchard or MEB) and we should put our album (QUAI M-83) on Bandcamp this summer along with a few EPs. Mélanie Caron was the name of the singer and keyboard player on the album.

Do you have plans on putting any of your other old releases online?

Maybe. It takes a lot of time. Some old recordings sound like shit and I have to process it to make it ok. I wanted to say that after QUAI M-83, I decided I was better off making music by myself.
Before Coppergear I made a solo project called "Lips and light shade" that was another kind of punk/alternative/electro/rock project. I made 2 albums and 2 singles: lipsandlightshade.bandcamp.com
I sing on this project and play everything. I changed my project name after that to Coppergear because I make atmospheric industrial (and instrumental) music now. And it's too different.

What would you say your main styles of music have been over the years?

I don't know, I changed style a lot. I am not sure. Alternative punk experimental electronic and industrial?

So, very underground, I see!

Yes that is consistent.

How would you describe your experience in the Québec underground music scene, how has it changed over the years?

If you want to find a place to play in front of people, you will. If you want to make friends that are into the kind of music you do, you will also... It's a matter of looking in the right places. In that way the scene has not changed. It's not bigger or smaller. Just different, technology wise.

Lachance in the current day