The Barr Brothers and SOAK

Formerly of the avant-rock band The Slip, brothers Andrew and Brad’s music career began in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., and in 2004 during a show in Montreal a fire broke out, which led to chance meeting of a resident Montréaler. Sealing a bond between the brothers and Montréal, the pair soon made the move and became neighbours with harpist Sarah Page and met multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial, who completed The Barr Brothers quartet.

The band’s eponymously-title debut album arrived in late 2011 by Secret City Records and introduced the public to the band’s harmony-driven vocals, illustrious strings and musical ambition. The album was led by single “Beggar In the Morning”, debuted on Paste Magazine, and due to the positive reviews led to a series of high-profile appearances. These included performing at the 2011 Osheaga Festival, an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman in early 2012, the headlining artist on the main stage Scène TD de la Place des Festivals at the Montreal Jazz Festival and a show at Pickathon, the music festival in Happy Valley, Oregon, U.S.

In 2014 The Barr Brothers released their sophomore album “Sleeping Operator” which had an initial 40 songs whittled down to 13. With contributions from Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, Patrick Watson’s band and various members of the Luyas, the album introduces African and blues inflences. Spawning the songs “Half Crazy”, “Love Ain’t Enough” and “The Bear at the Window” The Barr Brothers go from strength to strength.

SOAK started writing songs at the age of thirteen following a stint in the tragically short-lived covers band, That’s What She Said. Bridie had watched her Dad playing the guitar growing up and, keen to impress him, took to recording her first batch of lo-fi, acoustic demos in secret. “When I was younger I was unbelievably shy,” she says. “I didn’t really have many friends, and I wasn’t really close with my parents then – the idea of telling my Mum anything was just … no. So when I started writing songs it was a way that I could tell her something, but not directly. I could hide things behind words, which was easy for me. I’m always hiding behind words.” All she needed was a name, and she settled on SOAK, an awkward amalgam of ‘soul’ and ‘folk’ (even though her music was neither, it’s proved fittingly between-states ever since). Maybe more appropriately, it also spelt ‘Kaos’ backwards.

Raw, intimate but shot through with moments of impatience, experimentation and joy, ‘Before We Forgot How to Dream’ is a coming-of-age record in more ways than one. Vividly capturing the rollercoaster of adolescence, it traces not only SOAK’s extraordinary journey in her own career thus far, but also those more universal themes of friendship, family, and what to do with your future. There are songs here, she says, “about regret and about how much one person can affect everything; about how I’m not very good at letting go of things, of bad memories or connections.” And there are those, too, about anger and arguments and confusion, about bullies, cheap thrills, the longing to be someone and “the desire to destroy things for no reason”.

If the songs on ‘Before We Forgot How To Dream’ chart this period of SOAK finding her voice as a songwriter and her confidence as a young woman, they also document a certain loss of innocence in Monds-Watson’s life. Much is made of this mature-beyond-her-years sound and outlook, though it’s a perspective which is understandably alien to Bridie herself (“I am this age and I’m writing about being my age. I’m more aware of just how many young people are writing crazily smart things, and the fact that this shouldn’t be a surprise anymore – they just haven’t had the platform to showcase it”). So whilst SOAK’s lyricism centres on an idiosyncratically teenage universe, her debut album is ultimately about those bigger questions which become no clearer with age, and the compassion which comes with growing up.

On its surface, ‘Before We Forgot How To Dream’ may appear nostalgic – romantic, even - towards a more innocent time, and despite the tumultuous tone which actually lingers beneath the record, there is a persistently positive element to SOAK’s music. “People grow up and nobody believes in Magic anymore, or you’re told to lower your expectations and that certain behaviour isn’t appropriate. This album is definitely about that time when you believed a bit more in things.” You’d venture that belief will take SOAK further yet in her young career, though ultimately her debut album seems to explore those joys and fears we take with us through life, from adolescence into adulthood – but simply get a little better at hiding.