Gulfer Explain Their Brand of Emo Math Rock

Montreal’s music scene has been praised to death in the Canadian press and around the world time and time again. This decade’s Grimes, Majical Cloudz and BRAIDS appear to have taken the lead from Arcade Fire, Plants and Animals, and Wolf Parade as the bands that are forcing people to give a shit about Montreal's music scene. Sure, declaring Montreal as the “it” city for Canadian music talent is bullshit some of the time, but with rent this cheap and an abundance of musicians and venues, it’s amazing what you can get done with a few instruments, a game-plan and a little ambition.

There are also a lot of really good vegetarian restaurants around here, which is where Gulfer — a band with a few instruments, numerous game-plans, and enough ambition to tour Europe before even releasing their first full-length album — decided to meet up with me as we discussed their careers in math rock. For those unfamiliar, math rock is normally seen as a more technical take on the standard rock band ensemble. The typical sound of math rock involves complex tapping guitars overlaid atop drum patterns in anything but a 4/4 time signature, topped with a not-quite-sung vocal. Bands like Toe, Slint and Don Caballero come to mind as standouts of the genre who've gained international attention. There are, however, distinct features of the sound apart from what can come across as pretentious complexity, and those unspoken elements are what makes up most of Gulfer's aesthetic. I got a chance to listen to their new single "Trim It Short" a cut from their upcoming debut, which personally made me feel like dancing in the rain and reliving my favorite childhood memories. I talked to them about the new album, labels and genres, the band’s history, and what it’s like to be a math rock band in Montreal.

Noisey: Has Montreal been kind to Gulfer?
Steven: I love it. But it’s not necessarily good for what we do. Back home (in New Jersey) our kind of music is way better received.

David: It’s better than being in Wyoming or somewhere super-isolated. Sure, there are pockets of the states that get spoiled and have thriving scenes. But there are so many things about Montreal that lend themselves to music making. It’s easy to be a band here. I love to knock Montreal as far as being in a math rock/emo band goes, but ultimately I can’t complain.

Is there something about math rock that doesn’t work in Montreal?
David: Math rock isn’t really popular anywhere, except for maybe Japan. But there are awesome scenes for the more noodley math-emo stuff that we love on the east coast and Midwest. I'd love for our band to be based in Chicago or Philly, if we’re talking in terms of scenes, but for living my life, just being a musician, Montreal is the best.

How does a math rock band break?
Steven: The bands that get popular on a large scale tend to blend the sound with another genre. Maps and Atlases did that with indie rock, and there are a few other examples.

Would you say you blend the sound with a punk rock influence?
David: Yeah, as time has progressed, that’s more and more true. The start-stop dynamic, odd time signatures and tapping elements are still there but the driving punk sections definitely play a larger role. We come from an interesting position doing this fusion of math rock and emo because we grew up listening to a lot of math rock and discovered emo later, whereas a lot of other bands we like seem to have come to it the opposite way.

What’s the Montreal math rock scene look like?
David: The only other bands in Montreal that sound like us are Steven’s other band Head Honcho and my other band Names. Our little scene is extremely incestuous to the point where it’s basically just us.

Are you comfortable with genres at all?
Simon: Mostly I’m just surprised people label us as something as specific as punk, math or emo because personally I have so much trouble labeling what we do.

David: Most of the time when people describe us they end up referring to a bunch of different genres, which is really cool. It speaks to the relative originality of what we do. It’s hard to pin it down as one thing.

I personally find a band’s inability to find a genre really limiting. It’s nice to deviate from a label, but still fit within a niche.
David: I think people need a frame of reference. In that way I embrace the self-imposed genre tag of math rock/emo because then people end up listening to us knowing they like other music in that genre.

Steven: More and more bands are uncomfortable with genre names so I feel like it eventually won’t be that relevant. Because people have started discovering bands via “for fans of…” suggestions.

David: I love that. It’s an honor to be compared to bands you really love. I think the “for fans of…” thing is a better option than genres. I’ve had to come up with suggestions before and its painstaking because you wanna be as accurate as possible so you don’t misrepresent yourself, but it means a lot of consideration goes into it.

True. Personally, I heard some Slint, some Fugazi, some Universal Order of Armageddon and a lot of Toe in your guys’ sound. But, at least online, you still use the math rock label to describe your sound. Is there anything in particular that makes a band “math”?
David: There are so many different pockets of it. We came up mostly listening to more melodic bands like This Town Needs Guns and Maps and Atlases, but there are a ton of different sounds that can be considered math rock, many of which don't necessarily apply to us. So that’s why we include the emo suffix.

Steven: And it’s important to include the punk label too because you wanna avoid that reaction where you tell someone you’re in a math rock band and they think it’s all about this inaccessible technical music that’s all about shredding. People immediately think it’s about showing off your technical ability and that’s so far from what we’re trying to do.

Simon: Yeah, most of the time I don’t even need to explain it because most people don’t even know what math rock is.

As for the emo suffix, Is it a lyrical thing that makes people call music emo?
Steven: It’s more about an energy. It’s just emotional. It’s emotionally driven music.

I think the common theme between all the bands we’ve talked about is that there’s a teenage spirit to the music. Maybe there’s no emo revival, people just miss teenage emotion in music?
Steven: I thinks its about earnestness, and honest energy and yeah people look for that in music obviously.

Eric Séguin is a writer living in Montreal.