In August, Montreal-based art rock band Braids released its second full-length album Flourish // Perish.

Originally from Calgary, Braids formed in 2006 and is currently comprised of lead vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Raphaelle Standell-Preston, bassist Taylor Smith and drummer Austin Tufts. The band’s previous effort and debut LP, 2011’s Native Speaker, was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize and earned Braids a Juno nomination for New Group of the Year in 2012. Some bands might crack under such pressure when producing a follow up.

“No matter what you try and do, there’s always a certain amount of pressure, but I don’t think it killed the group,” Tufts says over the phone from somewhere in the Swiss Alps. “We survived it. We just took our time and in the end I think it paid off. We were super honest with ourselves.”

The band spent most of 2012 working on Flourish // Perish in Montreal and ended up creating a record that’s much more electronic based than its previous guitar-driven work.

“We did a big tour with an electronic producer from Los Angeles called Baths (aka Will Wiesenfeld) who turned us on to a lot of cool music,” Tufts says. “Watching him perform every night kind of got us into it. 

“That was a new palette we wanted to start using, but we didn’t know how, so there was a lot of experimentation in the beginning... We went from four people who were always playing everything live to four people sitting around a computer and trying to collaborate, trying to work on one specific idea at a time.”

Yes, four people. During the recording process Braids officially became a trio when keyboardist Katie Lee parted ways, an event that ended up inspiring the album title. 

“It [the title] was so relevant to the experience we had just gone through in recording,” Tuft recalls. “The departure of a member and how that was super difficult at the beginning, you’re very much perishing as a group. But, out of the mess we were able to pick ourselves back up and flourish as the group we are now.”

The group is already working on its next batch of music despite a hectic touring schedule across Europe, Canada and the U.S.

“We’re touring some of [the new material] and some of it’s still in the idea stage,” Tufts says. “We really want to take some time early in the record cycle to work on album number three.  We’re thinking of switching up environments, maybe going to somewhere in the desert in New Mexico, Arizona or California, just renting an apartment or house and holing ourselves up for a few months to work on new material.”

Published in Volume 68, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 11, 2013)