QUASAR VUE

We interviewed the young Canadian band. They tell us all about their album and their experiencies. Don´t miss this fun and entertaining interviw with Quasar Vue, a band we predict has a very promising future.

About Jellyfish, in Spanish, Medusa, is it about a toxic or complicated relationship?

Alina: Initially, the idea it was about toxic relationships and that kind of stuff. But if you dig deeper, it’s about to knowing yourself, going deep inside your mind, your soul, and finding out who you are. And then, it’s coded in that toxic relationship theme. 

Afrid: It’s what Alina wrote from Mayan. All I can tell is that it’s a very introspective song. And as a musician, I’m very much into the Radiohead—they’re like one of my favourite bands of all time. There’s another rock band, not many people know about them, it’s Porcupine Tree. I really like these two bands a lot, and I wanted to take an approach of guitar playing that is not really indie rock. It has a dark taste to what I was going for. So, that’s how I approached basically the entire production side of things, and what both Alina and I love is trip-hop music. […] If you listen to the outro of Jellyfish, it was intentionally done to pay tribute to Portishead and Massive attack. I guess one fun fact about Jellyfish is, I love Radiohead and Porcupine Tree, but I’m also heavily influenced by Santana.

There are, in this case, a lot of atmospheric phases in a lot of songs. Is this intentional, just as something to relate to those artists? Or do you have anything to focus on emotionally, in that case, to be playful and atmospheric with the songs?

Afrid: I think in terms of what you’re talking about, it’s the atmospheric production that we went for. And it actually stems from what Alina mentioned, which is, it’s a very introspective lyric. And obviously it’s heavily influenced by the bands I mentioned. But when we think of ‘introspection’, looking into yourself, it feels like we are a small character, and we are talking to ourselves in a big room. And when you think of that, in our head it’s like: ‘okay, there’s a lot of echoes, there’s a lot of reverbs, there’s a lot of atmospheric things going on’. So, you’ll see that there’s a part when we switch from the funk–indie part to the trip-hop. Alina’s voice keeps on echoing, right? There’s a big tail on the echo.

Alina: Yes, about the emotional part. That choir you can hear in the background when I’m singing the outro—it was not intentional. […] It was an impulsive decision. It was more about my feelings in that same moment. I felt like: ‘what if I try this?’ I tried, and I feel like it opens up more that vibe. It’s more sensual, more vulnerable. So, it really felt good for me at that point, and I decided that I would keep that because I feel like that part opens up my soul even more in the song.

If we were not mistaken, you are quite cinephile about Wong Kar-wai. Is this song a tribute of a director?  

Afrid: This is a song I wrote in my bedroom four or five years ago. It’s been a long time… I consider myself as a failed filmmaker. My goal was initially to be a filmmaker. I couldn’t do it because life happened. And when I was going through that phase, I was going through a lot of formula behind it so I like enjoyingforeign film it’s just very different in general and during that phase of exploring a lot of foreign film I came across Wong Kar-wai and even though I don’t like Hollywood that much one of my favourite filmmakers is Quentin Tarantino just because of style and he always talked about Wong Kar-wai and, when I watched his film, it just blew my mind off. And so, it is actually a nod to him. Even though the lyrics doesn’t talk about any of his film, it’s more of the vibe.

About the song Night tide, which is like something like the ballad of the album. How did it come about? Did you expect some song like this? Did you look for it like something quieter more something like that or did it surprise you to composing it?  

Afrid: It was done in about 48 hours or less I think, right Alina?

Alina: It was really quick, it was a decision to add this song because we wanted to make because you can see our songs they’re a bit chaotic in terms of genre they have like in one song you can meet a few genres so we wanted to make the transition from the like more upbeat part of the EP to more slow and more ‘those songs that spread out and you can feel them’ and we wanted just to make a transition which is go smooth and make sense and emphasizes all the EP songs in one thing, like one thought, one feeling. So, we just decided to make something like Night guide, and it was recorded really quick.  

Afrid: And I think the piece of a why it’s a really good transitional song is because we were looking at the EP and we’re like okay definitely all our songs have that introspection thing going on and when we looked at it from a production point of view everything was recorded as if you listen to night care it sounds very lo-fi and it sounds like what at least I remember from my childhood: that when I was a kid I used to record a lot of stuff using Nokia phone, my dad’s Nokia phone and I wanted to make sure it sounds like that. That’s why like even the way the guitar it’s actually this is the only song that we both mixed it ourselves and we didn’t want our mixing to touch it because we wanted to make sure that we’re all feeling.

Alina: Those childhood calls when you do something yourself and you truly feel like that’s right because you as a kid you always like that’s the most exciting part.

Tent universes, a song like a song by someone who feels straight beat. It starts off very calm and then surprises you with some very powerful guitar riffs.  

Alina: This song is just my love. That’s my favourite from our EP and, I think I was just playing with lyrics, and I was really surprised with the lyrics I came up with because I’m personally really proud of it and I feel like so far that’s the best my lyrics and it’s actually really deep. It’s basically a song about me wanting to go to my childhood, get back, just to recreate those feelings I experienced before. It’s like, you know… Before you go to your bed, you’re just like laying down and you analysing the whole your life. You are remembering all those good and bad moments happened to you. […] I really like to write abstract lyrics just because everyone can just find there’s some something for themselves just to find their own meanings like to feel their own experience background and that kind of stuff. So, this song is, to me, personally really deep, and I feel like if you want to know me you have to listen to that song first because. It’s really introspected me. 

Afrid: This was one of the first few songs that Alina and I wrote together. And I’m not usually too much into lyrics because, you know, I’m a guitarist. I’m always focused on the riff and everything. But this is the one time I heard lyrics. Lyrics can make a huge difference to a song. .

Is it a metaphor or is it a dream or freedom? It is a very curious song.

Afrid: It is a very metaphoric reference. I think this is one of the songs I actually wrote. It’s a metaphor for freedom, what you mentioned. I’m from Bangladesh and every country has its own problem. I come from a place where it’s not really, at least when I was there back 10 years ago, it wasn’t super liberal, or it was very hard for me to fit in because of how conservative people were around me. So, it was a cry for that, like what if we write a song about that, but not really talk about give me freedom, but more so talking from a point of a part. That’s why if you listen to the song, it starts off with a very like soft touch to it. Then suddenly it exposed into a prog rock guitar riff. It’s like the part is free now.

Nowadays we are in the middle of a big change in the music industry and the way people make music. What do you think about AI on making music?

Afrid: This is like my thing. I will share a content with you guys after this interview that we both made about AI. There’s two parts to it and this might sound a bit condescending or narrow-minded but there’s two sides to it. One is it’s actually for Alina and I consider ourselves to making like a bit unique type of music that is very difficult to put into a formula, just because of the way we think about our music, the way we write it. 

We got rejected from 90% and everyone’s feedback was ‘we don’t know where to put you in’ so I think anyways that’s to say that okay like the type of music we make it’s hard to put it into the box […] I think AI is good for us in a way that what AI is really good at is they it’s very good at looking at past data and then replicating it and if I’m really honest with you maybe you all have seen there was a news last week that a country song made it number one in some chart. And for me, when I heard that song, I was like, all the mess appealing country songs that have been coming out last 10 years sounded like this: fully autotuned, very predictable verse, like a verse, chorus, verse thing. 

For us, the way we think about it, very selfishly, is if AI can copy that and take that out of the scene, it opens up gate for people like us. Then, people will find okay human music that is unpredictable, or you know very distinct are more luxurious so it’s a positive way of looking at it and a selfish way of looking at it; but that’s a good thing for us and I think that’s a good thing for any artist who’s doing really unique stuff because they cannot replicate. There’s a way it’s based off data, and you can’t really feed that right.  

Alina: The AI it’s more about safe music they’re playing safe, but people will starve for more unpredictable things, and I feel like they will pay more for human product at the end of the day.

Afrid: The negative side of it is when you think about it, right? Like, Alina has been singing her entire life; I’ve been playing guitar my entire life. But we do original music, but there are session players, right, who are doing this for a living. And sometimes they do, and they don’t get to pick all the time, like, what kind of projects they’ll work on. So, for them, it really sucks that, okay, people are now just going to go to an AI and use a bassist or a guitarist, right? So that will suck. 

And what will also suck be that there are a lot of musicians who make money off streaming, just purely from online streaming. They do lo-fi music, which gets a lot of streams because people just put on background music. They will probably not be able to fight with AI. But again, we have always been a very strong advocate of making unique stuff that is very like nothing’s original everyone takes inspiration from something, so I don’t know we don’t feel as pessimistic or scared of it even though we do it. 

What’s your opinion about social media and music ?

I like all my life but I’m kind of introverted person and even if you go to my personal account I’m not like you know those influencers they post like hundred stories every day. I’m just not that type of person who can translate their lives every day non-stop to a bunch of people. So, to me it was kind of challenging and still I’m forcing myself to do that but actually I just found out you have to find a way the way of doing this that you will enjoy.

Our last post on Instagram it’s like a stop-motion black-and-white video and we’re just like put the voice over on top and there’s some reverb it’s kind of those type of indie films, European films, we enjoy together to go and watch you in our theatres that I can handle because it’s still like artsy; still like I can put some meaning in that. I can express my feelings in that, but content like fabric or something it’s not about me. It’s really hard, I found this out, but I feel it’s the game you have to play right now because no one will just recognize you, no one will know about you.

If you want your music to be successful or something, you just want to find your people, people who enjoy your music. I can’t just sit in my room and hope. I know social media is really important; it’s really hard for me, but we will find a way and I think we are already there.

What stage or country (any place) would you love to perform?

Alina: I really love Europe and I would love to go and play somewhere there, even radio stations or something, because I feel like it has that vibe. I know radio stations are not a big thing anymore, but… Europe; tour all over Europe, it’s my like a dream or something.

Afrid: Same for me. All my favourite bands are from the other side of the continent. I mentioned Radiohead, Porcupine Tree none of them are Americans and I’ve Portis and Massive. I think the only form of music that we really enjoy from this side is jazz because it’s mainly from here.

Which movie would you have liked to compose the sundown track for? 

Alina: It’s really hard for me because I’m really into like true crime detective stuff, some thrillers. I feel like actually tension verse would be really good. I can name one, but it would definitely be like on that side of the movie, like genre, you know, and that stylistic type, because I feel like I’m kind of moody and my lyrics is like that, my song writing is like that.

Afrid: There’s a European film, Triangle of Sadness. I think our music would also fit in like the quirky type of film. I would even say Paul Thomas Anderson, the guy who did the one for the battle that came out. That would be a good fit too. Indie film. That’s, I think, what we want for us. Indie film that has a weird storyline. Not just indie romantic.[…]

Afrid: Alina and I are good friends because we watch the same type of film. Like you’d be surprised that we actually take more inspiration from film versus music. And we go to our Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). TIFF has their own theatre here where they show all foreign films. We watch it and we’re like ‘imagine if this was our music video. Imagine if we wrote our lyrics.’  

Which artist would you like to see which is no longer around, for example, a band or artist that you would love to see live?

Alina: Just from perspective of vocalist, I would love to watch Whitney Houston, because it’s really powerhouse. I want to sit, and I want to just listen to the voice; I don’t want to pay attention to the music; I want to like instrumental; I want to hear her voice, that’s it.

Afrid: I have two artists that I would really love to watch, and the answer will probably change next month depending on my mood but one artist I think for sure I would have really like imagined myself being in a small club and watching them… There’s a band from, I think they’re from Detroit, called Morphin. And it’s a very unique band. I would highly recommend giving them a listen. It’s like a bassist with two bass strings, a saxophone, and a drummer, three pieces. And I don’t know why, when I first heard them, I did not like them. But last year something happened, it clicked, and I was like, ‘that’s a unique band.’ And I cannot imagine the feeling that I would go through if I watched them live in a small club. So that’s one band for sure.  

And the other one would definitely, 100% no doubt be The Beatles. Just because, John Lennon is one of my favourites… I know John Lennon is a bit… Like the way he treated human beings around him, but he is one of my favourite various musicians in general so actually now that I say that Jimi Hendrix too.

Alina: I would love to hear Freddie Mercury. It’s a different experience. 

What is your musical timeline?

Alina: I have to say thanks to my mom because she was really excited about me singing and I started really early I think it was not big it was just like me and my mom singing together at first and I was a really young age she was like four or five years old something like that. Then it was actually her idea she was always like pushing me and not to do more and better in terms of music she signed me up in music school and then that was her influence I went to music academy to study that so… My mom was my biggest trigger to start doing music seriously. 

Afrid: For me, I started almost 15 years ago. And no one’s a musician in my family. I just remember, I don’t know if it’s still a thing in Spain. And it’s definitely has died out in North America. I think there’s a thing called Battle of the bands where a lot of bands compete with each other. I remember I was in grade five or six and I watched my senior, like in the school, playing the guitar; I heard it and I was like, ‘this is it’.  I learned most of guitar just by watching YouTube. I guess kids these days, they play a lot of video games. For me, the guitar was my video game. Like it was just like, ‘oh I can play this’.It’s been 15 years of playing it and I enjoy it. […] I think guitar music is coming back. It’s coming back pretty big. Like, there’s a band from New York called Geese.  

I think guitar was dead somewhere when EDM was taking over, EDM and hip hop. But now the crazy part is hip hop is 100 on music now. Hip hop is literally gone 100 on. I’m 27 years old, so it’s very weird to see so much change in the last 10 years. Like I remember like when hip hop was, everyone was doing the hip hop stuff when I was in university. And then now it’s an underground. John Ranteter is coming back. So, it’s pretty crazy. And there’s another band from, I think they’re from Utah called Squid. Really amazing. […] I think music is evolving very, very, quickly because of the of the nature of it lately. The way of producing has speed up a lot. So, a lot of music is coming out daily so it’s normal for people to consume a lot of music of one type and get support of it quicker I think.

To finish, we’d like to ask for an anecdote.

Alina: There is one with my band, but I don’t know if you want me to… (Laughs).

Afrid: I don’t know how to tell this story because it’s fun to live through it. I’ve never told this story to anyone outside. So, we started in 2023 and we worked hard and in less than a year we got a slot at the second main stage of a pretty big festival in Toronto. It’s called… It’s called Blurfest.  

We got there and it’s the first time we played. I played, I don’t know about Alina, but I couldn’t see the end of the crowd, it was that big and I remember this was our main. We had five different shows like five different slots throughout the weekend and this was the last one the most important one. Ukrainians have a lot of dumplings with cabbage. It’s like dumplings it’s like Polish pierogies, in Ukrainian you call them varaniky.  

Alina: So, they have lots of lots of type of fillings, it could be potato, mushrooms, meat, cabbage, sauerkraut.  

Afrid: Because we were performing, we got them for free, like as a performer. And I remember I was excited because I love eating random food. I love eating food of other countries, like other countries, other cultures, explore… Then, I remember all of us were like really you know we have to give a good performance and everything and I

was nervous too about the last performance, so I was eating more and more cabbage, and I remember literally we were supposed to get on the stage at 4 o’clock. Literally, at 3.55, it made me so mad that I had to use the washroom. And because it’s a street festival, right? It’s not like you can go to a washroom anytime you want. It’s like wild souls.

The funny part was, we found a washroom and it was literally the stage where we’ll perform. And it was like right behind. Behind the stage, right behind the stage where we’ll perform, and it was like right behind the stage. Right behind the stage. Right behind the stage and I remember I was in the washroom and the entire band was like knocking and they were like, get out of here to go.

Alina: just like host lady, she was asking, ‘oh guys, are you ready? Are you good to go?’ And we were like, ‘oh, we were just waiting for guitar.’ She’s like, ‘where’s your guitar?’ So, we were just like pointing on the toilet. She’s like, ‘oh, he’s in his office.’

Afrid: I remember like to save our face everyone went on stage, and I was there anyways I know that’s a stupid story but it’s a fun story because it’s fun when you’re in the story. It’s not as fun when you see it, but that’s a funny thing that happened. Whenever we order food together, the first thing I check is does it have cabbage.