Vancouver-based Mother Mother have become a fixture at WOXY thanks to their first two albums. Back in 2007, their debut album Touch Up was picked up for distribution by the Last Gang label following an earlier (and slightly different) self-release of the disc. When we started to play songs like “Neighbour” and the title track “Touch Up”, listeners began to heavily request the band and they ended up hitting #68 on our 97 Best Of 2007 countdown.

Their second full-length release, O My Heart, was released in the fall of 2008 and, this time around, the response from WOXY listeners around the globe was even stronger. As the requests and e-mails poured in to the station, we gave the record quite a bit more airplay than the first. It ended up becoming our 20th most-played release of 2008 and we began to lament the fact that the band’s touring schedule never brought them anywhere close to our neck of the woods. As soon as we started to plan a return trip to EAR studios for SXSW, we reached out to the band’s management to see if they would be making the trip too. The stars finally aligned and we were able to host the band during our week in Austin.

Sometimes a band sounds so good on record that you assume there’s a bit of studio trickery involved to make it all work. When you listen to the songs in this live performance I think you’ll recognize that the opposite is in play here. Mother Mother replicate their vocal harmonies (frequently in triplicate) so effortlessly live that it’s almost scary. It’s all the more impressive when you realize that part of those unique harmonies is the band’s newest member Jasmin Parkin who just joined the lineup in late January (and replaced original member Debra-Jean Creelman).

In the interview here, Ryan Guldemond (lead vocals/guitars) discusses how he approaches the songwriting process, the experience of touring across the U.S. with fellow Canadian rocker Sam Roberts, and the possibility of working with R&B singer Solange Knowles who tracked them down at SXSW to express her love for their music. The fact that they haven’t broken through to a wider U.S. audience is a bit of a mystery to us, but hopefully they’ll continue making music as strong as Touch Up for a very long time.

Tracklisting -
O My Heart
Body Of Years
-Interview-
Burning Pile
Wrecking Ball
Miles

Mother Mother – O My Heart (Live On WOXY.com)
Mother Mother – Body Of Years (Live On WOXY.com)
Mother Mother – Wrecking Ball (Live On WOXY.com)
Mother Mother – Burning Pile (Live On WOXY.com)
Mother Mother – Miles (Live On WOXY.com)

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 1:13 pm and is filed under MP3's, SXSW 2009 Session Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.