Northwest CanCon

Bands typically start when a couple of friends decide to form a group and then bring in a couple of additional musicians to fill out the ensemble. With the right mix of talent, hard work and luck they achieve a degree of success. But often, after a few years and a couple of albums, one of the founding members realizes that the band isn’t quite what they wanted to do for the rest of their life, and they leave. The remaining band members usually take one of three paths: they find someone to fill the empty slot, rearrange the songs for a smaller group, or just disband.

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The Vancouver band P:Ano chose a different route. When co-founder Larissa Loyva left the group around 2006, the remaining three members started a whole new group called No Kids.

No Kids’ first album, Come into my house, came out in 2008. When I first listened to the album, I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly impressed. The music is kind of weird, with lots of words, unusual instrumentation, and sparse on hooks.

Simple things resonate really quickly with people … some of the [songs] we’re trying to put across are a little more difficult. Or maybe it’s all pap. What do I know? —Nick Krgovich

It turns out that I was approaching it wrong. I was expecting a conventional album with some catchy licks and simple lyrics, and that is not what this is. It turns out that Come into my house is really a series of sound portraits of Ivy League socialites. Armed with that understanding, all of a sudden the album makes a lot more sense.

The best part is that I keep hearing new things with every listen, like the surprisingly intricate rhythms or additional details in the lyrics. That makes it durable.

The irony is that the very elements that make this album good may also be its downfall. If you have to explain to someone how to listen to the album, for example, is it really communicating its message? And how many listeners will pay attention long enough if you have to play it a dozen times before you can appreciate it? This may end up as one of the albums that people listen to because it’s good for them, one that people 20 years from now reference to seem smart.

I’m really interested in primary colour emotions, but using them in a very specific way. —Nick Krgovich

Now as you’ll hear in the interview, Nick Krgovich says that the album isn’t really about heartache and loneliness. It’s hard to argue with the guy who wrote it, but an awful lot of the characters he portrays are heartbroken and lonely. “I know you’re not the only one for me, but you make that awfully hard to see,” says one in “For Halloween.” In “The beaches all closed,” the narrator repeatedly pines, “I wish I could be running ‘round with you.” And in “Bluster in the air,” he sings “Well, if you wanna go, I won’t let nothing hold me, for I’d rather be sitting across the table from nobody tonight.”

Krgovich, who constantly refers to books, movies, art and music from the popular to the obscure, says the songs are not about him. Come into my house, then, is art for art’s sake. But I’m still not sure whether the work is pretentious or genius.

No Kids are currently on tour with Mt. Eerie.

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