Post-rock, math rock, progressive rock, art rock, noise rock, whatever you want to call it, Canadian band Baby Labour (note the Canadian “u”) fit in each category. Like a crazed Captain Beefheart with severe ADHD, yet still cognizant enough to keep the music from flying completely out of control, the trio tear their way through seven unpredictable and very fun tracks on their punnily titled new album Aruban Sandwich, which is out now.
“The songs on Aruban Sandwich were meticulously rehearsed before heading into the studio,” the guys tell PopMatters. “We knew that the record was going to be recorded in a short period of time, and that we would have next to no time to fuck around in the studio, so we had to get our shit together. It was important for us to make a big sounding record and we knew Mike (Fond of MCS Studios in Toronto) could make that happen. Once we recorded all of the drum parts, we rented an old solid-state Peavey bass amp. Since we don’t have a bass player, we needed to run all of our octave-down guitar sounds through a big ass speaker to give some girth to the low end sounds. Since the parts were well rehearsed we could spend time trying to get the guitars sounding exactly how we wanted them. None of those super jangley shitty thin guitars. We need some beef broth buddy. So once we got the beef, it was just a matter of blazing the tracks. Lots of pedal combinations were tried; there is definitely some wacky sounds on this record. Our main goal since the beginning has been to push our own musical boundaries and it’s exciting to see that some folk seem to get down with it.”