Q&A: knitting
Montreal-based indie rock quartet, knitting, released their debut album, ‘Some Kind Of Heaven’ via Mint Records on September 6th. Working with Scott Munro from Preoccupations, this ten track release delves into universally felt themes of complex, strained relationships and individual identity. After catching the band open for Cherry Glazerr during this year’s Sled Island, I ran it back with Mischa Dempsey to chat about the creation of their newest release.
REVERIE: Hi Mischa! Thanks for chatting with me. For those who don’t know anything about Knitting, can you give us a brief band origin/lore breakdown?
I started making music as knitting as a sort of pandemic lockdown project. I had a few half-written songs I hadn’t gotten around to recording, and finally had all this time ahead of me. I recorded and released our self titled EP/short album on bandcamp in May 2021. As live music started coming back in various forms it made me really miss playing in a band, so I asked a few of my friends to start learning those original knitting songs, and we played our first show in April 2022. Knitting is now made up of myself (Mischa), Sarah Harris (Property, Amery), Piper Curtis (Sunforger), and Andy Mulcair (Marlaena Moore, Power Buddies). We just released our first album together – Some Kind of Heaven – which we wrote together, and recorded with Scott Munro (Preoccupations).
REVERIE: Knitting is a hobby that many partake in. First question, do you knit? And secondly, why did you choose that as your band name?
I knit, but very seasonally – it is a very fall/winter activity to me. I was knitting a lot during the more severe lockdown months of the pandemic, around the time I was hoping to choose a project name and release my songs. I’d been seeing some -ing names around for a while (Shopping, Loving, Necking, and so forth) and kinda liked the idea of a soft sounding name being paired with kind of noisy music.
REVERIE: Congratulations on the debut release, ‘Some Kind Of Heaven’! As a band, what do you think would be your “Some Kind Of Heaven?”
Thank you so much! We’re really excited to have the album out, it’s been a long time in the works. Collectively, our “Some kind of Heaven” is probably Universal Basic Income, ha-ha. Having basic income is the dream, and would let us dedicate more time to writing and playing music – but the catch is of course that we still live under late stage capitalism. Classic!
REVERIE: Your single ‘Spirit Gum’ explores the theme of the end of a domestic relationship. What were some inspirations in themes you wanted to emanate in this release?
I wrote Spirit Gum about a friendship and roommate situation dissolving in a really sudden and disorienting way. It was a really isolating experience, and while there’s a lot of media out there about romantic breakups, there’s not much out there about friend breakups that I could turn to. This song was kind of a way for me to explore what that experience was like for me. Because we had also been roommates, I thought about the way it felt to be in our old apartment after our falling out, but before either of us had moved out. I tried to translate that feeling of facing something alien, that was once very familiar and comforting, into the overall feeling of the song.
REVERIE: How did “Some Kind Of Heaven” develop as an album? Why did you pick the name & what led to the choosing of the album cover?
I started writing some of the songs on the album as far back as 2019. The album really came together in the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, when I started bringing new riffs and lyrics to band practice, and we arranged the songs together. The name comes from the chorus of the first song on the album, “Heaven”, and was one of the last things we decided on. It seemed to fit the sort of disillusioned or uncertain attitude that shows up in a lot of the songs on the album. We commissioned our friend Jeb Parke from Philadelphia to create the album artwork, and are so in love with what they came up with.
REVERIE: What was the recording process with Mint Records like? What hardships did you face during the recording of “Some Kind Of Heaven” and as a band, how do you tackle that?
We recorded the record in August 2023 with Scott “Monty” Munro from Preoccupations, at Studio St. Zo in Montreal. Monty is the best– we were in the studio for four days, playing around with guitar pedals and layering tracks. It was a lot of fun! The hardship came when I went into the studio with Sarah to record vocals, and I realized my voice had dropped over the course of the summer and I could no longer sing some of the songs I wrote in my old vocal register. Sarah was unbelievably patient and stayed solid throughout the ordeal – we ended up taking 8 over hours to record the vocals on “Sleeper”, most of it done nearly one word at a time.
Working with Mint as a label has been a dream! They have shown us so much support as a band, and working with them on the release of the record was really exciting.
REVERIE: Going back to ‘Spirit Gum’, the music video is absolutely genius. What led to the decision of having all four of you in puppet form? How was the process of recording the video?
Piper really wanted to make puppets! They handled most of the puppet-making, and I helped with the hair and bodies. The video itself is an embellishment of the awful time I had looking for an apartment in Montreal after my roommate and I fell out. It was almost impossible to even get an apartment viewing, let alone sign a lease, and I ended up moving 3 times in one year, and roach infested studio apartment for 6 months. The puppets in the video kind of symbolize the dehumanizing feeling of having to basically grovel for somewhere normal and safe to live in this despicable housing market.
REVERIE: Did you have any particular artists or songs you listened to throughout the duration of gathering inspiration for the release?
We created a playlist together before going into the studio, of songs we wanted to reference with the production. On it are “High” by Slow Pulp, “Between Tides” by DIIV, “Celebrity Skin” by Hole, among others!
REVERIE: With being based in Montreal—a cultural music center in Canada, how has living in Montreal impacted Knitting? Do you have a favourite venue to play at in Montreal?
Montreal is a great city for playing music. While there was a natural lull leading up to, and during the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the guitar music scene in Montreal is really flourishing right now. Bands like Sunforger, Ribbon Skirt, Puberty Well, Dresser, Laughing… the list goes on, it’s kind of crazy how many good good bands there are here. There are lots of good venues in Montreal, but we end up playing most often at Casa del Popolo or Sotterenea.
REVERIE: If you had an NPR Tiny Desk, 3-5 songs, what tracks would you play?
Would be a dream come true! I think we’d play “College Rock Song #1” “Baby Carrots” “Heaven” and “Sleeper.”
REVERIE: Thanks for chatting with me Mischa! What’s next in store for Knitting? Any chance you're coming back to play a show in Calgary?
We’re playing a few shows in the United States in November, in support of the record release. After that, we’re planning to get back to work writing the next one! And we are definitely planning to come back to Calgary sometime soon <3 Thanks for taking the time to ask us about the record