Texture & Light has topped a national music chart for the second week in a row.
The Powell River band started out as an indie dream rock solo recording project of DJ Trevor Refix, who spent the better part of his 20s spinning records in underground clubs around Western Canada.
“It was something that was swimming around my head for so many years, I just wanted to get it down,” said Refix.
The band’s first album, The Hard Problem of Consciousness, was self-released as a digital download and on vinyl on November 5. Its first single, “A Quiet Place,” was selected for CBC Radio Three’s R3-30 indie rock chart, a weekly countdown of the top 30 indie songs in Canada.
“We got chosen for the long list by CBC, but then to get on the published list it was through fan votes,” said Refix. “I bet I could draw a 100-mile radius around where most of our votes came from that first week. But that’s the great thing about being on this chart—it’s quickly exposing people from outside my sphere of influence to our music.”
The album has received favourable reviews and has been charted on various campus and community radio stations across the country, he said.
For the past five years he worked on the project, but living in Vancouver left him with little time or energy to focus.
“It was such an up and down thing,” he said. “Sometimes I’d go a month without touching an instrument. I just had no time.”
Recording in a home studio in the middle of the city did not make the process easier.
“Part of the problem of living in the city is that I was always half recording it,” he said. During the day, the constant hum of the six-lane thoroughfare next to his apartment meant having to record parts knowing that they would have to be redone later.
Then in the fall of 2011, Refix and his wife Clare Mervyn bought a house with a dedicated studio in Powell River.
Though some songs found on the release existed as early as 2007, 80 per cent of the album was rewritten, he said.
“A lot of the songs were written about stealing my wife out of the city,” he said.
Refix wrote more songs about his new small-town life and the people who inspired him, he added.
“Powell River plays a huge part in this album,” he said. “The album wouldn’t even exist if I hadn’t moved here.”
As a club DJ, Refix would make music with his computer and play it during his sets, but he wanted to do something more with this project.
“I’ve been thinking about how this could be played live,” he said.
It did not take long after starting to share the album that friends began to volunteer to learn parts for the songs. Since the album was completed almost a year ago, Texture & Light has evolved to become a five-member live band with plans in the works for a tour.
“Powell River is full of creative and supportive people,” he said. “All of a sudden I had a guitar player and a bass player.” Refix said he is happy to give out parts as it frees him up to focus on his singing.
The band has evolved into Refix on guitar, synthesizer and vocals, Mervyn on bass, Kevin Turpin on lead guitar, Tony Colton on synthesizer and Lyell Woloschuk on electronic percussion.
“It’s been interesting,” he added. “Almost like creating a cover band for the album. It’s been good, but a little nerve-racking.”
For more information and to hear the album, readers can visit Texture & Light online.
