Photo by Reynard Li

Ohbijou are redefined on new album 'Metal Meets'

by Nicole Villeneuve

September 26, 2011

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In the summer of 2009, Ohbijou‘s Casey and Jennifer Mecija were forced out of their rented bungalow in Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood. A nasty mold problem had been discovered, and the landlord decided to remove the tenants and move into the house herself.

It wasn’t just them she was evicting, though. The Mecija house, more commonly known as the Bellwoods House, was the hub of Toronto’s indie-folk scene at the time, fostering local artists such as Katie Stelmanis, Taylor Kirk, and The D’Urbervilles’ John O’Regan, who would go on to international acclaim as Austra, Timber Timbre, and Diamond Rings. The Bellwoods community would spawn not just stars, but two Friends In Bellwoods compilations that documented the scene and its players and would go on to raise over $30,000 for the Daily Bread Food Bank. It wasn’t an easy thing to walk away from.

“We were super proud of what we did out of that house,” says Casey, impressively cheerful after losing a night’s sleep for a video shoot and an early-morning radio interview. “With our previous two albums, a lot of it was anchored by Queen West. It was really sort of localized. [But] not having the house really opens us up to finding different ways to get involved.”

For Mecija that includes working as an art coordinator for the CLUTCH program with the Kapisanan Philippine Centre in Kensington Market. The program grants young Filipina women access to professional tools and guidance as they explore identity and culture through art. It’s something that Mecija strives for herself, and in making the third Ohbijou album, Metal Meets, she says that moving out of the Bellwoods house was actually necessary for growth, both personally, and as a band.

“It was a much needed change,” she admits. “On this record, I wanted to pay homage to and create a deeper story to our band (which also includes bassist Heather Kirby, drummer James Bunton, cellist Anissa Hart, keyboardist Ryan Carley, and violinist Jennifer Mecija) . We play pop music, but we also have different backgrounds that are interesting. We’re from a very specific area and neighbourhood and we love it, but taking time to figure out what our own personal stories are [was important].”

Indeed, Metal Meets looks far outside of the Queen Street bubble, exploring the diasporas and her own family’s history in the Philippines (“Balikbayan”), as well as the building of a new community of sorts—the band held multiple writing retreats out of town for the album. Trekking to Dyer’s Bay, a “storybook little hamlet” in the Bruce Peninsula, the band made dinner together every night and even had the locals (of whom there weren’t actually many) over to jam. They scheduled a block of four different writing sessions, rejuvenating a process that had become a bit stale.

In another change of process, Carley and Jennifer both wrote songs for the album this time around. You can hear Jennifer on lead vocals on her track “Iron and Ore,” and Carley wrote album standout “Anser,” a dense track that benefitted from working with producer Jace Lasek of Besnard Lakes. Metal Meets is stripped down (less auxiliary instruments), but the band sounds bigger than ever. By changing almost everything they knew about being a band, Ohbijou were able to find new reasons to do so.

“The world is so much more complex than just being in a band and being on tour. We wanted to seek out different things in order for our band to grow and mature, and find some new depth. Just traverse the city in a different way” Mecija says. “And we made the time to come back.”

Watch the band talk more about Metal Meets in the “This is Ohbijou” video, set to new song “Echo Bay” and directed by Reynard Li, below.

Metal Meets is out September 27 on Last Gang. Catch Ohbijou on one of their Canadian tour dates through September and October.

Tags: Music, News, Casey Mecija, Ohbijou

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