Visiting the Canadian Islands

Jamie Thompson (aka J'aime Tambeur) and Patrice Agbokou of Islands sat down with Bostonist before their first show of their North American tour, on Wednesday night at the Middle East, to discuss their new album, Return to the Sea, file sharing and secret Canadian Handshakes (shhhh!!). You might remember Jamie & lead singer Nick Diamond's other band, The Unicorns, and their other other band, the Corn Gangg. So what does the new venture sound like? It's been compared to Paul Simon's Graceland, as there's a bit of worldbeat running through the whimsical happy pop. The boys (and there are 8 of them) entered the stage dressed in their Sunday whites, joyfully swapped instruments, and played to an adoring all-ages crowd. We spoke briefly with an older gent at the bar, who explained he brought his daughter, a sophomore in high school, all the way from Kennebunkport, Maine. It was her first show and copied the Islands CD for him to get his approval to see it. "I thought it was pretty good," he explained. There you go, a rock band respectable enough to bring home to dad.

Who are the current touring members, beyond yourself & Nick?

J: Patrice, who is really a heart & soul member of Islands, one of the definitive touches. We also have a fellow name Jim Guthrie playing the guitar and singing. He’s a fantastically gifted performer in his own right; he has his own projects that are amazing and worth checking out. We got the fantastic Chow brothers, Sebastian and Alex, on violins and oboes and keyboards and percussion and everything else. We have got Patrick Gregoire, who’s our new resident heart throb in the band on bass clarinet, and banjo and guitar, and Mark Lawson on the knobs and faders.

So, between the Unicorns, the Corn Gangg and Islands, you’ve had 2 full lengths, 2 EPs and 3 band names?

J: Yes. We’ve actually had several other band names you haven’t even heard of about and lots of demos. So, the list isn’t quite complete…that’s not actually a question. It's not really 3 different band names as much as 3 completely different bands that happen to have me & Nick in them.

Its been mentioned by Nick that there’s a love of African Pop…

J: Its hard to characterize or lump Africa like it’s a country, like Nevada, that it’s one thing. Ethiopian music is different than Jùjú guitar.

Is there a specific region of music you were listening to?

J: I enjoy a lot of Ethiopian music from the 70’s and I got into this Jùjú guitar player named Ebenezer Obey, and Soukous compilations, a little bit of Congolese drum styles and Senegalese drumming, the polyphonic chanting of Bambuti pygmies.

Is that a theme for just this album or do you think that this is something you’re going to bring to other albums?

J: I don’t know if it’s a theme so much as an influence. The songs on this record are cohesive but they don’t all sound the same. It's not like we’re like 'this is the African record, the next one is all didgeridoo music.'

P: It’s an organic thing, you know, when we started the album. When he called me up to perform on the album, I don’t think he was expecting me to just lay down some African bass lines. Basically the influences came naturally, it takes the form of the journey, where we were gonna go.