Bienvenue sur / Welcome to

PP: Hello, thank you for giving us your time to answer our questions.
PAREIDOLON: Hi, thank you so much for being interested in our answers!

PP: I was very surprised to see a new album come out after all these years. Why this period of almost eight years?
PAREIDOLON: So many reasons all just accumulating. Biggest one being all of us have regular day jobs that take most of our time, so we had to use a lot of our days off and late nights to record it. On top of that, we all have other projects we’re involved in that require more commitment; Anna was often touring the US or Europe and Brittany was in school getting her degree. Throw in health issues, family events, COVID shutdowns, etc. and you’ve not got a lot of time to make something this involved.

PP: You come from Nelson, British Columbia, a place that's almost in the middle of nowhere; is it a peaceful place?
PAREIDOLON: It is incredibly peaceful. The whole town is built into the side of a mountain, with forest and lake integrated with urban life. It’s very small, outside of tourist season it’s very quiet, and we were so lucky to have such a great music school in a place like that where we could all meet.

PP: What are the main differences between Aporia and the new album?
PAREIDOLON: Everything, really. They’re almost polar opposites of eachother - Aporía was made from class projects, no cohesive sound or theme, rushed in 3 days of recording, the first thing any of us ever recorded and released; while The Unattainable Shore was written as an album with a thematic concept, meticulously thought out and engineered, and shows us after a decade of live playing/sound engineering/songwriting expertise. I’m very proud of what we did on the first record, but both are products of the eras we made them in and it’s a night and day difference to me.

PP: I think that Anna Backus and Anna Katarina are the same person?
PAREIDOLON: Haha, they are! She changed her stage name in 2018 I think for her solo project and wanted consistency I suppose.

PP: What happened to Branden Green, who was on the first album?
PAREIDOLON: Branden didn’t continue pursuing music like the rest of us did - we loved having him around, but he moved to more blue-collar work and started raising a family. We keep in touch, and he cheers us on from the sidelines!

PP: I listened to "Aporia" after reviewing, writing about, and purchasing ‘’The Unattainable Shore’’; could this have biased my perception of your music?
PAREIDOLON: I think it’s possible, but it could go many ways. That first album is raw, honest, and naive - looking back on it after hearing the new one could be a fond look at a young band finding their way, or it could be a disappointment after hearing what we’ve become capable of!

PP: Aporia" was less than 37 minutes long, while "The Unattainable Shore" was almost 67 minutes; what were the reasons for this difference if there are any?
PAREIDOLON: Aporía was originally meant to have one more song which would have brought it up to around 43 minutes, but we just didn’t have time to get it to a recordable state. Demos exist, and hopefully one day I can remaster the album and include that track as intended, but we just could only do so much in 3 days. The Unattainable Shore was supposed to be around 58 minutes, but I added “The Ebb And Flow Of Heartache” late, in maybe 2022, as I felt the album needed a slower and more somber ending than “Voie Aérienne” gave it. I think Ideally, 45 minutes is the perfect length for an album and it’s what I’ll be aiming for on the 3rd attempt.

PP: Can you summarize the main topic of "The Unattainable Shore" for us?
PAREIDOLON: The overall theme is striving for something and falling short, like a ship trying to reach a faraway shore but being swept back out to sea. Individually, the songs deal with topics like unrequited love, self esteem and depression issues, travel disasters, alien abduction, mental disorders, etc. but all follow a somewhat cynical narrative of coming close to what you want and having it slip away. Not the cheeriest of records, but we tried to infuse a sense of humour to lighten it up a bit as well.

PP: Who was responsible for the visual design of the new album?
PAREIDOLON: I came up with the overall aesthetic and designed the packaging, but a very talented artist named Jordan Weiss (who also went to the same college as us for art) painted the cover art. He did an incredible job, and we’re looking forward to hopefully having him paint the cover for the next album too!

PP: I think adding more flute to the next album would be a good approach for the composition; what do you think?
PAREIDOLON: Absolutely! The current plan is to go in a bit more of a folk-prog direction on the next album and utilize Brittany and Anna’s folk songwriting experience. Flute would fit in perfectly, and I’ll likely be searching for local flautists as the development progresses. Good call!

PP: What are your influences and what musical styles do you particularly appreciate?
PAREIDOLON: Everyone in the band has completely different music tastes and influences, from metal, to prog, to folk, to pop, to electronic, to jazz, there’s a bit of everything. As the primary songwriter, I draw a lot from bands like Camel, Genesis, Renaissance, Rush, and blend them with heavier stuff like Dream Theater, Opeth, Leprous, Haken, etc. But I always have a soft spot for 80s-esque synthesizers and vocoders, and I love a lot of the pop music that happened in that era. Controversial, but I think 80s Rush is the peak of the band!

PP: Besides Pareidolon, do you participate in any other groups, either online or offline?
PAREIDOLON: I do! I play bass for two other bands, The Out Seer (with Ashley and Aybars) and Charlie PS, along with my solo metal project Soular. Anna has her solo stuff as well as her folk band Rumour Mill, Brittany does her own solo material as Zayda, and Aybars is in more bands than I can count but my favourite is his jazz-fusion group 87 Inch Moth.

PP: Who came up with the name for the group?
PAREIDOLON: I did, before I even formed the band. I was listening to Haken’s song “Pareidolia” (the word refers to seeing faces and patterns in random natural occurrences like clouds or tree bark) and playing a video game where the enemies were called Eidolons (another term for ghost or spectre) and tried to merge the two words. So, it kind of means Ghostface?

PP: Do you have any plans for the coming months?
PAREIDOLON: Right now, I’m just dealing with CD orders and promotion like this interview, trying to get as many eyes and ears on the music as possible! I hope to start writing for the next album within 6 months or so, but after touring all summer with The Out Seer I’m thinking a bit of a musical break might be called for.

PP: What are your other activities or professions besides Pareidolon?
PAREIDOLON: As I mentioned earlier, everyone in the band has regular day jobs to work around. I am in tech support, Aybars and Anna do live sound, Brittany does music therapy, and Ashley does teaching and senior care. Aside from that, we spend a lot of time with our other bands and trying to make ends meet in one of the most expensive cities in North America!

PP: Thank you for your collaboration and all the best for PAREIDOLON
PAREIDOLON: Thank you for featuring us, it’s been a lot of fun answering your well-thought questions!