Singled Out: Supergroup CVCHE's Thumper

Canadian supergroup CVCHE, which is made up of Jimmy Shaw (Metric, Broken Social Scene), Liam O'Neil (Kings of Leon), and Dave Hodge (Broken Social Scene, Leisure Cruise) as well as conceptual artist Jon Morris, just released their new single "Thumper", and to celebrate we asked them to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

The name "Thumper" came from an old Korg MS-20 that had developed a bit of a ghost in the machine. During a late-night studio session, this particular synth started making an insistent, almost sentient low-end pulse... and no matter what we programmed, this ghostly thump kept wanting to creep back in and be heard. Instead of fighting it, we named it "Thumper" after the way it seemed to kick against the walls of whatever sequence we built around it. That rogue pulse became the heartbeat of what would eventually become our new single, and ironically, in the end, after we built the track around it, we muted it.

Our recording process for "Thumper" epitomizes how CVCHE creates music: organized chaos through analog exploration. Dave Hodge usually starts by making a beat, Jimmy and Liam start building synth stations, and from there, it's pure experimentation. Each of us Is the commander of our stations of four or five vintage synths. We'll lock into a groove and just let it breathe for twenty, sometimes thirty minutes, with each member laying in chords, melodies, riding faders, tweaking filters, and layering sequences in real time. There's something magical about syncing up through intuition, and knowing each other really well.

"Thumper" was born from one of those extended sessions where we'd locked into this weird Korg thing (even though we, ultimately, muted it). The track evolved as we layered arpeggiated sequences and pads from a Prophet-10, CS80, Jupiter 8, Modcan, Synthersizers.com modular, Buchla, OBX8... (the list goes on). What started as a 25-minute journey eventually crystallized into six minutes of Thumper as we stripped away the excess. The final track maintains that sense of live performance while distilling it into something that builds and hits. It's electronic music... "Rural Canadian Techno" as we like to call it... that we hope you feel breathing with human timing.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

Singled Out: Supergroup CVCHE's Thumper

News > CVCHE