666th Post - Grimes By Cotton Mouth

Grimes Devon (Cotton Mouth Remix)

"It's got samples from A Guy Called Gerald, Talking Heads, a miami bass group called Rican Crew, and most of the beat is from "Beat Bop" by Rammellzee and K.Rob, "produced" by Jean-Michel Basqiuat."
- Martin Horn, Cotton Mouth

Arbutus continues its long ascendancy to that great plane where crucial and relevant music is made with some more of their remixes. In this case, fellow Montreal-er and studio wizard (owner and producer at Digital Bird) Martin Horn, known to many as Cotton Mouth, takes a stab at Grimes' Devon and comes up with a beautiful Colin Newman-esque variation on an ethereal classic. 4AD or Mute should be on the phone in minutes.

Goldkicks Loves Arbutus Records

Silly Kissers You Could Even Like Me (Remix Pack)

I've never made a secret of my undying affection for the Silly Kissers (and the rest of the Arbutus Records stable!), and of course, it's an affection that's shared by others with more musical skill than I, which is why I'm really excited that this came to fruition. I'm super-pleased to present a special collaboration between Arbutus Records and three amazing artists, with minimal executive production assistance from myself. Jack Tennis, Sven Gully, and Martin Horn of Cotton Mouth contribute three different takes on You Could Even Like Me. Big-ups to Marilis Cardinal (super-PRista!) for making this all happen!

Cotton Mouth

Cotton Mouth Black Hand

When Martin Horn isn't slaving away behind a mixing console, putting polish on the music of a number of Montreal's brash new faces n' names (Parlovr, for example), he's... Slaving away in front and behind of a mixing console, writing and producing his own music under the moniker Cotton Mouth. In the case of the EP from which this song is taken, produced for an Ontario tour with The Luyas earlier this spring, the guys from Parlovr joined Martin. Mr. Horn described the process thusly,

I usually lay down the structure of a song, they kinda fill in the blanks in their own style. Occasionally I write elements of the arrangement based on things that they played when we jammed on loose structures I've put together. It's largely collaborative, even though I'm kinda steering the ship, and in any releases we do, it's credited as the whole band, regardless of who actually played what.

Cotton Mouth's musical dynamic, with liberal harvesting from the loosely defined and poorly maintained aural fields of art rock, is washed free of some of the more abrasive and atonal elements of one would expect, made all the more pleasant by the presence of actual melodic writing chops.

You can catch Cotton Mouth live in Montreal as part of Pop Montreal's Fringe Pop event on June 18th at 7pm at Parc des Ameriques, the following night as part of NXNE at Rancho Relaxo in Toronto, and as part of Osheaga on August 1st at Parc Jean Drapeau back in Montreal.