Essaie Pas

Essaie Pas

Essaie Pas is a Montréal-based electronic duo from Canada, active since 2010. The group consists of Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau.

Background

Davidson and Guerineau both bring separate experience to the project. Davidson has released two solo records, while Guerineau is known for production work with Canadian underground artists including Dirty Beaches and Femminielli.

The duo begins in 2010 and first issues a series of very limited singles before releasing their debut album, Nuit de noce, on Teenage Menopause Records in 2013. Their early sound, combining drawling guitars, French-language fragments, and minimal electronics, leads DFA Records to book them to support Factory Floor on that group’s first North American tour.

Style and later work

Essaie Pas is associated with minimal synth, synthpop, minimal wave, EBM, and electronic music, although the group’s music is not confined to a single genre. Its sound is described through references to film soundtracks, electronic body music, disco, and techno, with lyrics that deal with fantasies, obsessions, and a sense of emptiness.

The duo’s second album, Demain est une autre nuit, grows out of a difficult period after a European tour, when they return to Montréal and lose both their studio and their apartment. Their former studio, La Brique, closes because of gentrification, and they later use a temporary practice space at the offices of Le Filles Électriques. That space becomes Pierre’s studio and Marie’s home, and the surrounding industrial building shapes the record’s sound and atmosphere. Guerineau describes the production as clearer, more open, and deeper, while Davidson and Guerineau both point to touring and living in different places as an influence on the feeling of estrangement and international connection in the music.

Demain est une autre nuit is named from an inside joke and takes its title from the idea that night is a space of freedom, but also of loneliness, memory, and emotional tension.