I first came across Marble Lion when I received a link to the song Foliage through some form of internet serendipity. The fusion of melody and noise and strange textures immediately had me hooked. Then I went over to their four-song digital EP and decided that I'd found one of my favourite new Montreal bands. Tomorrow (Friday) night they're playing a show at La Prisme with North America and Cop Car Bonfire before heading in different directions for the summer. I took a moment to talk with the band about their formation, influences, and future plans, as well as their very ingenious way of making music videos from found footage.

When did you form Marble Lion?

We started writing music together (mostly through emailing files to each other) last summer, but didn't actually come together as a band until about October.

How did you three meet each other?

Karl and Jeremy went to the same high school in Chicago and played shows together back then but never in the same band. The three of us all ended up moving to Montreal to go to McGill a few years ago (Jordan came from Kingsville, ON) and have been hanging out ever since.

You call yourself a witch and noise-pop project, what are your influences in these genres?

We've all been listening to bands like Atlas Sound, Balam Acab, Broadcast, Dirty Projectors for a while. It's not exactly like a mash-up of these sounds, but elements of each are definitely in mind when we are writing. Heavy witch house beats, droney looping, shifting time signatures...

How long ago did you record your EP? How did Taylor from Braids get involved?

We recorded the EP between mid October and the end of November. Karl and Jordan have known Taylor since they all lived together in residence at McGill. Braids built a great recording space somewhat recently, and Taylor was willing to help us out with the mixing process. We were able to release the EP in December, he's been helping us out a lot.

Your videos seem to use a lot of really interesting found footage - how did you put these together?

It's pretty much all just footage ripped from youtube that seemed to correspond to our music. The Kaleidoscopic Eyes video uses footage from a film made in the 60's of Syd Barrett tripping on acid for the first time. That song isn't necessarily about drugs, but the footage worked well as a visual representation. And the Foliage video combines footage from a few different early expressionist films. Movies from that era are really aesthetically complex, which makes them pretty effective as material for a music video. Also, being silent films, they were made with the intention of being viewed with musical accompaniment.

What's next? Are you working on more material? A full LP?

We just finished up our second round of recording, but we're not totally sure what we'll do with the new material. Ideally these songs will contribute to a full-length that we could release in the near future. The material on the EP was mostly written individually before we collaborated as a band. But having played together for almost a year, our sound has become more defined and we would like to put something out that is representative of where we're at now.

Marble Lion play with North America and Cop Car Bonfire on Friday, Jun 15, at La Tour Prisme. Watch the video for Foliage below.