Halifax folk-rockers Quiet Parade are exploring what might sound like some fresh territory for the band, but it comes with some deep roots. They’re revisiting four of their tracks along with their Acadian heritage on their first ever French-language EP, Nous Étions Icitte.
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to those familiar with the band. Quiet Parade‘s Trevor Murphy also runs a record label uncoincidentally called Acadian Embassy.
“Since the label started in 2010, we’ve been using it as a way to explore, discuss, and challenge ideas regarding Acadian identity,” explains Murphy.
“In 2015, we released an instrumental album about the expulsion of the Acadians called The Great Upheaval. We always knew that releasing a French record would be something the label would want to do, and we decided to take up that challenge with Quiet Parade.”
To meet the challenge Quiet Parade took four tracks from their last record, their 2015 release the self-titled Quiet Parade, and translated them into French for the new EP.
“I wanted the album to really reflect a particular segment of Nova Scotian Acadian identity -one that particularly represented Par-en-Bas (a geographical region that encompasses a number of Acadian communities around of Yarmouth, NS). From the accent, to the turns of phrases, to the stories I tried to use this EP as a way to do that,” says Murphy.
“As Acadians you often grow up with the culture prescribed to you: Évangeline, kitchen parties, le 15 août, church, etc. Where we grew up, it never really felt like that. Or if it did, to me, it always felt pretty forced. Our approach to Acadian Embassy when we first started was sort of: OK well if all this stuff that defines a traditional Acadian identity isn’t really hitting the mark with us, where do we fit in? We found that answer in community. That’s why there aren’t just Acadian or French bands on the roster. We wanted the label to feel like going to visit your friends on New Year’s Eve with a rappie pie in the oven. I’ve always felt just sort of outside of that monolithic view of what Acadian-ness is, and I thought it was high time to start talking about it.”
And that’s more than simply lip service, Murphy grew up speaking French, attending school from the third grade through to high school graduation in totally French schools. When he moved to Halifax in 2003, however, he was quickly assimilated by and largely English city.
“I basically lost my grip on the language. A few years ago I started the journey back, picking up some French work and diving head first into the re-immersion. Since, I think I’ve found more confidence in my accent, dialect, and abilities.”
Murphy explains that the project also became a matter of reconnecting, not just with his own upbringing, but with a culture and a way of life that might be disappearing.
“We’re not re-telling Acadian history or anything. But I selected songs from our LP that I thought related specifically to my life growing up in Par-En-Bas. The title track and “Les Ancêtres” – for example – that talk about conceptions of the past, memory, and how that informs you moving forward.
These are subjects we also try to tackle with Embassy stuff in general too. How are we being presented our history? How does that line up with our lived experiences? What kind of things are we doing to change that, or create shifts within it. It’s less about ‘here are some Acadian stories’ and more about ‘here are some stories, presented by an Acadian who grew up in rural NS, and is talking about things like salt marshes, the bridge I had to cross to get to the mainland, and the spookiness of an inherent connection with ancestors I’ve never met.’
Rural communities are going through a hard time right now. I go back to the place where I grew up (my parents still live near there), and it’s dwindling. Young people aren’t moving to Surette’s Island, you know? So some of these songs tackle those issues as well. If there’s no one’s left to represent a particular culture, how then do we deal with that?”