LUCIDMEDIA

The Paint Movement is Full of Eurythmy

Written by Emily Santos Friday, 28 August 2009 08:59

To mark their first ever show at Little Italy’s Mod Club, long-time high school buddies, known collectively today as The Paint Movement, peered through the smoking neon stage lights to find a sea of over three-hundred enthusiastic Torontonians.With a slue of fans to please, TPM played a number of songs from their full-length album along with a few new ones from their latest collection of tunes. TPM has only recently made it into the limelight, quickly becoming a well-known name in Toronto and the GTA after dropping their first record on Nevado Records in April called Our Eurythmy.

“Eurythmy” is defined as graceful body movements to rhythm of spoken words. An appropriate title for this compilation as it incorporates sounds reminiscent to the soft, smooth, and jazzy voice of Norah Roberts with an ever-so-slight up-tempo big band/pop rhythm as heard accompanying Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. 

Although influenced by these voices that defined an era, many of TPM influences have also stemmed locally from artists like Broken Social Scene, Ryan Masters and Escalate.

“There is a lot of influences [on this album],” says vocalist and bassist Jason Haberman. “Well obviously there is big bands which I grew up listening to. But for me mainly it was local indie bands. Bands that I have seen around the area and friend’s bands that inspired me to play.”

While growing up in the vast suburbia of Missassauga, the boys say that they weren’t always as close as they are today. Ultimately it was their love of music that drew them together in high school. “We kinda got together one day, started jamming and it was pretty natural,” confesses lead vocalist Kevin Kraliks.

Not a lot has changed since their teenage years. The band is still rocking out in Kralik’s basement and even recorded Our Eurythmy there. One could say maturing together has bettered them. They have to come tolerate each other’s annoying habits, which has made touring in their minivan a whole lot easier – well, for the most part! 

“I have a problem with snoring,” jokes the man on the sax, Jason Loftman. “And everyday I had to hear about. It gets to a point where you don’t want to sleep around them anymore.” 

Haberman laughs and says, “But you have to look at it this way, every day we heard the same snore!”

Joking aside, Haberman, Loftman and Kraliks have enjoyed almost every moment together. They say the whole process of recording this album over the past eight months has made them realize who they are as artists.

Haberman says so far album reviews have been positive and they never expected to be compared to some of their favourite musicians. “People relate it to different things…from Steely Dan to something like Broken Social Scene. It is such an honour,” he says. 

The Paint Movement still hasn’t had time to rest. They’ve managed to keep themselves busy having just recently wrapped up their Exclaim! sponsored west coast tour. Next, they will be stopping by Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern on August 28th.

Our Eurythmy is now available on iTunes and HMV stores across Canada. Keep up-to-date with TPM on their Myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/thepaintmovement or follow their tweets at http://twitter.com/Paintmovement