Bêtes de scène

>> Montreal’s Beast pairs a famous singer
with a beatsmith to the stars

SEEN AND HERD: Beast

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I have friends who are filmmakers,” says Betty Bonifassi. “I sent them the link to our MySpace and they freaked out, man! They want the songs for their next movie.”

Bonifassi is well acquainted with silver screen soundtracks, having sung the theme song for the animated feature Les Triplettes de Belleville, which she later performed at the Oscars with her husband, composer Ben Charest. Coming off another successful collaboration, with DJ Champion and His G-Strings, her new project uses cinema as a starting point rather than a destination.

The music is composed and produced by Jean-Phi Goncalves, member of the local band Plaster whose credits include albums by Pierre Lapointe, Jean-Pierre Ferland, Ariane Moffatt and Lauryn Hill. And when the subject of spy movies comes up, he’s quick to mention John Barry—particularly the James Bond songs sung by Shirley Bassey, whose voice isn’t unlike that of Bonifassi—while she drops the name of Ennio Morricone.

“We wanted all the organic elements of the music to be like characters in a movie,” she says, “so we gave the guitar lines time to live in the songs.”

Widescreen aspirations aside, Bonifassi and Goncalves set out with no stylistic goals in their sights, and worked fast. Their debut album is at the mixing stage, and due in the fall (label TBD), but their sample songs on MySpace make a strong impression, and have already drawn comparisons to trip hop, due to their slow beats and deep soundscapes, and Rage Against the Machine, for their politically fuelled, partly spoken verse.

Once her lyrical ideas were fully formed, Bonifassi turned to singer-songwriter Simon Wilcox for help perfecting her English, a pairing so successful that Bonifassi considers Wilcox a third member of the band.

“Simon really understood my dark side and the sadness of the moment,” says Bonifassi. “I really wanted to sing something lyrically rich and powerful.”

Just as evocative and aggressive is their moniker, one Goncalves feels fits their project like a glove. “Betty is a real beast,” he jokes, “a bête de scène.”

“It’s me” she admits, “it’s raw music, raw text, it’s dark but it’s really hopeful.”

With guests at Divan Orange
on Friday, March 14, 10 p.m.