As Michael Cloud Duguay explains below, this unique setting liberated the band and somehow fits into their powerful and mystical sound. There’s a scream of everything in this debut album, and it shows what each constituent member is capable of. This is a transporting collaboration that proves that great things can often be born simply from creative happenstance.

Before the release of Scream in the desert on November 9, we were able to discover the creative state of mind of the project president, Michael Cloud Duguay. His journey is as fascinating as this one – perhaps one cannot be distinguished from the other. And we probed his thoughts on The Beatles, weirdest shows and favorite records of 2024.

Quick Questions with Scions:

1. What song would you like played at your funeral?

“The Blood of Jesus Has Never Failed Me” by Gavin Bryar. The 25 minutes.

2. What is the strangest concert you have ever played?

“In my early twenties, I was touring Europe with a Canadian band, The Burning Hell, and somehow we I was registered in a psychiatric hospital in the north of France as part of the Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festivalsocial awareness programs. Before we arrived, we didn’t know it was a concert and we played a set in the cafeteria for hospital patients. It doesn’t get much weirder than that. I share this with love and respect for the people who lived there at that time. I’ve had to adapt to all kinds of strange and surprising gigs over the years, but nothing else like this.

3. What would be your dream room to play in?

“We haven’t arrived in the UK to perform yet, but I can’t wait to play at Café Oto in London one day.”

4. Who is the most underrated guitarist of all time?

“I’m not a guitarist by any means, but my answer is Sonny Sharrock, the non-guitarist’s guitarist. Those who know him rate him highly, but he should be at the top of every list. If you’re new, listen to his playing on Herbie Mann’s cover of Memphis Underground’s “Hold On, I’m Coming,” and consider that what you’re listening to was performed in 1969. Everything he did until ‘has Ask the ages in 1991 is totally murderous. I don’t subscribe to the culture of worshiping the guitarist, but I pray at his altar.

5. Where is the best bar in the world?

“I’m a recovering sober alcoholic, so I try not to judge and compare the merits of bars anymore, but I’m currently drinking coffee and looking out at the water on the back porch of the Hotel’s little blue cottage. Wolfe Island, where I’m playing tonight and where we composed all the songs for Scions Scream in the desertand I am inclined to say that they win. Bar, restaurant, hotel, concert hall – they have a Steinway grand piano and a Hammond organ in the backline. They’re located on a small island between Canada and the United States, accessible only by ferry, and although most shows can usually only attract a dozen spectators, it’s always a strange and magical time.

6. Have you ever cried at a concert?

“Yes, what concerts do I have not cry ? I am an emotional listener. Some recent ones that come to mind are Beverly Glenn-Copeland, The Bad Seeds, and many of my friend’s performances. I like hearing my friends make music. Arnold Dreyblatt made me cry earlier this year at a show in Toronto.

7. Do you believe in ghosts?

“I believe in spirits. I don’t think of spirits as imprisoned or vengeful or omens and omens of death or anything like that. I think everything bad in this area is material. I believe we are guided through our experience on earth toward divine love by the wisdom and care of our ancestors. My bandmate, Corm, loves ghosts; the record of the Scions is rather ghostly. OK, maybe I believe in ghosts.

8. What is your favorite podcast?

“Flavortone Podcast – a truly wild and hilarious podcast about music, philosophy, culture and aesthetic experience hosted by two American artists and thinkers, Nick Scavo and Alec Sturgis. I have no idea how popular this podcast is and I don’t remember how I came across it. Listening is like hanging out with the two funniest people in your critical theory master’s program, and they have great taste in music and art.

9. What genre of music have you not explored yet but would like to try?

“I’ve never made a rap record, but I’m about to start producing one for an incredible Montreal rapper and singer, Quinton Barnes, in collaboration with excellent free jazz and experimental noise musicians from this city. Rap music has had a big influence on me and I’m excited to be a part of that process.

10. What has been the best album of 2024 so far?

“It’s been a good year for music. That of Clarissa Connelly World of work has been with me all year – it combines pop form and pre-modern Celtic folk music and its magic. Just magic.

11. What is the best book you read last year?

“Maël Renouard’s house Fragments of an infinite memoryan incredible essay by a young French philosopher who studies how the Internet’s infinite archives turn our brains into mush.

12. Do you have a sports hero?

“You’re asking the wrong person.” My nephew did very well in hockey and yesterday he told me he didn’t make the rep team, but he took that failure like a champ. So I guess my answer is eight-year-old Anderson and his laid-back, sporty demeanor.

13. Which song has the greatest vocal performance of all time?

“My grandfather passed away this year and I inherited a 78 rpm recording of his vocal quartet made in the mid-1950s, singing the Mills Brothers’ “I Have a Dream, Dear.” My grandfather was an incredible baritone singer and the only other musician I am related to by blood. Speaking of spirits, he is the reason I do what I do. I wouldn’t say it’s the best vocal performance of all time, but it’s the one that means the most to me, and I listen to it every day.

14. Can you recommend a movie that we may not have seen?

“I was obsessed with The singing elm forestwhich was the first animated feature film produced in Croatia and Yugoslavia in 1986. My grandparents must have bought it for me out of a trash can when I was a child, and I recently rediscovered it. It’s about an artist given magical powers by an elm tree, able to talk to animals, and who must save his forest from being turned into a desert by an evil king who is also a cactus. The artist convinces the cactus king that he is unhappy because he was never able to realize his true nature and gives him a medicine that allows him to perceive himself as he is, thus saving the forest and its inhabitants. There are many overlapping metaphors. It’s absolutely trippy and wild, and the music is awesome. You can find it on YouTube.

15. Are The Beatles overrated?

“The Beatles are well-regarded. I was never a total fan of the Beatles, but without their cultural impact, we would never have had the chance to hear “Wonderful Christmastime,” which is my favorite Christmas song, if not my favorite pop song. Do people really dispute this? “Across the Universe” resists any potential argument.

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