Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Diploids is the New Music Monday highlight!
Diploids describe their music as “absolutely free,” but within the realms of jazz, pop, progressive and emo.
The band is comprised of Luc Wiebe on bass, George Lee on drums and Felix Parkinson on guitar, but they frequently collaborate with a myriad of other Victoria musicians when writing and recording their records.
Diploids began as a group of friends who came together over their love of music with Lee as their guiding force of creation.
“George kind of instilled in me the practice of recording everything and sort of always be looking for, and creating sounds,” Wiebe told Victoria Buzz.
“He definitely has frontman characteristics and frontman energy. We eventually figured out that he should play drums, hitting hard every time and no doubts—you can’t have a drummer with any doubts.”
Wiebe added that with him on bass and Parkinson “shredding on guitar” they began having a lot of fun playing shows in and around Victoria.
After getting a number of house shows and smaller festivals under their belts, they began recording—now having 13 releases in just five years.
Their latest album, Weird Creation, was released on February 5th.
For this record, they had help from fellow musicians and collaborators Taylor Veperts, Evan Monroe, Ben Kemp, Forrest Woytas and Sofia Miller.
However, the band’s drummer, Lee, had moved back to the United Kingdom, where he is from. So, Wiebe planned to swing by and have him record his parts to the nearly completed Weird Creation while on a separate trip to Europe.
“For the last half a year, or more than half a year, I’ve just sort of been focussing on these recordings,” Wiebe explained.
“They’re more dubbed and not so live, with me playing most of the instruments on the album.”
Wiebe says that he would have preferred to do it all live off the floor as they had done in the past, especially after such a fun year of recording and playing.
As a highlight song of Weird Creation, Wiebe wanted to pull back the curtain on the song “Club Loading.”
This song initially came about from a rare jam session with Wiebe’s roommate.
“I was jamming with my roommate Brooklyn, who I have maybe only jammed with three times ever—she focuses mainly on visual art,” he explained.
“Also, I happened to be jamming with her on guitar which almost never happens.”
Wiebe came up with the main riff of the song while playing through an old, decrepit Typhoon amp. After getting that riff’s melody firmly lodged in his head, he started singing one day on his way home from a night of dancing at Club Loading in downtown Victoria.
“I dubbed it on classic guitar, then a month later, I dubbed all the vocals,” he said.
“Oh and the song has a sound that is like a vinyl spinning, like a crackle. That is actually a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven—I just put a [microphone] up to it and put that sound on there.”
“Club Loading” was one of the songs that Lee was able to record his drum parts while Wiebe was visiting him in the UK. He played the track’s drums and also provided some background vocals.
Wiebe added that the solo on that song, he played on the recorder.
“It sounded kind of dinky, but I liked it,” he laughed.
Preview “Club Loading” and the rest of Weird Creation by Diploids below:
Listen to the song, and album, in full via Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music.
Since Lee left the band and moved back to the UK, Monroe has replaced him, bringing with him a different style of playing.
“He’s big on the drum machine, samplers and odd sounds,” he added.
“It’s not about replacing George, because he’s irreplaceable, but more switching to the other side and replacing him with a machine—Evan’s got the machine dialed.”
Diploids recently played their first set with Monroe on “drums” and Wiebe says he is excited to get back into the studio and see what they can do with this new approach to their sound.
Follow them on Instagram to stay up-to-date with Diploids upcoming shows and future releases.
Related:
- New Music Monday: Niloo releases first single from upcoming album ‘Valentine’s in Kamakura’
- New Music Monday: fivefootnine’s debut EP focusses on friendship foundations
- New Music Monday: A Recorded Dawn blends slowcore with emo on debut EP
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“Whether I’m there, or I’m listening to CFUV, I definitely don’t want to take it for granted,” Wiebe said.
“They are incredible and super necessary to have—the eclectic nature of broadcast and the openmindedness of playing anyone and everyone, all sounds, I have the utmost respect for them.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Diploids in the comments below.
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