Gabriel Collins, Rebecca Taves, Seahorn (Matt Swann), Chris Vail, Dolly Sillito, Chris Dadge.
Influences
iva bittova, the singing nun, the new 1-2, campfire songs, benjermin britten, alban berg, lambchop, the city of winnipeg, the muppet show, veda hille, jenette winterson, mcsweeny's quarterly review, leonard euler, kevin volans, kurt vonnegut, raymond lambert and tenzing norgay.
Hailing from the Greater Tri-Wood Community. the high-octane arts and crafts mecca nestled in the shadows of Calgary's ominous Nose Hill, les.petits (pronounced 'the petites') are critically trumpeted as 'Brentwood's quietest band'. Drawing deep inspiration from the brief period of popular music, which is bookended by the formation of Victoria's nonmeansno and the untimely and tragic death of Belgium's 'The Singing Nun', les.petits have crafted a quietly dissonant sound out of dying oboes, plangent orchestration, pink noise and jangly French folk songs. The years leading up to the release of their debut and sophomore EPs, the.mighty.antlers.of.song and an.ark.full.of.animals (combined here in one recording), were a turbulent artistic period that saw an exponential widening of lyrical and musical scope. “When we started, we felt an overriding pressure to limit our songwriting focus to mammals exclusively" notes Gabriel Collins, les.petits' lead clarinetist and pedal-steel player. "We really feel like we've been able to push the envelope of that paradigm and capture a more diverse description of local wildlife through our songs." This new-found freedom is reflected in the content of the EPs, where the subject matter careens from flora all the way to fauna. Glockenspielist Rebecca Taves, reflecting on les.petits’ destiny, emphasizes, "Although we wish to use our new found musical fame for good, we do not want to lose sight of our ultimate goal; to crush the Maharishi Vedic University marching band". Gabriel Collins studies Mathematics at a university, Rebecca Taves enjoys things which photosynthesize and Seahorn (the mysterious and inimitable Matt Swann, who’s also in Hot Little Rocket) is a licensed metaphysician.
