Since their formation in 2014, Montreal indie-dance/ trip-hop band Men I Trust has expanded from a duo (guitarist Jessy Caron and pianist Dragos Chiriac) and undergone various line-up changes before emerging as a trio (with vocalist female vocalist/guitarist Emma Proulx, who has her own side project in Bernache). Their aesthetic preference for “smooth sounds, calm melodies and simple rhythms that relax, but make your right foot tap and your chin bounce on the beats” and DIY ethos (they record, mix, master their music and shoot their own music videos) has been well-received on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, and Bandcamp.
Their recent single “Tailwhip” (named after the BMX trick where the bike’s frame makes a 360° rotation around its front end) departs slights from the mid-tempo contemplation of recent singles like “You Deserve This”, “Lauren”, and “I hope to be around”. The accompanying music video visually represents this shift by departing from the usual concept of a woman lost in her own headspace as she makes an everyday (sun-drenched) journey (through the city/road via bike/woods). Instead, all three bandmates playfully appear to be performing while superimposed on footage of an SUV driving through an idyllic suburb, in home video footage from their childhoods and raw footage from recent live performances.
Proulx’s sweet, crystal-clear and fragile vocals convey the familiar anxieties about living a peripatetic existence and a dawning sense of self-realisation, but there’s an assured optimism in this round of nostalgia-drenched everyday existentialism: ‘We’ll be alright/ Stay here some time/ This country dog/ Won’t die in the city’. The smooth bassline and melodic guitar chords score their blissful, effortless transition back into their comfort zones. This is precisely what you need to destress and unwind from a trying time.
