Tracklist and Album Art Unveiled for The Radiant Believers, Out September 1, 2023
Breathe Of My Leaves, comprised of Vancouver-based Stephano Barberis and Calgary-based Jordan Gant, is set to release their album, The Radiant Believers on September 1, 2023.
If you follow BOML, you have heard some of the tracks from the release, as they have shared lyric videos for “Us,” “Avalon,” “Sweet Music Man,” “Supernova Heart,” “All The Memories Made,” and “Clarke & Bell.”
This coming Friday, they will unveil “Trepidation!,” as their first official single from the release, so stay tuned for that!
We’ve teamed up with the duo once again, this time to unveil the album art and track list for the release and find out much more about the release via our mini-interview.
The Radiant Believers Tracklist
1. Â Stay
2.  You’re My Light
3. Â Godzilla
4. Â Clarke & Bell
5. Â All The Memories Made
6. Â Avalon
7. Â Megalith
8. Â Sweet Music Man
9. Â Us
10. Â Supernova Heart ft. Tareya
11. Â Trepidation!
12. Â Perfect Defeat
13. Â Across The Rainbow Bridge
First off, care to introduce Breath Of My Leaves to our readers?
Stephano Barberis: We are a synth-pop duo based in Vancouver (Stephano Barberis – music) and Calgary (Jordan Gant – vocals). We really are obsessed with melody and songwriting and love creating emotional music that’s dramatic and moving. The sound has elements of all electronic music movements of the last few decades, coupled with contemporary elements and vocals that give it all a modern and unique sound. I also draw from classical, Motown, 50s/60s/70s pop, folk, 70s futurist, and disco. My parents raised me listening to Abba, Greek folk music, Europop, ELO, Boney M, Nazareth, James Last, etc. The first record I bought was Handel’s Water Music. I’m obsessed with Handel and Vivaldi, so it leaks into our music, but at the same time you’ll hear new wave, Italo disco, Giorgio Moroder, Vince Clarke, hi-NRG – basically, the music is the quantum electric frazzle-tangle of my brain. We both have different inspirations that we bring to the project but our inspirations overlap.
You are set to unveil your album, The Radiant Believers on September 1. What can you tell us about the creative process behind the release?
SB:Â The album started as a series of instrumentals I wrote, then Jordan took them and went through them one-by-one, adding vocals and lyrics, sending them back to me, restructuring, adding, removing, etc. Some of the songs are very true to the original instrumental demos while others changed drastically. Sometimes I discard the music entirely and wrap an entirely new song around Jordan’s vocals. So basically it is a constant online back and forth between Vancouver and Calgary. Instead of us sitting together and writing in the same room, we do it remotely, so it’s kind of the same thing but in slow motion. And most of the time, when I receive Jordan’s vocals, I run down to my studio and listen with goosebumps and tears of joy. I’m often so moved that it makes me elevate the song to another level. I think we both do that to each other so this is a creative connection that is incredibly unique with magical chemistry.
What was the highlight of the making of the album?
SB:Â For me, the highlight is always the writing part. I get so much joy in creating something out of nothing. Then when the song suddenly takes that turn where I get goosebumps, it’s like we made magic happen. The high point is getting to hear what Jordan has done with his vocal melodies. He has what’s in my top five male voices ever and his knack for melody is unreal. I feel like we’re children playing together in a sandbox but suddenly we blink and we’ve created some sort of paradise.
Jordan Gant:Â Â Haha – that is so true. I think one unique piece of writing on this album is that we were always in a different part of the world/country while writing everything together, basically in real-time. Stephano could send me a new idea while it is pouring rain in his hometown, and I could be in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, starving in the heat. Two bad examples, but the outcome would be moderately aggressive anguished vocals meeting a very viby rainy day musical idea. I would send ideas to Stephano that would for sure twist his ear in a direction that he was probably not expecting but the beauty of it is that I have no idea what is good or bad, and Stephano at times would redo the music, or alter it, turning odd demo ideas into polished songs that made it on the album.Â
Which song are you most excited to have heard?Â
SB: I absolutely love all the songs, but there are a few I’m more excited about, all for different reasons. There are ones I’m more excited about because of how well-crafted they are in a pop sense, like “Godzilla” and the forthcoming single “Trepidation!”. There are others that I’m more excited about because they sound a lot more developed and dynamic. Nothing is really that experimental on this album – it’s all 13 super-pop tracks that are very straightforward. I tried to get out of their way and just let them be what they’re meant to be as opposed to trying to be experimental like on other past albums. It’s like a direct injection into the vein. Most people who have heard the album prefer the new songs other than the new ones I prefer. I love that there’s such a diversity, but it’s still a very uplifting album. Even the dark songs have light crashing into them. We even have a song about pets dying. It sounds like a dirge but it’s gorgeous and oddly uplifting.
JG: For me, my favourite song would be “Perfect Defeat” – a song that I sing about hating my harmonies. Always thinking that my talent some days is just to layer things to death and make them sound epic to distract from an unsatisfying melody. It is just an insecurity song basically. “Trepidation!” always has been a word that stuck with me since high school. I only remember two things from school. 1 – Your fridge uses less energy if you just keep it open the whole time you are making a sandwich, let it beep, let it beep. 2 – Trepidation is the coolest word for fear and when this song idea came about it was the perfect time to tap into that word. “pressure me to tangle our hearts, and feel it like it is.” Help put the fear of true love in me. I think that song came out swinging uppercuts from beginning to end. “Stay” and “Clarke & Bell” – the major to minor swings in the harmonies were all because of the music Stephano wrote. Two songs I am personally proud of vocally in a more artistic sense. “All The Memories Made” – This track allowed me to tap into a major influence of mine: Keane. It was just an overall fun song to craft together. It has some unique chord progressions in it and it stays light and airy throughout.    Â
When it comes to the artwork, describe how it suits the album.
SB: I make all our artwork and videos (I’m a director). With this album, it was called Dancing Through Dystopia for so long before we went with the title because we started it during the darkness of the pandemic, and I lost both parents during the making of it. So much darkness. It made my resolve even stronger to keep it hopeful and uplifting because I’m a despair-free zone. You know how some bands secretly insert satanic or dark messages in their music? Well, with ours, we may have inserted the opposite messages of light and salvation secretly, so… I won’t say if we did or not haha. Anyway, the graphics for the album have a completely apocalyptic scene with Jordan and I as the protagonists, marching towards and through the destruction to this glowing obelisk of light. It’s so symbolic of how this album came about. We navigated such dark times in the world and in both our personal lives, but we created such a glowing piece of art imbued with love and hope, and light. The audacity of it all. It feels like we’re being protected. And it also felt that way being so fortunate to be living in Canada during the pandemic with the government being so fantastic at protecting us economically and health-wise. So the artwork is a powerful metaphor with many different layers. It almost felt preposterous like a sci-fi movie, so I turned Jordan and I into retro sci-fi movie poster heroes via A.I. with Star Wars vibes. In the scheme of things, we are the radiant believers because we marched through hell with so much hope and perseverance. When you’re making art, I think you’ve got to be a super-zealot in your creativity and your objective.
Do you have any upcoming release parties scheduled, or shows?
SB: Jordan is a musician of the highest order and his life and dream is making music and touring, so I have a feeling shows are going to be an element in our future. I’m not sure how it would go but I’d love to make it some bonkers performance art show with interpretive dancers. I keep having this image of people in long gossamer dresses on rollerblades skating around with giant beaks. I also would love to be some sort of space creature with feathers and glowing Godzilla spikes going down my back. I think Jordan wants to be a techno-hippie in a metallic poncho twirling like a dervish. I could be wrong, though. Also, we’re currently seeing about an album release party from a venue broadcast online.
JG: Haha, If this were to become a live project I am just going to sit back and let Stephano do his thing. What he did with Erasure’s last tour was incredible. The visuals etc. But yes, I have had dreams about videos and performance imagery that I have shared with Stephano extensively, and I am sporting quite the epic poncho. I don’t like shoes, so I am probably going barefoot. Neon smoke, and some sort of way to hide my face. I have always been a huge fan of the superstars of the 1990’s such as Jay Kay from Jamiroquai, and newer artists such as Sleep Token with their stage outfits and mystique. Maybe some glowing neon glasses retrofitted into some spectacular headpiece. We will have to see, but it will give off major positive emotional energy if it does happen.
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