For Vancouver’s Meltt, each new dream-pop confection is an opportunity to connect with a wider audience

Headliner at Khatsahlano Street Party’s Burrard Stage takes a decidedly modern approach to getting its music out into the world

By John Lucas

Meltt.

Meltt plays the Burrard Stage at the Khatsahlano Street Party, on July 5 at 8 pm

MELTT IS A GENUINE homegrown success story. After building a buzz with the independently released Visions EP and its 2019 debut long-player, Swim Slowly, the Vancouver alt-rock quartet signed with the Nettwerk label for 2023’s Eternal Embers.

Meltt continued its ascent through strategic touring, impeccably crafted videos, and, of course, its music, a confection of dreamy guitar pop that takes detours into shoegaze and indietronica.

All of which is to say that Meltt has nothing to prove to anyone—with the possible exception of those who caught the band’s set at the Khatsahlano Street Party in 2022.

On a Zoom call from Missouri, where they’re preparing to perform at Delmar Hall in St. Louis, all four members of Meltt remember Khats ’22 as a fun experience on the whole, but admit that it was not without its challenges. (Each musician plays multiple instruments in the studio, but we’ll refer to them by their primary onstage roles for the sake of simplicity.)

“The last time we played, we were just making our brand-new live set, so we, uh, had some technical difficulties,” guitarist-keyboardist James Porter says, to much affirmative laughter from his bandmates. “It was the first time we tried this whole new live setup, but now we’ll be going into it coming off of this tour, so everything’s going to be working.”

“We’ve figured a lot out since 2022, that’s for sure,” adds drummer Jamie Turner, who will make a presumably triumphant return to Khatsahlano on July 5 along with the rest of Meltt.

Khats attendees can look forward to a tight set unhampered by technical glitches; what they should not expect, however, is to hear any new material. Meltt has been busy crafting tracks in the studio, but they’re not quite ready for prime time.

“We were recording and finishing songs right up until the day before we left for tour, so we just didn’t have time to prep new stuff, unfortunately,” bassist Ian Winkler tells Stir. “But there’s lots of new stuff coming.”

A full-length follow-up to Endless Embers is in the works, but Meltt fans won’t have to wait for the album to drop before they get to hear new music. The band will be rolling out much of the album as a series of singles, which is a modus operandi tailored for the era of streaming services.

As singer-guitarist Chris Smith explains, “Before we signed to our label, we had released three singles and then the album. So kind of the more standard way, and that’s how we always thought. We like to listen to albums. We’re those kind of musicians: old-school. We get vinyl, and that’s how we like to engage with a lot of music. But we’re also well aware of how streaming has changed that dynamic.”

“The complexity of the compositions and of the soundscapes and of what we’re adding to the music is heavily evolved....”

Smith gives full credit to Nettwerk for helping him reframe his ideas about how to release music in the current paradigm.

“Every single is a promotional opportunity, another opportunity to get new fans, to grow, to develop,” he says. “For Eternal Embers, I think we did eight singles. Every six weeks we would release one, and we put a lot of work into the artwork, into the theme, into the visualizers, focusing on each one as a new piece. And we saved, I think, five for the record, so we still had a decent amount saved. I think it will be very similar with this one.”

Adds Turner: “A big part of making music, to me, is people listening to the music, so if doing this approach makes more people hear it, then that’s honestly a great thing. Beyond anything else, I want people to hear it, so let’s do whatever it takes to give them a higher chance of getting to it. So it feels really good to do it this way.”

As for what to expect from the forthcoming releases, Winkler points out that Meltt’s music has always drawn on a varied palette. The upcoming album, he says, will find the sonically limber group stretching out into more electronic compositions and stripping things back for some acoustic moments.

“I’d say we’re very much evolving in our execution, our level of production, and our songwriting,” says the bassist, who also contributes keyboard and guitar work to Meltt’s recordings. “I think that’s what’s being pushed forward more than any particular push in one direction genre-wise.”

Turner agrees, adding: “The complexity of the compositions and of the soundscapes and of what we’re adding to the music is heavily evolved, like Ian said. It’s still got that Meltt kind of thread, but it’s developing and evolving and changing and touching on different things, just like we like to do.”

The fact that each member of the band is a songwriter in his own right ensures that Meltt is never at a loss for fresh flavours. Lest too many cooks spoil the creative broth, the band’s unity of purpose keeps things from boiling over.

“All of us are writing demos and bringing them in, so it’s already going in a bunch of different directions at once,” Porter says. “I think the Meltt way is that we find all these different things, then we all get on the same page about what we like—and that becomes the next step.”  

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