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Apr 28, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Mélissa Gamache Issue #71 - Weyes Blood and Black Belt Eagle Scout

To end the week, we ask Raphaelle Standell-Preston of Braids some questions about endings and death.

Braids also features Austin Tufts and Taylor Smith. The Montréal trio’s new album is Euphoric Recall, released today via Secret City. It follows Shadow Offering, which made it to #24 on our Top 100 Albums of 2020 list. The band wrote, recorded, self-produced, and mixed Euphoric Recall at Studio Toute Garnie, their Montréal studio. The album’s second single, “Apple,” features a string ensemble playing over delicate shoegaze textures. The record ends with two interconnected songs, “Retriever” and “Euphoric Recall”—taken together they form an epic 13-and-a-half minutes of music.

Speaking of themes on Euphoric Recall in a press release, Standell-Preston said: “How you cultivate your heart space is extremely important to the outcome of what you are pursuing. I think that when we are operating from a place of safety and feeling loved and have intentions of loving, we can access really interesting places.”

Read on as Standell-Preston discusses how she’d like to die, her preferred deathbed soundtrack, her favorite endings (to books, movies, and TV shows), and why she’d turn down a last meal.

How would you like to die and what age would you like to be?

I would like to die very suddenly, semi-painlessly, when I’m least expecting it. It would be nice to be at home when this happens, so as to not inconvenience too many people. If my death happened in public, it may scare a few people, particularly kids, and then a bunch of people who I don’t know would possibly crowd around, and this just sounds… annoying. So I’d like to die suddenly at home, probably in my backyard while pruning roses or whatever it is I’ll be doing in my backyard. I would like to die when I’m quite old. I don’t think there’s any particular age I would like to die at. But I would like to live to be very, very old. Maybe 100, then I could get some kind of certificate that my family would be very happy to frame. I don’t want it to be signed by the king though. I would just like to be given an anonymous certificate for living to the age of 100.

What song would you like to be playing at your deathbed?

No songs. Just ambient noises of whatever is going on around me. Unless I happen to be listening to a record at the time. I could see myself being very old and still liking Burial’s Kindred EP. That’s a pretty ethereal album to die to.

What song would you like to be performed at your funeral and who would you like to sing it?

I don’t think that I would like a funeral, unless the funeral was a party. I don’t want people to need to cry in a public setting about me dying, unless they wanted to. I guess if I died very suddenly at a young age, then maybe a funeral would be appropriate so that people can grieve together, but even though I think I would like it to be a party. I would want the guests of this party to do karaoke. So I would like everyone to sing at my funeral party.

What’s your favorite ending to a movie?

My favorite ending to a movie is Ari Aster’s Midsommar. That movie fucked me up for a good couple days.

What’s your favorite last line in a book?

“Timshel!” from East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

What’s your favorite series finale last ever episode of a TV show?

My favorite ending to a series is the last episode of season one of White Lotus. I won’t give away any spoilers but I love the character Quinn and what he does in the last episode.

What’s your favorite last song on an album?

“Solid Liquid Gas” from Eartheater’s album Trinity.

What’s your favorite last album by a band who then broke up?

Hmmmmmm I don’t keep track of this. Maybe Silly Kissers’ album Precious Necklace, but they just morphed into another band ;)

What’s your favorite way a band broke up?

Metallica claims to have never broken up but I don’t believe it, they just keep breaking up and getting back together. Props to them.

Whose passing has most affected you?

My Uncle Timmy, who gave me my first guitar.

If you were on death row, what would you like your last meal to be?

I hate death row so much. I would throw the food into the guards’ faces. Such a fucked up concept to have your last favorite meal.

What’s your concept of the afterlife?

I think there is a crossing over period, where the soul still sits in the in-between space of the living and the dissolving of the soul into something else, where it no longer can be felt or seen by the living. I say this because I’ve had a few ghost visitors. Then I think if the soul is totally ready to pass over, then it goes into the process of being reincarnated into something else.

What would be your own personal version of heaven if it exists?

A spa.

What would be the worst punishment the devil could devise for you in hell, if he exists?

Burning me slowly. Is the devil a guy?

If reincarnation exists, who or what would you like to be reincarnated as?

I would love to be reincarnated as a dog again. I think I was this before.

What role or achievement would you most like to be remembered for?

Writing good songs and helping people to get in touch with their singing voice.

What would you like your last words to be?

I love you!!!!

[Note: This article originally appeared in the digital version of Issue 71 of Under the Radar’s print magazine, which is out now. This is its debut online.]

www.braidsmusic.com

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