Are you a sad robot? This is the strange yet pertinent question Canadian indie band Stars has posed to their fans with the release of their EP “Sad Robots” and their subsequent tour heading for Avalon tonight.
For those UCLA students who have not yet heard Stars, this performance will be an opportunity to become acquainted with a band that has quietly gained a strong Los Angeles fan base.
Stars began with lead vocalist Torquil Campbell and keyboardist Chris Seligman, who collaborated to form the melodramatic indie band. With their more recent albums “Heart” and “Set Yourself on Fire,” Stars added bassist Evan Cranley, singer/guitarist Amy Millan and drummer Pat McGee.
“We are really excited to get back to L.A.,” Seligman said. “It’s one of the first cities to really acknowledge us as a band; we have lot of history there, and so it feels good to go back.”
At the show, expect to hear songs from “Sad Robots,” which will be available in hard copy for the first time on this tour. The EP explores the band’s electronic side as prominent on its first album, “Nightsongs” but also retains the organic instrumentation of its older work.
Both the album’s concept and its strange but beautiful cover art, depicting a Victorian woman sharply contrasted with a rusty robot, was inspired by the drummer.
“He’s a bit of a sad robot, our drummer is,” Seligman said. “We were recording in the studio and the feel of what (McGee) was playing reminded us of a sad robot, and an expression he had talked about.”
As the album came together, Stars did not have any particular thematic visual or concept in mind, but like everything the band produces, it wanted the ideas to be its own.
“With the artwork we wanted to explore robots being lovers, love-torn hearts, and kind of juxtapose the modern technological age with older historical themes,” Seligman said.
The instrumentation on the EP, like that of Stars’ past work, is melancholic and mystical. The first track off the album, “Maintenance Hall, 4 a.m.” is entirely instrumental, featuring a piano melody Seligman wrote a year ago and the use of a vocoder to add a darker, technological effect.
“We wanted to have hues of a computer voice for a spooky feel, but we didn’t want to overdo it,” Seligman said. “With everything we do, we don’t really think about it, it just happens.”
Stars’ songs are characterized by their honest depiction of love and the true complexity of relationships.
“I think it’s one of the most personal experiences in the world that everyone goes through. Everyone can relate to that feeling of breaking up with someone,” said Seligman. “”˜A Thread Cut with a Carving Knife’ kind of portrays that feeling of someone being in a relationship for however long, whether it’s six months or six years, or even longer, and that experience with them kind of disappearing.” With songs like this, the band hopes to find common thread between themsselves and fans: the shared emotion of losing something or someone whom you’ve based your life around.
“I think these are experiences everyone can relate to and it makes sense to put them into a song,” said Seligman.
The upcoming Stars show will exhibit not only the band’s heartfelt lyrics and sound but the growth of a band that has been creating an immense contribution to the indie music world for over seven years.
“We are just trying to explore our music and take it to another level and hopefully touch people, even more than we have in the past,” Seligman said.