Part 1

Name: Scions
Members: Cormac Culkeen (vocals), Dave Grenon (electronics + sound design), Andrew Mackelvie (saxophones & bass clarinet), Ellen Gibling (harp), India Gailey (cello), Ross Burns (electric guitar), Gabriella Ciurcovich (double bass), Michael Cloud Duguay (keyboards, accordion, guitar)
Interviewee: Michael Cloud Duguay
Current Release: Scions' debut album To Cry Out In The Wilderness is out November 8th 2024 via Idée Fixe.
Recommendations: Travis Laplante - The Golden Lock
I’m a big fan of Travis’s work, but this recently released record has particularly grabbed my attention. I love his ideas and how this ensemble merges composition with improvisation. The album clearly articulates his creative process, which I deeply appreciate—it’s both music and a mission statement. Not to mention, it’s powerful and beautiful. I adore his sax playing; it’s so melodious and crystalline, and together, the ensemble produces something unique and mesmerising.
Daniel Sarah Karasik - Disobedience
I recently finished reading this short novel by Canadian author Daniel Sarah Karasik, and though I don’t know them personally, I’d love to! It’s a brilliant work of queer speculative fiction that feels conceptually aligned with what we’re doing with Scions. I’m in awe of how they explore pleasure, desire, and eroticism as themes of resistance and rebellion. If this ever gets adapted for film, I would be thrilled for us to score it!

[Read our Travis Laplante interview]

If you enjoyed this Scions interview and would like to know more about the band and their music, visit the project on Instagram.



What were some of your earliest collaborations? How do you look back on them with hindsight?

Before discovering my passion for music, I aspired to be a writer and theatre director.

As a child, I wrote poetry, short stories, plays, and novels. I enjoyed organizing people and ideas, transforming creative visions into reality through DIY collaboration, even if I lacked the vocabulary to describe it that way at the time. I loved writing and producing plays, encouraging my friends to participate, and securing resources and funding for our projects.

From an early age, I prioritized grassroots organizing outside traditional structures. I learned that successful collaboration requires collective participation. Naturally reserved and a bit austere, I found that creative collaboration and community organizing, both as an artist and activist, helped me develop meaningful connections with my peers. This collaborative spirit has remained central to how I relate to others.

My early creative projects, in both theatre and music, featured large ensembles and non-hierarchical structures, emphasizing creative agency and skill-sharing. Initially, this approach stemmed from lessons learned in the DIY artist community in Peterborough, ON, where I grew up. Over time, it has become foundational to my creative practice and worldview. I believe there is a unique magic in shared intention and collective effort, and I strive to remain open to capturing that magic.

Reflecting on my experiences in theatre production, I recognize how they have shaped my artistic processes. Theatre is inherently site-specific and immersive, often requiring collective problem-solving. I am fascinated by how this collaborative dynamic manifests in the recording process, which is one reason I prefer working outside traditional studio environments. I want record-making to feel immersive, rather than a job to clock in and out of. Producing To Cry Out In The Wilderness was a challenging yet rewarding embodiment of this philosophy.

Additionally, my experience as a twin has influenced my collaborative instincts. While some may view being a twin as competitive—vying for resources or attention—I see it as fundamentally collaborative. From my earliest experiences, I learned the value of strength in numbers.

Interestingly, while producing To Cry Out In The Wilderness, three of us who cohabited during production—vocalist Cormac Culkeen, engineer Jake Nicoll, and I—are all twins. Our shared experiences sparked intriguing conversations about how being twins shaped our collaborative approaches, revealing our mutual enjoyment of working closely with others.

There are many potential models for collaboration, from live performances and jamming/producing in the same room together up to file sharing. Which of these do you prefer – and why?  

Honestly, I enjoy them all. My earliest musical experiences were improvisational, and spontaneous composition remains a vital force for me. I tend to think of all art-making as sculptural rather than painterly. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, I envision the work—be it a composition, an improvisation, a record, or a collective experience—as beginning with a solid mass of every possible outcome.

Our task as a collective is to chip away at this mass to reveal some of what’s inside. In this way, we’re uncovering something that already exists and illuminating it with our unique tools. Each person in an ensemble has different tools that reveal various shapes, and the only real decision we need to make is when to take a break or move on to the next piece.

This perspective is especially helpful in a world filled with overwhelming choices, as it minimises concerns about potential outcomes and helps one feel less significant. What truly matters is the collective aggregate—what emerges through collaboration, in whatever form it takes.

I want record-making to feel improvisational and spontaneous. While it’s important to have a timeline and basic structure—like the monolith we chip away at—I believe it’s crucial to stay open to the surprising gifts that emerge from collaboration. I’m not just referring to performance and arrangements; I’m talking about the entire experience.

Records are an archive, a document of shared lived experiences. When records are made in sterile, traditional studio environments with little flexibility, they often sound lifeless— or worse, like a carbon copy of something lifeless. I understand that some artists and producers aim for that, but I want my records to capture the feeling of humans in a room. I want to hear the space and the totality of the experience as much as possible, which can only happen if we remain open to chance and spontaneity.

This is a form of improvisation—collaboration with one another and with the universe. Resistance to new ideas simply doesn’t produce good sounds.

How did this particular collaboration come about?

I was introduced to reedist and composer Andrew MacKelvie in December 2019 through mutual friends in Canada’s Yukon Territory.

While recording an album in Whitehorse, it became clear that we needed saxophone arrangements. The Yukon is vast and remote, with a small population and no saxophonists, but my friend Jordy Walker knew Andrew, who frequently travelled to the region to make music. As luck would have it, Andrew had a trip planned shortly after I left, so we hired him to arrange a brass section and perform on the track.

Although I couldn’t be there for the sessions, Andrew and I hit it off immediately over phone and email and began discussing future collaborations before the pandemic hit. We stayed in touch and developed a close friendship, working on multiple projects together before we met in person in 2021.

In the fall of that year, I travelled to Halifax to meet Andrew, who invited me to join his improv chamber ensemble, New Hermitage, for a performance interpreting my songwriter material with spontaneous arrangements. I met his bandmates—who are now half of Scions—and we all connected and had fun playing together. Now, Andrew is my closest musical collaborator, and we work on numerous projects together, including running our own small record label.

Cormac Culkeen, the vocalist for Scions, is one of my oldest and closest friends. We grew up in the same small town and have played in bands together since our early twenties. I often say I can’t compose anything without hearing Corm’s voice in it, which is true. In my mid-twenties, I struggled with serious mental illness and drug addiction, which led to a hiatus from music while I experienced homelessness, incarceration, and rehabilitation. During that time, I was completely cut off from my community.

After getting sober and back on my feet, I reconnected with Cormac and learned that they had started Joyful Joyful with Dave Grenon—an incredible experimental drone project. It took me a few years to perform again, but when I did, some of my first shows after my hiatus were with Joyful Joyful, and I developed a close bond with Dave as well. In 2020, both New Hermitage and Joyful Joyful contributed reworkings of my material to a compilation album.

In 2022, I was invited to perform at Sappyfest, a legendary Canadian music festival in Sackville, New Brunswick, with which I have a long history. Instead of bringing a band from Ontario, I invited New Hermitage, located nearby in Nova Scotia, to join me for the improvisational arrangement performance. I then learned that Joyful Joyful would also be touring in the region at that time, with that specific day free, so I invited them as well.

On the day of the performance, the two other acts met for the first time, shaking hands as we set up. We were a sound technician's worst nightmare, all wiring our instruments through Dave’s electronics with no idea how it would turn out. But it worked beautifully. We used my songwriter material as a foundation for exploratory improvisation, and it came together remarkably well—we received a standing ovation at the end.

Around this time, I had started producing records for other artists and had felt the urge to start a new project of my own. As we got off stage, I realized I had found my direction. I don’t think I’ve ever made a clearer decision in my life. I pitched the idea to the group, asking them to trust me, and here we are.

What do you generally look for in a collaborator and what made you want to collaborate with each other specifically?

I believe that each member of Scions, despite our radically different creative backgrounds, shares a community-minded DIY ethos, which is a big part of why we work so well together. Our diverse skills and experiences are our strengths, allowing us to support ideas from various perspectives, making it easy to avoid overthinking. Some of us compose and score music for orchestras, while others can’t read music at all. This creates a beautiful de-centering of focus and control; we can genuinely play freely and trust one another.

In terms of sound, this diversity is a real asset, as our collective performance draws from many different genres. I don’t seek commonality in lived experiences or creative backgrounds; instead, I look for a shared ethos—open-mindedness, adventurousness, and resourcefulness that often come from DIY communities. I see this in all my collaborators in Scions, along with an authentic joy in making music and a desire to serve the music itself.

It’s no secret that commerce can be detrimental to creative expression. I generally struggle to function in spaces or projects driven by commercial outcomes. Nothing stifles genuine creative spirit like commercial priorities, and in a production environment, predictable decisions lead to predictable outcomes, which conflict with my way of working. I know this from experience!

Ultimately, I want to work with people who are kind, passionate, thoughtful, and with whom I share authentic relationships rooted in trust and respect. I’d rather work with my neighbors than some famous strangers any day. I think this sentiment is something we all share in Scions.