Anastasia joins Antoine Sicotte in regrouped duo

BY BRENDAN KELLY
The Gazette

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Sky's death are greatly exaggerated. Or at the very least, those obituaries from earlier this year are no longer accurate. There is still some confusion as to whether or not popular Montreal pop band Sky did actually break up at the start of the year. When Sky took the honours as best new group at this spring's Juno Awards, media reports noted the irony of the fact that the country's top new band was no longer a functioning unit. That's where the plot thickens.

The only thing that is crystal clear now is that Sky is back. The local outfit will release its new single, Superhero, today and its second album, Traveling Infinity, will be in stores this November. The spin doctors in the Sky entourage are now gently suggesting Sky was only on temporary hiatus around the time of the Junos and that there was never any intention of permanently disbanding the group. All of the confusing brouhaha started when Sky lead singer and lyricist James Renald left the band last Christmas. A shy, soft-spoken fellow, Renald wasn't happy in the pop-music spotlight and he decided to move to L.A. and work behind the scenes as a songwriter.

Enter, Barry Garber

Clearly EMI Music Canada, Sky's record label, was extremely unhappy with the idea of Sky breaking up. The band's debut album, Piece of Paradise, sold 250,000 copies in Canada, making it one of the top Canadian debuts for the record company, and the record-biz suits were not keen to lose such a profitable franchise. The idea of keeping Sky alive was given even more momentum with the Juno win. That's when Montreal impresario Barry Garber entered the picture. Garber, best known for his close ties to the Celine Dion camp, met Antoine Sicotte - the other half of the Sky duo - at the Junos in Toronto and, a few days later, he had signed on as the group's new manager. Sicotte already had an idea for a replacement for Renald, a 24-year-old Chilean-American Montrealer Anastasia who was singing on the downtown lounge circuit.

Soon enough, the newly-revamped Sky was in an Atlanta studio with producer Phil Tan, who has twirled the knobs for Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton. Then Sky moved its portable studio into a house in Ayer's Cliff on the banks of scenic Lake Massawipi, where Sicotte is currently in the midst of producing new tunes.

Sicotte, who is the son of well-known Quebec actor Gilbert Sicotte, said he never wanted to give up on Sky, even after Renald's departure.

"I've been working towards this since I was 1," said Antoine Sicotte, in a phone interview during a break from recording last week in their Eastern Townships retreat.

Superhero sounds like a somewhat different Sky; there's more of an electro flavour, with gusts up to full-blown disco. But Sicotte is at pains to note that it's not a different band, mainly because he remains the principal musical contributor.

"When you hear the record, you'll definitely recognize the Sky sound," said Sicotte. "It's maybe more oriented toward dance, which is something James was never comfortable with."

Sicotte and Anastasia - who goes by the single name - first met at an Outremont youth centre when they were in high school. Sicotte was jamming with his band in the basement and Anastasia would occasionally come downstairs and belt out a few tunes with the group. That history made the new partnership much easier, she said.

"The transition wasn't so hard," Anastasia said. "I'm enjoying every bit of it. It was a door opening and it looks really great on the inside."