Tales From a Dog-Eared Notebook Pt.1

It’s July 30 and we’ve been sitting on the final mastered and sequenced sounds of our latest album, Darker Lights since July 5th!!! Needless to say we’re itching to share or at least do something over here but there’s a bit process still going on.  Some of that process is too boring to mention here (i.e. talk of “focus tracks,” exact release dates, mail out times and long leads, etc. etc.,) but some of it is freaking cool. For instance we are collaborating with one of the most exciting young visual artists (and talented musicians) in Canada, David Kleiser to design and illustrate our album cover.   Those of you who may have ordered our limited edition vinyl for Inferior Ghost probably received, as a bonus insert,  a print of his excellent poster for our August 28, 2012 appearance at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.

All these meetings over copious amounts of coffee in the well-lit offices at Sparks have been fruitful. Soon we will announce a release date (we’ve narrowed it down to 2 possibles) and other exciting news.

Also coming soon will be some Fall season tour dates.

Meanwhile, we’ll be making a hometown appearance at the Rivoli, Saturday August 10 with friends Duck Duck Goose Goose and Wild Domestic. But you know this already, don’t you?  Here’s the FB event. Please join!

https://www.facebook.com/events/202725856557587

Cheers,

-dean

Echoes From A Dimly Lit Studio Pt.7

The new album is finally done! Done! At least the music part is. I actually completed mixing more than a week ago (Sunday June 23) at the amazing 6 Nassau in Kensington Market. The record is being mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel as I write this.  We are quite proud, excited and eager to share but I have to say it’s been a difficult but rewarding experience. I guess we say that about every release don’t we? It’s true. Our previous release, Inferior Ghost, was hard to make because I had to close down my recording studio (which was where we wrote/rehearsed) and at the same time we had to finish up and promote what should have been a full-length album but ended up an EP.  I guess you can say there was a period of homelessness for us. We had no studio or rehearsal space between doing the last tracks for Inferior Ghost and touring to promote it. Inferior Ghost is really our half-finished sophomore album.

This latest album, Darker Lights, was difficult to make too. Musically, we  had to start over from scratch because we lost two members right after the Inferior Ghost tour. I junked all the songs I was writing for our original lineup. We had to re-invent our approach and ultimately our  sound. We also had to re-establish our home base – now a great little private studio we call Echo Valley. We had to write new material and we still had show commitments to honour. Darker Lights really began in the fall of 2012 with a writing phase tempered by a bout of writer’s block. We didn’t start recording “proper” until mid-February. Andy joined us in March and it is now early July. It took us 21 months to record our debut album and we did Darker Lights in five months – still, I feel it’s our best work yet.

There are nine new compositions and one “remake” of an Inferior Ghost song (which is like a whole new song now). The album (as of this writing) is just shy of 4o minutes long.  It’s darker,  heavier, more guitar-driven and more moody than the first album. That’s about all I can say at this point. We’ve been pretty good about keeping the work private so far – only sharing among ourselves and our inner circle. I’m proud to say that 90% of the record was tracked at our own Echo Valley studio and the remaining 10% was tracked at 6 Nassau at the beginning of a 15 day marathon mix session. Everything was engineered by myself and Nathan Vanderwielen.

Currently, we are working on a sequence for the record and should be putting the physical presentation together soon. Once we have a sequence I’m going to share some lyrics here on the blog – but no sounds yet…There is no official release date for Darker Lights. My guess is that it will be released sometime mid to late Autumn. I’m sure there will be a few teasers out there soon. Stay posted for more news.

p.s.

Next Toronto appearance: August 10 at the Rivoli.

-dean