177 replies to this topic

[DrJimmy]

Mending of the Gown = I'll Belive in Anything (maybe)

dude, no way. "i'll believe in anything" is much better. it still may be the best song the guy has ever created. "mending" has none of its power.


but, that said, i am really loving RSL lately. i think it may go back into my top 10 for this year.


except i skip about 4 songs every time. wish i didn't have to skip them, but it's necessary and worth it.

[Chicken Invaders!]

Beast Moans is pretty bad.

[Cinnamon P.]

Mending of the Gown = I'll Belive in Anything (maybe)

dude, no way. "i'll believe in anything" is much better. it still may be the best song the guy has ever created. "mending" has none of its power.


but, that said, i am really loving RSL lately. i think it may go back into my top 10 for this year.


except i skip about 4 songs every time. wish i didn't have to skip them, but it's necessary and worth it.

this is prob true. I've over listened to I'll believe in anything. Oh, to chrone bone, Swan Lake sounded really good last night.

[Chronodiggity]

January 29, 2008-

I also read in an interview with Spencer Krug that Swan Lake planned on recording the follow up in Feb. Is that still a possibility?

Dan: It is an extremely distinct probability.

Listening to Beast Moans again in celebration. I listen to this album all the time it seems. It very much feels like 'my' record.

This album is so intimate. I feel really connected to this album. Like really gayly. Like I want to have sex with the dudes that made it.

[Chronodiggity]

Spencer Krug Dishes On New Swan Lake LP
6/3/2008 By Brock Thiessen

There’s no denying Spencer Krug is one busy dude. The Montreal-based songwriter is in the midst of leading Sunset Rubdown across Europe, he has Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer set to drop on June 17, and now he’s leaked word his third love, Swan Lake, has a new full-length on the horizon.

While recently speaking with the Bristol University radio station Burst, Krug revealed Swan Lake, his project with Dan Bejar of Destroyer and Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer, have wrapped up recording their sophomore album. "Swan Lake just made another record. When it comes out, I don't know,” Krug told the station. “It hasn't been mixed yet; we just finished the recording.”

Krug also went on to say that, like the group’s debut, 2006’s Beast Moans, the new yet-to-be-named record is very much a collaborative affair, with the each songwriter bringing his own contributions and then mixing them all up into what eventually becomes Swan Lake.

“[Recording] is very deliberately, very outwardly ‘Everyone bring X amount of songs,’ and I'll bring a whole song to the project and be like ‘This is what I would like you guys to do on this,’ but their styles still get infused into the end result. That's the idea,” Krug said. “It's a collaboration and we talk a lot in that project about everything, but in the beginning stages, it's very much everyone brings, like, four songs. Finished songs."

Krug didn’t say when we could expect the new album, but it’s safe to say it will hit shops sometime after Wolf Parade’s busy touring schedule, which gets into full swing next month.

Everything is falling into place.

Word is the album is being mixed by John Congleton

[brobee]

Spencer Krug Dishes On New Swan Lake LP
6/3/2008 By Brock Thiessen

There’s no denying Spencer Krug is one busy dude. The Montreal-based songwriter is in the midst of leading Sunset Rubdown across Europe, he has Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer set to drop on June 17, and now he’s leaked word his third love, Swan Lake, has a new full-length on the horizon.

While recently speaking with the Bristol University radio station Burst, Krug revealed Swan Lake, his project with Dan Bejar of Destroyer and Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer, have wrapped up recording their sophomore album. "Swan Lake just made another record. When it comes out, I don't know,” Krug told the station. “It hasn't been mixed yet; we just finished the recording.”

Krug also went on to say that, like the group’s debut, 2006’s Beast Moans, the new yet-to-be-named record is very much a collaborative affair, with the each songwriter bringing his own contributions and then mixing them all up into what eventually becomes Swan Lake.

“[Recording] is very deliberately, very outwardly ‘Everyone bring X amount of songs,’ and I'll bring a whole song to the project and be like ‘This is what I would like you guys to do on this,’ but their styles still get infused into the end result. That's the idea,” Krug said. “It's a collaboration and we talk a lot in that project about everything, but in the beginning stages, it's very much everyone brings, like, four songs. Finished songs."

Krug didn’t say when we could expect the new album, but it’s safe to say it will hit shops sometime after Wolf Parade’s busy touring schedule, which gets into full swing next month.

Everything is falling into place.

Word is the album is being mixed by John Congleton

YES!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cinnamon P.]

these guys should go back in time and work with phil elvrum. that would be great if swan lake was produced by him. throw some mirah in there for good luck and a good fuck. wow, I just invented the best music the world will never hear.

HERE IS YOUR CHANCE, SWAN LAKE COLLECTIVE! PHIL ELVRUM!

seriously though, it's EP time once again. I am going to listen to these Wolf Parade EPs and Krugs tunes on Beast Moans. I love this thread. good job chron tron.

[Chronodiggity]

Will you be swimming in her pools, are you swimming in her pools, are you swimming in her pooooooools. Oooooo Ooooo OOOOoo

[Cinnamon P.]

1000 people - 500 people who float ------ 500 people who don't...

[Chronodiggity]

MARCH 24TH, TWO THOUSAND AND NINE


"Spanish Gold, 2044"
"Paper Lace"
"Heartswarm"
"Settle on Your Skin"
"Ballad of a Swan Lake, Or, Daniel’s Song"
"Peace"
"Spider"
"A Hand at Dusk"
"Warlock Psychologist"


BE READY MORTALS

[Chronodiggity]

i'm pulling some serious one man hype since Q4 07 on this shit if you didn't like Beast Moans you don't deserve this record

[washing machine]

if you didn't like Beast Moans you don't deserve to live

[brian]

Considering I love everything Spencer Krug does, I can't wait for this record.

[sunstung]

if you didn't love Beast Moans you don't deserve to live

[The Luscious Phil]

Wait, people really liked "Beast Moans?" I thought we all thought it was decent but was completely half-baked.

[sunstung]

Wait, people really liked "Beast Moans?"

I thought we all thought it was decent but was completely half-baked.

Had I been around I would've argued otherwise.

[The Luscious Phil]

Wait, people really liked "Beast Moans?"

I thought we all thought it was decent but was completely half-baked.

Had I been around I would've argued otherwise.

Then I'll amend my initial point.

I think the record is decent but totally half-baked. Too much Mercer, and too many undeveloped songs. Actually come to think of it, I am pretty sure that was the tipping point of when I was totally in love with Krug and Bejar, but have been relatively luke-warm on everything they have done since. These guys just all need to take two-three years off, so I can get excited about their music again.

[sunstung]

Wait, people really liked "Beast Moans?"

I thought we all thought it was decent but was completely half-baked.

Had I been around I would've argued otherwise.

Then I'll amend my initial point.

I think the record is decent but totally half-baked. Too much Mercer, and too many undeveloped songs. Actually come to think of it, I am pretty sure that was the tipping point of when I was totally in love with Krug and Bejar, but have been relatively luke-warm on everything they have done since. These guys just all need to take two-three years off, so I can get excited about their music again.

It never felt undeveloped or half-baked to me, but maybe I'm just too much of a Krug and Mercer fanboy. I've loved just about everything those two have been involved with (as well as Bejar, though to a lesser extent), so Beast Moans felt like a wonderfully blurry combination of their sounds and styles, placed within a sonic context that couldn't be pinned to any of the member's individual styles.

I know a lot of people didn't care for it, and that's fine. It just all worked for me.

[Chronodiggity]

no, never please. never stop.

Carey Mercer wrote 4 songs on Beast Moans - City Calls, The Partisan But He's Got to Know, Petersburg, Liberty Theater, 1914, and The Pollenated Girls, just as Spencer Krug wrote 4, with Bejar writing 5. from what i read about the recording of the album, each songwriter took the song they had wrote and directed the other members to play where they wanted them. very egalitarian and very balanced. perhaps where you're going is that Mercer's songwriting influenced the other two, which i wouldn't consider a bad thing, but i also don't see it too much. his sound is in a lot of the guitars since he plays many of the guitar parts, but songs like The Freedom are very Bejar, and Are You Swimming in Her Pools? is very Krug. listening to the album on my new fantastic headphones today made me appreciate just how well recorded and mixed the album is, despite near-universal panning of it as muddy and cluttered. the low end is especially impressive, as is the texture of the organs and synths. i think the percussion, without the use of a traditional drum set is spectacular and part of the records draw. it sounds very intimate. they definitely didn't phone in the songwriting either. they brought some ideas to a cabin in Whateverthefuck, Canada and banged this shit out in a collaborative spirit. that spirit is one of the records greatest strengths.

i wrote this about the album when i was 16:

It lacks the Issac Brock polish of Apologies to the Queen Mary, or even Destroyer's Rubies.

Shut Up I Am Dreaming was cleaner as well, and it's not as ridiculous as the early Sunset Rubdown.

It's not as hectic as any Frog Eyes.

It's a mix of all the aforementioned sonic styles. Why? Because it's all three of those band members. That may sound obvious, but most people have the farfetched idea that a supergroup would have each of them contributing 3 or 4 songs from their distinct style, throwing them into one album and calling it a day. What we have is a distinct style that incorperates what the three have been doing for years.

As you keep listening to Beast Moans, it begins to have a very homey feel. The tracks are familiar. They gain an instancy that isn't there the first time. Remember how many times you had to listen to All Fires when it was released to love it? If you're like me, you listened to it about 120 times in a weekend. Now you have to do it for 12 other songs.

On Beast Moans you will find:

-Songwriting indulgence from all three of our heroes, which is a good thing in this case.
-More "la la la's" from Dan Bejar.
-Lots and lots of bells and cymbals.
-Layers upon layers of background vocals and noise; keep your ears OPEN.

And you will learn:

-Just how important an organ loop in the background is; it can make of break a track.
-How unique a guitarist Carey Mercer is.
-That Spencer Krug is the best songwriter of the 21st century. His tracks absolutely blow me away. He was my favorite of the three coming into Swan Lake, and remains so as I listen.

Listen to Beast Moans from beginning to end a few times before you start picking tracks to listen to. Tracks like A Venue Called Rubela, Petersburg, Liberty Theater, 1914, and Pleasure Vessles are made so much better by inclusion of more "epic" tracks around them. Some say filler. Let's call them gateways, since they take you where you want to go - this albums greatest emotional peaks.

Maybe this feeling is just because I'm forcing myself to love this album because of who's in the band, but this is an album that isn't just a collection of music, but a feeling all it's own. I can't say I've listened to another album I can say the same thing about.

I hope these three continuing making music together and separately for a LONG time. I'll keep listening.


This "review" feels more like gushing than actual substance. Maybe Beast Moans is simply gushy.

it doesn't make as much sense to me now as it did then, but it conveys the emotional appeal of this disc.

[brobee]

who's a straight dude got to blow to hear this album already. i'm in the kinda lukewarm camp for beast moans, but that was lukewarm in the face of staggering expectation. i still enjoyed every second and poured over that lyric book for days. bring this shit on.