You Lived in the City EP (2011)
Welcome to Pine Point is a multimedia documentary that combines video footage, artwork, photographs and music on a web interface. Pine Point is a Canadian mining town that existed for one generation and was closed and wiped off the map after the mine closed. The documentary serves as an album to the town’s memory. Co-director Michael Simons, a longtime friend of The Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek, told the band about the project and asked if the band would be interested in providing some music for it. He asked if the band would cover “We’re Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)” by Canadian rock band Trooper. The songs The Besnard Lakes contributed to Welcome to Pine Point will be available via 12″ EP available at their upcoming tour dates and by mail order at SC Distribution. “The Corner” is one of two songs written for the end credits of the film “Memories Corner”. This is the song that wasn’t chosen. Also a Besnard Lakes rarity, this song is available for the first and only time on You Lived in the City.
The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night (2010)
There is a war now. The message has been sent through short wave in code. The Besnard Lakes twisting chronicle, or fever dream, of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods has turned violent. Loyalty, dishonor, love, hatred all seen through the eyes of two spies, fighting a war that may not be real. One follows the other as they receive coded messages and spread destruction. The city is burning, and it’s to the benefit of music obsessives everywhere. Once again, the husband-and-wife duo of Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek has crafted a majestic, sprawling vision of guitar bombast and captivating pop experiments.
Produced by The Besnard Lakes | Released on Jagjaguwar/Outside Music | Artwork by Corri-Lynn Tetz
Buy: iTunes (digital), Amazon (CD), Jagjaguwar (all formats), Online Store (CD, vinyl)
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Albatross (EP) (2010)
A standout track and the first single from Montreal’s The Besnard Lakes’ upcoming longplayer, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, “Albatross” has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison reimagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star — dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants. On the flip we find “Four Long Lines,” a non-album cut that not so much exists within the dark grooves of the vinyl as it does float just above the stereo, embodying the extraterrestrial encounter the song cryptically details. “Saw an alien/On the street/At dawn…Saw Aliens/In the sky/Called out to them, ” breathes Jace Lasek’s otherworldly falsetto, which stays just beyond definition skating on top of what could be a basement-tape lost cut from Eno’s Another Green World.
Produced by The Besnard Lakes | Released on Jagjaguwar/Outside Music | Artwork by Todd Stewart
Buy: iTunes (digital), Amazon (Vinyl), Jagjaguwar (Vinyl, digital), Online Store (Vinyl)
Casino Nanaimo (EP) (2007)
On the heels of “The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse”, The Besnard Lakes continue what they’ve started, re-stoking the flames and releasing two additional tracks, as embodied on a 12-inch vinyl single. Side A is “Casino Nanaimo”, a place where repetitive sound and lights engulf addicted gamblers all vying for space on the eternal wheel of fortune. And then there is side B, “Devastation (alternate version)”, the unedited and original straight-to-two-track nine-minute version, recorded live-off-the-floor at Breakglass Studios.
Produced by The Besnard Lakes | Released on Jagjaguwar/Outside Music | Artwork by Todd Stewart
Buy: iTunes (digital), Amazon (vinyl), Jagjaguwar (digital, vinyl),Online Store (vinyl)
The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (2007)
The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse is a luxurious foray into sound and music. The Besnard Lakes have shown that they are masters of finely-honed experimental pop songs that invoke the eerie Lynchian setting as aided and abetted by the music of Julee Cruise. On The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, the band throws into the mix a mad dash of Fleetwood Mac proportioned swagger and ambition. Not so incidentally, the Besnard Lakes have created a masterpiece that will resonate within all quarters, amongst critics, casual and not-so-casual rock listeners, garden variety pop fans and headphone junkies.
Produced by The Besnard Lakes | Released on Jagjaguwar/Outside Music | Artwork by Corri-Lynn Tetz
Buy: iTunes (digital), Amazon (all formats), Jagjaguwar (all formats), Online Store (CD, vinyl)
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Volume 1 (2003)
Produced by The Besnard Lakes | Artwork by Jace Lasek
Buy: iTunes (digital), Amazon (CD, digital), Jagjaguwar (CD, digital), Online Store (CD)
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