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 The Soft Province
CDLP (TRR062)
Downloads:
One Was a Lie (mp3)
 PURCHASE CD - $12 + SHIPPING
 Buy at iTunes Music Store
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 I See Two Eyes
Digital Single (TRR061)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
The
Soft Province Myspace |
Somewhere in the two thousand-mile-journey
between the capital of
Saskatchewan and downtown Montreal exists a new body of music. It's
where the two musical minds of longtime friends (and Besnard Lakes
co-founders) Jace Lasek and Michael Gardiner met to explore and
draw the new borders that make up the 45 atmospheric minutes of
their debut album, "The Soft Province".
Friends since the age of twelve, Jace and Mike
have played music together since the age of sixteen. The last
time they collaborated musically was in 2001 in the first incarnation
of The Besnard Lakes.
The Soft Province's debut self-titled album was
recorded partially by Jace
at Breakglass Studios in Montreal, and partially by Mike over
a period of
two years in Regina, Canada. In August of 2008, Mike flew to Montreal
armed only with a 12-string Fender Coronado and over thirty different
recordings of song ideas and loose structures. Jace helped to
organize, edit and arrange the album, adding extra instrumentation
and finally, vocals. In November 2008, they mixed the album at
Breakglass. The final product digs into the duo's love of layering
sounds and instruments, and using the studio as a way to achieve
it.
Drawing on Mike and Jace's love of the pop song
and long repetitive
drones, the album spans the distance between the concise pop song
structure of Francoise Hardy and the psychedelic organ drones
of Broadcast.
Guests include Jace's wife and Besnard Lakes band
mate, Olga Goreas, Max Henry (of Suuns, Young Galaxy) and Jonathan
Cummins' 1965 Fender Jazzmaster.
Jace Lasek currently plays in The Besnard Lakes
and runs Breakglass
Studios in Montreal where he records and produces many Canadian
artists (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Land of Talk, Suuns, among others).
Michael Gardiner is a visual artist, musician
and recording engineer
living in Western Canada.
Reviews for The Soft Province:
"...what makes the record work so well is how the duo... manage to add enough muscle and triumphant surges to this sun kissed adventure to help it stand up during the cold winter months."
- Hero Hill
"We hear so much great music coming out of Canada in the twenty-first century...but this has got to be one of our all-time favorites."
- LMNOP / babysue / dONW7
"The single for I See Two Eyes is available at iTunes, and the title track somehow manages to sound exactly how the cover art looks – shimmery, mysterious, perfect."
- So Much Silence
"Songs with a flexible structure never fail to interest, clever instrumentation and attention to the finer details allow an audio concept to flourish for the benefit of the listener. The Soft Province madly tick all these tantalising musical boxes, the willingness to branch out and control the unshackled Psych-Pop and cloudy post-90`s Shoegaze is exasperating."
- Mojophenia |
