Фирма Secretly Canadian

THE DUNGEONESSE, the pop project of Jenn Wasner (WYE OAK, FLOCK OF DIMES) and Jon Ehrens (WHITE LIFE), release its self-titled debut album on Secretly Canadian. "Shucks," which premiered with Pitchfork, is an apt lead-off for the album, a funk-influenced track full of bass that Wasner's voice surfs like a wave. On the band's first single and video (also released as a standalone 12"), "Drive You Crazy", Wasner's Ciara-like breathy coo comes to the fore over Ehrens' gigantic production-Top 40 with a connoisseur's touch. Wasner & Ehrens know we want to party and the songs on DUNGEONESSE are the perfect soundtrack: bangers ("Cadillac", "Drive You Crazy"), slow jams ("Nightlight", "Wake Me Up"), synthy house ("Private Party"), and carefully crafted beats that make you wanna. Born of a mutual admiration for Top 40 and R&B and the mechanics of what makes a hit song, the Baltimore natives and longtime friends Wasner & Ehrens began putting jams together remotely. Ehrens would send tracks from LA to Wasner on tour, and they'd bounce ideas back and forth. The charming strength of the resulting Dungeonesse rests in the dichotomy formed by of a bold re-introduction of the beautiful imperfections of the human voice into a landscape of what is an increasingly mechanized process of music making. The fun resides in the listen. CD, Album

CAYUCAS: Pronounced "ky-yook-us", is the monikered homage to a sleepy little seaside town in San Luis Obispo County, California. That town, Cayucos, has hardly changed in the last 50 years, a far cry from the gentrified tourist traps parading showily down Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Independent

CAYUCAS: Pronounced "ky-yook-us", is the monikered homage to a sleepy little seaside town in San Luis Obispo County, California. That town, Cayucos, has hardly changed in the last 50 years, a far cry from the gentrified tourist traps parading showily down Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Independent

Artist: Songs: Ohia Label: Secretly Canadian

Artist: Songs of Ohia Label: Secretly Canadian

SUUNS release their second full-length album, ,Images Du Futur" via Secretly Canadian. After touring North America and Europe extensively throughout 2011, the band spent the winter and spring of 2012 writing & recording in their hometown, Montreal. Their sessions were concurrent with the Quebec student protests that started in February of 2012 and continued through September of 2012. Set against a backdrop lead singer Ben Shemie calls "a climate of excitement, hope and frustration," SUUNS aimed for an expansion of the musical ideas on their critically acclaimed first record, "Zeroes, QC". Lauded especially by Pitchfork and NME, the former saying "few bands this young are operating on quite this scale, and fewer still have the brass-- and the patience-- to pull off a big, glitzy, complex record like Zeroes QC," and the latter declaring them 2011's Best New Band, SUUNS have deepened their Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Independent

Artist: Suuns Label: Secretly Canadian

The son of a genetic engineer, Dave Hartley has eschewed his father's profession but decidedly inherited his analytical proclivities and love of the lab. As NIGHTLANDS, Hartley is a scientist trying to create and understand art through analytical process. Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Independent

Artist: Nightlands Label: Secretly Canadian

Artist: B.R. Danielson Label: Secretly Canadian

Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Pop

TAKEN BY TREES, the brainchild of renaissance woman Victoria Bergsman, has signed to Secretly Canadian. The former front woman of THE CONCRETES (who you may also recognize from the Peter, Bjorn & John hit "Young Folks") releases her new album "Other Worlds", her first since 2009's "East of Eden". "Other Worlds" is an impressionist poem for the Hawaiian Islands, where on a recent visit, Bergsman found a swell of creative inspiration. Working closely with photographer Amanda Marsalis, Victoria intimately documented her time in Hawaii gathering ideas for songs and recording nature sounds while Marsalis filmed and took photos. The music that resulted reflects the natural beauty of the Hawaiian islands - floating in a perfectly blue pond, a kind breeze coasting off the waves, and abundant deep green foliage. The album's dub influences are gently layered with synths and Victoria's voice, floating along with the bass line. Producer Henning Fürst (The Tough Alliance) collaborated with Victoria on the sound and overall feel of the album to create something that felt light, cool & laid back. She also worked with longtime TAKEN BY TREES confederate, Andreas Söderström. Together they employed unique instruments and ambient sounds like steel drums, marimba, a thunderstorm and bird song to great effect. When Victoria got back to LA, musician Dan Horne added some grace notes as did Farmer Dave Scher (BEACHWOOD SPARKS). Ultimately, ,Other Worlds" aims to take the listener somewhere luscious and warm. Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Independent

TAKEN BY TREES, the brainchild of renaissance woman Victoria Bergsman, has signed to Secretly Canadian. The former front woman of THE CONCRETES (who you may also recognize from the Peter, Bjorn & Joh Record Label: Secretly Canadian Style: Independent

Tracey Thorn wrote a song that reached Jens in the early stages of his new album, "I Know What Love Isn't". In her song she sang "Oh Jens, oh Jens / your songs seem to look through a different lens / you're still so young, love ends just as easy as it's begun." A touching moment for the Swedish songwriter, having been a fan since his teens. But it came to him in a time when he found himself very confused and in doubt. He was changing and, subsequently, so were his songs. They weren't looking through that lens anymore. "I Know What Love Isn't" came out of a break up, something Jens didn't see as worth writing about at first. The songs began more fleeting than the last go around, on his 2007 album "Night Falls Over Kortedala". The songs began building from images and memories and soon began to take their own route, one that Lekman wasn't privy to their destination. In "The World Moves On" he paints a picture of a sweltering summer in the city of Melbourne where he lived while writing and recording the album. The hot days that led up to the Black Saturday bushfires, but also more mundane images of feeding possums in a park or getting in trouble with some guy on a scooter. It seems to lead nowhere at first but the aimlessness in itself reaches heartbreaking conclusions later on, summed up by the soaring chorus "...and you don't get over a broken heart, you just learn to carry it gracefully." Like Joan Didion once said that she writes entirely to find out what she's thinking, Jens wrote until he caught up with his thoughts. And of course they led him right back to the break up. Musically, "I Know What Love Isn't" chooses an economic route. From the vast palette he created for Kortedala, he's only chosen a few somber colors this time around. There are strings but not a string section, an upright piano and not a grand, a single saxophone and gracenotes from a flute. The songs are lighter, almost aerodynamic, Jens explains - "I wanted the songs to take off almost unnoticeably, where the chorus is separated from the verse only through a small detail like a tambourine or a harmony. Like when you're in an airplane taking off and you look out the window and realize you're already in the air." A dry country piano makes "Become Someone Else's" lift high. Vocals from Melbourne singer Sophie Brous makes the chorus in "Erica America" soar. Strings pick up the title track and send it up to the sky without much effort or force. In the latter, Lekman once again points the way to distill essential truths from every day life vignettes while singing about a sham marriage. "I thought of the Friday nights when I'd be cruising up and down the street with my best friend in her old crappy Holden, talking about getting married to get me into the country. The idea was so appealing, that we would build this constructed relationship around a purpose rather than some vague feeling that could change at anytime. But in the end, the sham marriage is much too great a story to be kept secret. At least when you make a living from telling stories." And that's what "I Know What Love Isn't..." is. A collection of songs that grew to a story that had to be told. A story that is not new, but essentially human. The story of the grey areas of love that you have to excavate and explore, using the method of exclusion, to find out what love is. Vinyl, LP, Album

Record Label: Secretly Canadian

Record Label: Secretly Canadian

Record Label: Secretly Canadian

Record Label: Secretly Canadian

Record Label: Secretly Canadian

Record Label: Secretly Canadian