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Besnard Lakes Plan Return Gigs To The U.S. With A Stop In Chicago In May
Each summer Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, the core of Montreal’s Besnard Lakes, visit the site of the group’s namesake in rural Saskatchewan. Last time around, they found themselves surrounded by the flames of a forest fire for several worrying days – a chaotic, literal ring of fire that went on to inform the devil-may-care spirit of their fifth record, A Coliseum Complex Museum. Demos and memories of the trip, paired with Lasek’s experiences as a teenage ghost hunter and the band’s obsession with the paranormal and dark arts, went on to populate A Coliseum Complex Museum with cryptozoological creatures, natural phenomena, and beauty.
The sessions for A Coliseum Complex Museum ended up yielding more material than could fit on a single LP, so last month the band released The Besnard Lakes Are the Divine Wind, a limited 12” featuring “Laura Lee” and the title track. The link to listen to the new 12” can be fond above!
Sonically, imagine the dreaminess of Beach House riding the dynamics of Led Zeppelin; the band is unafraid to marry textured headphone sonics to the honeyed pleasure of radio hits past, entwining the rapture of My Bloody Valentine with the romance of Fleetwood Mac. The Besnard Lakes’ output is a self-contained little odyssey, both of its time while reaching backward.
Praise for A Coliseum Complex Museum
“The Besnard Lakes have committed themselves to the “studio as an instrument” mentality of Brian Wilson on each of their sweeping, meticulously crafted albums, but their fifth effort draws from natural surroundings, fixating on the skies, the elements, and animals, both real and imagined.” – Pitchfork
“A Coliseum Complex Museum, the Lakes’ fifth full-length (and fourth for Jagjaguwar) manages to keep up with that sterling record of consistency: It’s a beautiful and often rousing album of deep, proggy shoegaze.” – Under the Radar
The Besnard Lakes will return to Chicago to play at Empty Bottle on May 15th just before heading out on their European tour. They have just 13 dates planed for the US. Here they are.
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