Audio By Carbonatix
Two quick updates to last week’s North of the Dial: First off, Sacramento-based label Waaga Records, which is jonesing hard for Denton right now, has set a release date for its recent Denton-based signee, FUR. Bryce Isbell’s elctro-trance debut, Witches (hear some of the tracks here), will officially see the light of day on February 23, 2009 (putting him right up against fellow DFW native Erykah Badu, for what it’s worth).
And, as for the second update: Florene‘s made its signing with the label official as well. Word from the band is that the album “almost” done, and, just yesterday, Waaga slotted the album for an April 27 release.
In a recent interview, Florene’s Aaron Mollet said of the recording process: “We’re pretty much done recording and we’re mixing the album right now with Lars Larsen [of Phantastes, as well as the late, great Undoing of David Wright].” So, one can then imagine the horrible sinking feeling that Mollet and his partner in crime Gavin Guthrie after Saturday’s Christmassacre at Bee’s Manor when they realized that the laptop containing all the files for the new album–as well as all of the midi info that allows the band to play live–was missing.
In fact, two laptops were taken from the house.
Guthrie said by phone last night that he hadn’t had time to back up the
album on his external hard drive, so the aspiring klepto walked off
with the only copy of the record. But, in what I’m gonna chalk up to a
holiday miracle, the laptops were returned to Bee’s Manor on Sunday
afternoon.
As for what that those files contain? Well, Florene’s new material finds the band’s sound starting to crystallize
as the duo’s compositions take a darker, more aggressive tone. And, if
the tracks that I’ve heard, which are apparently the same tracks the
band sent along to Waaga prior to getting signed, are any indication,
then this promises to be an excellent release. Take, for instance, this excellent track which Waaga was kind enough to let us offer our readers…
Bonus mp3:
2010 looks to be big year for the band, with a Florene cassette
tape also in the works (with a digital download) expected later next
year, as well as a cassette from Mollet’s solo moniker Customer, which
has a dirtier electronic sound than older Florene material but is
closer, sonically, to the duo’s recent work.
“The Florene stuff s much more like [Customer] now,” Mollet explains.
“It’s pretty much a departure for us. There’s vocals on nearly every
song, and there’s no song that’s longer that like five minutes. We worked really, really hard on the record, and we’re both really
proud of it. We kind of functioned for a while like a two-man musical
collective, where whatever we did was called Florene and it didn’t
matter what it sounded like.”
But, says Mollet: “This record will be a
defining work that, from here on out, people will know us as.”
The band was also kind enough to send another track our way. “Let’s Paint Our Faces And Change The World, Pt. 1” was
released on a split EP that the band released with Verulf (which features
Caleb Grey of Matthew and the Arrogant Sea)
Bonus mp3:
“This is from a different time in
which we were approaching music a little differently,” Gavin Guthrie writes in e-mail. Guthrie says the
band is still proud of the song, which the pair recorded in one take in
2007. Read a less than favorable review that the band garneres for the
track here.
“It was a little crushing at the time,” Guthrie admits.
Thankfully for us, Florene kept at it.
