The Wrens

Are we not liking this record now? For crying out loud, what the hell is there not to like? It's on the shortlist of best records of the 2000s, people! Geez louise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ten tons against me and you've gone
I put your favorite records on
and sit around
it spins around
and you're around again
struck dumb while drugs run at how high reeds
cue every memory at half-speeds
just like....charles, hold-me-downs
I'm-coming sounds
cut crap, who's filling shoes like these anymore?
past clumsy crushes beneath Thrill Pier
hopes pinned to poses honed in men's room mirrors
a sophomore at Brown
she worked Lost & Found
I put your face on her all year
from five rows of photos when you wrote
of posed you, dressed blue, a backyard boat
signed at the bottom with this quote:
(#4 North Shore) a cape may address
your new one I guess
'all's well in hell and all here's hoping'
she sends kisses
some signed 'with Love, Beth oooooo xxxxx'
she sends kisses
our oldest joke
some signed 3 sixes
our shore town knockdown sure was fun
yeah, white trash, what have you
I fired replies back gun by gun
past Seven Wrecks I read your four answers: 1. your move 2. I'm tres involved 3. move on 4. love, Beth
I walk it down
this tourist town
'just thought I'd' calls
just friends
she sends kisses
and all at once back doors blow open
she sends.... in envelopes stamped w/ 'Hope & Hearts' - ripped right open
she sends...
but I'm corrupt - I wrote back good luck

from the above lyrics, the following line stands out for me as incredible:

"hopes pinned to poses honed in men's room mirrors"

such a great observation, expressed with a great deal of poetic poise.

I still don't get it.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/the-wrens-meadowlands-round-14-toms-selection/

At what point does its brilliance reveal itself?

it took me at least 5 listenings spread throughout the course of a month before i even began to consider coming back to individual songs.

they have their strong moments, but the lyrics in "happy" make me cringecringeCRINGE despite being my favorite song of theirs. and i spent too much of my disowned teenage years listening to nu-metal that that ~voice~ has always struck me as the kind you'd hear opening for Staind that sometimes i turn it down on the bus just in case anyone is actually critical enough to judge the squibbles emitting from my headphones

I like the album a great deal but it's not by any means an easy listen.

Apparently the new record's done, partially spurred on by a near-death experience. They signed a new deal a few weeks back.

http://wrens.com/25th-year-wrap-up_and_record_is_wrapped

Neat. Scary circumstances though, yikes.

do we know which wren is writing there?

I assume it's Kevin?

I was assuming Charles?

I'll put in $5 on Kevin

some of the other recent posts are written by charles for sure

Given their luck, maybe they all got cepsis.

that'd be charles

Dammit!

The Meadowlands is probably in my top ten all time records. I almost dread anticipating this new record. Yet can't wait all the same.

Alright, looks like it reeeeaaaaally is done this time (the album)? I just happened to randomly google them to see what the latest is...

http://www.wrens.com/it-was-five-years-ago-yesterday

aw

http://www.musictimes.com/articles/68199/20160321/wrens-frontman-charles-bissell-shares-cancer-diagnosis-news-facebook.htm

just the worst news

hopefully it's not dire. he's so self-effacing that it's hard to really tell.

So apparently the new album is done; Charles has been posting invitations on FB for people to come by his house and listen to it, if there are any NJ ILXors interested. I guess we can expect a release date at some point in the near future? Maybe?

is it actually done this time? he's been having people come by to listen to the new material for quite a while now, so until there's a release date i won't hold my breath. the last concrete details from twitter were that it was nearly all sequenced & mastered at the start of august, with only a few songs left to tweak

So apparently the new album is done; Charles has been posting invitations on FB for people to come by his house and listen to it, if there are any NJ ILXors interested. I guess we can expect a release date at some point in the near future? Maybe?

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Wednesday, September 13, 2017 11:40 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought Charles lived in BK? Or are you saying only us NJ ILXors are qualified to get an first listen?

nah I just assumed he lived in jersey

he talks about that a bit here

http://gothamist.com/2017/10/27/charles_bissell_the_wrens_interview.php

I actually went to one of his listening parties in his little studio just off the kitchen. He was very welcoming. It was great to talk about music and art and listen to the new material. The songs themselves are very collage-like and are sounding really good!

Ah that's so great!

I’m curious, are they self-releasing?

Bissell said about a year ago (?) that they had signed to a label, even showed him signing paperwork, but he declined to say what label. Who knows what the deal is now though

When I was at his place he told us the label... I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be a secret though?

I think it is? Maybe you could tell us what it rhymes with.

I have an urge to tell you, but I'm starting to second guess my memory? My wife is also fuzzy on it but she agrees it's probably the one I think...

I sorta reckoned as much anyway

Again, for the record we're both not 100% sure we remember correctly, but pretty sure.

iirc he's said they're intending for the label announcement to be part of the proper album announcement and everything

ah nice! had no idea they had a new album in the works of

I gues this puts them on track to release their 5th record some time around 2045 :D

works of

it's been in the works since 2010 and has been 'almost done' for like two years now, does seem like there's a chance of it finally coming out next year but i'm not getting my hopes up until there's a release date

He gave us some very specific timing estimations based on the promotional/manufacturing process... so it should definitely be for real this time. We'll see!

every time I hear the jeff rosenstock lyric "perfect always takes so long because it don't exist" I think of this goddamn album lol

Probably my most-anticipated release of '18. We'll see.

I've been anticipating this thing for so many years that the idea of it ever coming out sounds like something that's just forever off in the future. If it comes out in 2018 i'll be downright ecstatic.

my lord is there a more self-deprecating songwriter alive than Charles Bissell? today's update:

Super-short super-unimportant...I’d said I was gonna post an update at the end of Aug., and because these things often end up being sprawling multi-page affairs, I put it off. The new work-fast me is going bullet-point:

* Mastered finished songs last summer, i.e. Aug. 2017
* Mastering really just revealed that about half-doz. of them were either not so good or if on the right track, just not quite done, musically speaking.
* I worked on those all fall & winter
* Finished everything by the end of the school year, which was the goal ‘cause I knew summer was gonna be bonkers (family-wise, at-home-parent-of-three-grade-schoolers-wise), and it was. In a nice way. And one of the only stretches, health stuff aside, of really not working on the record at all. It was heavenly.
* With youngsters now back in school (this is the first full week), pulling up the now-finished songs & final-mixing them.
* Honestly, first time I”m happy. I mean I hate them, and myself now, but the record’s good. Not great, overworked maybe, but good (at least as much due Kevin’s anchoring anthems, which have largely been done for at least a year or two)
* Will mix the next little bit (I won’t dare give a specific time-frame but, I don’t know, into Oct..?), hand it in and let you know. Ta-da.
* Thanks, as always.

going back not to the recorded songs but to the songs themselves because mastering "revealed them as not so good" is a pretty intense stance. never heard of it really. like, when a track's mixed, ok. but mastering exposed something missing in the actual song? wild

overworked maybe

I had a sad chuckle at that

lol this album is never going to be finished

ffs even D’Angelo, dr dre and MBV have released their albums by now

I would be more annoyed about it but Charles seems a bit fragile and tbh it's probably for the best that he take his time! (and it's not like he/they have D'Angelo or MBV-level fanbases or resources to help them out...)