The Wrens

ok let's try that again without embeds

apparently the versions of "Crescent" and "As I've Known" they released a decade ago were just demos, but they sound very good for demos.

years ago i compiled all the unreleased/unfinished material they've played live or released demos of that i could find, so here's everything that hasn't been mentioned yet. some of it is very rough sketches but other stuff is more fleshed out.

"Whammy Song" (transitions into "This Boy Is Exhausted" in this clip)
"Leaves Ground"/"Leaves"
Sleep" (a demo released on a compilation in 2008): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wso2q70zWWM
"Pulled Fences" (live-in-studio improvisation based on a demo titled "In Turkish Waters" that I can no longer track down at all)
"Marked Up"
"Z"
"The Thousand Do's"
"Well It's Right Then It's Wrong" (a version of this in Simon's video, along with "You Won't Need Me Again" and "Get Out Of This Heartless Town", but this is a longer performance)
untitled songs: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 (two songs in this one), 6

there's a few more bits of songs on their soundcloud that Charles has posted over the years: https://soundcloud.com/thewrens

sick roundup, I'm glad I'm not the only one who loves these scraps

We have a dog, a fish, three children, four chickens and two gerbils that I say goodnight to. pic.twitter.com/3oahJNGHIw

— the wrens (@thewrens) July 26, 2021

don't get me wrong, they'll have written the most gut-wrenchingly self-aware song about "how they're aware they'd said the album was coming out at a timeframe but now that's not the case and you'll find out a teensy weensy bit more after i've fed my chickens update in 2021."

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, January 30, 2020 2:00 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh well!!

idk what this bump is about but i checked their twitter and charles is saying they're announcing new music this week? like i'll believe it when i hear it but...!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/arts/music/the-wrens-aeon-station.html

kevin is putting out his wrens songs without charles

oh damn

at this point i'm just happy that something's on the way but it's a real shame it's come to this

lol that they really did have the album done back in 2013

i just hope the charles solo album is actually coming out too and he's not going to lose faith in it suddenly and spend another decade tinkering with it lol

i like how the Whelan brothers work at competing pharmaceutical companies

whelan should have done this 15 years ago

definite bummer but tbh whenever Charles was posting on the Wrens twitter and it had nothing to do with the next album it became frustrating. Which was pretty much all the time.

Feel like with Charles there is this weird mix of complacency ("it's ok to not be done yet, I still have ideas, people are used to the delay") and madness. I mean you could do this with any collection of songs you want. Work on them to perfection, drive them into the ground and burn out, then change the way you play them to whatever degree necessary until they sound fresh again, repeat.

it sounds like more pressure from the label & the rest of the band might have really helped rather than just leaving charles to his own devices to go mad over it

no shade but if charles did in fact take the position that he should be compensated for being the public face of the wrens, while simultaneously keeping them in release limbo, that's really hard to defend

yup

xps lolling at the idea of a smalltime label like Absolutely Kosher exerting "pressure."

they've been signed to sub pop since 2013! they announced they'd signed to a big indie then but it was never revealed who until now. someone from sub pop was even quoted in the article saying that maybe they should have put more pressure on them when charles backed out of releasing the album in 2013

from the article it sounded like he only wanted to renegotiate things after he was ready to release the album again in 2019, but those negotiations dragged out forever & delayed the album until kevin got sick of it & decided to put out his stuff on his own

haha serves me right for not even reading the article

That article is kind of sad, but really the Wrens have been a hobby band for ages. They all have big jobs and enough family stuff to deal with that the best possible outcome (besides one more album) was probably going to be some thoughtful indie documentary about middle aged family men making a final run at it.

well i personally could have gone for another tour because they were the real deal as a live band

Pretty ok…pretty ok: https://www.stereogum.com/2161316/aeon-station-queens/music/

but then greg plugs in

this is alright but the mix is pretty bad. feels like the pieces of a very good wrens song is there but it hasn't quite come together

Perhaps if someone could just tinker with it a few more years maybe

bissell twitter thred

Believe it or not, I only just finally read the NYT piece yesterday, ditto listened to Kevin's single (which admittedly, I have heard 100's of times, & worked on, over the last 10 years), annnnnd...I guess there is a lot to say. Or not.

— the wrens (@thewrens) October 6, 2021

https://soundcloud.com/thewrens/and-its-all-guns-arrows-v10-excerpt-only-as-of-101321

new song snippet from charles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRrf8lL5f88

here's the studio "leaves" from kevin, it's good!

…but for the little it’s worth here too, Sub Pop never got an album handed in, not two years ago when it was done, let alone in 2013 or something (magically, before we’d even signed with them somehow - ha). But thanks, bmb!)

— the wrens (@thewrens) October 19, 2021

charles also claims there was never an album submitted to sub pop back in 2013

I’ve already been planning that when I announce my own, I’ll also put up the track listing for the now-deep-sixed wrens record and people could paste their own together.

— the wrens (@thewrens) October 19, 2021

& this will be nice to have

tbh the version of the meadowlands i listen to is pasted together too -- there was an initial mp3 version with a different tracklisting and different versions/titles for like half the songs iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CXJV4LQG3s

that would be this, iirc it was an early unmastered version they'd sent out to critics & friends before tweaking it a little more for the actual release. the final tracklist is much better imo & the differences in mixes aren't enough for me to really care either way

like i might take the less blown-out early mixes of "per second second" and "everyone chooses sides" over the final versions but it's not a huge difference. iirc the only other difference is some minor things in "ex-girl collection"

i don't miss either of the cut tracks

ah, ty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DKl7aAKis8

decent

I really like this one, and it reminds me in a weird way of Clint Conley's non-Mission of Burma band Consonant.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/24/its-repulsive-to-me-the-bitter-feud-of-indie-rockers-the-wrens

Whelan showing some patient company exec vibes on something that I imagine would be driving him nuts were that band stuff taking place in his actual day job.

oof.

this doesn't really explain the conflict any further, the previous piece said the big issue was the album had been pretty much done since 2019 but charles wanted to renegotiate contracts or something which dragged everything out and caused conflicts and was the last straw etc.

while this one just makes it seem like kevin was frustrated with charles for taking too long without getting into whatever the contracts dispute was actually about

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/aeon-station-interview-kevin-whelan-b1959977.html

a bit more insightful

kevin gave charles an ultimatum (that he'd quit, but no mention of a solo album, piecing their stories together?) if the album wasn't ready for release by march & then followed through

charles says it was pretty much done by 2019 but then in preparing for release the band fell apart (due to his attempts to renegotiate contracts as mentioned elsewhere) & thus the album was still not ready to be released & now feels very betrayed that kevin recorded a solo album without telling him after quitting

but without the details of what the actual contractual shit that they fell out over it's hard to have much idea of who's in the right or anything

just a very depressing end, hope charles gets his act together & his album is out before long too (lol)

Charles seems quite clearly to be the problem, from the available info.

idk it's hard for me to take the side of a big pharma exec, a career of evil

Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever) at 10:28 16 Nov 21

I really like this one, and it reminds me in a weird way of Clint Conley's non-Mission of Burma band Consonant.

I love that band!

i'm just so fucking bummed about about this. the long Independent piece says the best Bissell tracks are "astounding" and it just sucks that it all came to this. the most fucking wrens ass shit.

kevin's album is out tomorrow and the latest track from it is excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGZMXKWwP8

charles better come through with his own album before too long lol.

I feel like in many years we’ll someday somehow get the “lost album” as it should have been.

probably in like, two decades given the time scales they operate on

charles has promised to release the intended tracklist too so people can frankenstein it out of his solo album & kevin's for the time being

I listened to some of The Meadowlands again - feels even more bittersweet than ever before. Not sure if this is good or bad, as bittersweetness is the essential character of the record. Probably a good thing to not get too nostalgic about anything.

Everyone Choose Sides still slams extremely hard.

aeon station album is really good but you can very much tell it was recorded in two parts 7 years apart lol

I enjoy it very much!

this was posted https://www.stereogum.com/2171393/the-wrens-next-album-wont-actually-be-released-as-a-wrens-album/news/ but also charles is in the comments

still haven't been able to bring myself to listen to the aeon station as yet