The Wrens

Where on ilm?

and by Pitchfork).

Do we really have to bring this up?

They do appear to be just another indie pop band at first. It took awhile to sink in. What generally sets them apart: the Wrens are harder working, the lyrics are better, the songs assembled and arranged carefully/thoughtfully, the eighties bent in production and songwriting, the willful rejection of any trends whatsoever, and finally, the hooks that don't immediately come across as hooks. You'll be humming them for days.

Ah! but this is something!

But seriously, are you saying the record sounds dated because it ain't got disco hi-hat beats or something?

for the record, i've heard a few songs by the wrens (you know, i still have a kinda sucky but oddly comforting release of theirs called 'silver' that i bought used for dirt cheap and haven't listened to in a long time!), i was listening to different records then, but i thought they had a few nice, if relatively unremarkable, indie rock songs. i actually downloaded something from this new cd and found it lousy, maybe i've just gotten too lazy a listener to dig for hooks. and disco hi-hats couldn't hurt.

I hear ya, I know what you mean. This is very true.

I think in this case it is a virtue because the sound, method, whatever, suits the band even if the record does sound dated. They haven't changed too much with the times, but I think it works, and their stubbornness (as I imagine it) is a plus. It has a lot of personality.

Though it should technically matter little, the Wrens are possibly the nicest group of people you'll ever met.

But, yeah, Grass. When booking a Wrens show back in 96, that Fuckwad Boss, forced the addition of Commander Venus (his newest signing) to the bill. The little band of 14-15 year olds was fronted by a pathetic, pubescent Bright Eyes. Now THEY were terrible.

i guess i don't care about "passionate rock music." ha ha ha, etc.

That's how I feel about the Shins. But I love the Wrens' record. And I can't explain why...

Yeah, me too and I didn't want to like them because pitchfork was all up on them, but after further listenings I came to love Meadowlands. Secaucus doesn't do much for me though.

By the way, as long as this is The Wrens thread, has anyone else read Meadowlands reviews with the words 'emo' included? I thought this was a little ridiculous. I mean then what isn't emo?

Also I have little knowledge of Grass as a mid 90s label, but I would think It'd be much easier to rip them for being on Drive-Thru for a minute.

ha ha. this was exactly my thought when I listened to the record. It's pretty good - and it's also definitely emo. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I was extremely perplexed that I hadn't seen any review refer to it as such - like you say. i guess most of the indie review places have worked so hard at slagging and distancing themselves from emo (trashing bands solely on the basis of their genre), that they can't conceive of an emo record that they like. what a sad place to be.

Maybe I'm one of the billion trillion people who aren't quite sure on what emo is.

Seriously. When is everyone going to start using the term 'post-emo' - its about time. Certainly theres a lot of stuff that has been influenced by it, but it just doesn't fit to really call anything emo anymore unless it is used as an insult.

Power pop I say. Sounds like indie rock update on Big Star/Flamin' Groovies.

And if it didn't have the 6 minute long turd that seems like it lasts 13 months it'd be near-perfect.

I just wish I could find the old CDs.

File under: Perfect Sound? Whatever.

Upon relistening, The Meadowlands really is a pretty devastating record. I'm really hoping these guys can keep it together long enough to make another record.

How the fuck has this thread gone all this time with no mention of "Everyone Choose Sides"? Agreed that devastating is as good a word as any for this.

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

^^ the wrens performance mentioned in the comments of above article https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVhtnCNZgAk

I never really enjoyed this band's music until earlier this year when I listened on headphones

The hard-panned dual guitar thing is really awesome

No big official announcey thing until Oct. buuuut…did return from a wonderful family vacation to find test pressings, my first in 40+ years of bands&music, in the mailbox… pic.twitter.com/CBa3jxvSX0

— the wrens (@thewrens) August 31, 2023

the charles solo album is finally complete after all this time

It's been a crazy day, so no Meadowlands-20th-Anniversary-Stuff-You-Prob.-Didn't-Know post until tomorrow, but 'good' crazy - even though album/label/new project is nearing announcement (oct. 6th), even though vinyl is at a pressing plant, etc...

— the wrens (@thewrens) September 15, 2023

proper announcement coming october 6...

he's also posting some interesting trivia about the making of the meadowlands to celebrate its 20th anniversary

meadowlands 20th-anniversary crap you didn't know #3: the twelfth-and-a-half song. Coming out of 13 Months In 6 Minutes, there's this other song that briefly pops up, settles in & immediately begins fading out. It doesn't have a name and there's obv. no start ID/track number.

— the wrens (@thewrens) September 12, 2023

meadowlands 20th-anniversary behind-the-scenes trivia story #2: The preacher dialogue that comes in at the very end of Ex-Girl Collection, is actually not a sample dropped in there as you might assume (super common in say,the '90s, less so by the time this record was finished).

— the wrens (@thewrens) September 11, 2023

additionally, an in-progress version of the unreleased 4th album from 2014 recently leaked, or something like that anyway, idk exactly what the context of it is. the files i have are labelled 'album 4.5 demo'.

lol holy shit these versions are rough sure but it is basically the album

ok sub pop/the rest of the band really should have just insisted on bringing in a producer to sift through all of this and give charles some perspective because this is brilliant even if the mixes are really rough

should have just insisted on bringing in a producer

maybe kevin shields?

i'm pretty sure bissell has already spent more time going mad over these songs than shields did with m b v

certainly looking forward to his solo album for the finished versions of most of these tracks & more but it's absolutely tragic it's never coming out in this form. the the versions of some of kevin's songs here are better than the versions on the aeon station album

but still holy shit!!! the 4th wrens album, which i thought we'd never hear, is fantastic and totally lives up to expectations even in this slightly rough form.

is this how people who liked m b v felt

Haha can you share? Soulseek producing zero results

if you search for 'wrens album 4.5 demo' you should be able to find it on soulseek

this is the tracklist:

Intro
Dog End June Twice Measured
Old Death
Leaves
In Pairs to the Palestra
Face Facts
Maille Singing Old Death The G
Crescent
As Ive Known
Haiti
Three Types of Reading Ambigui
Sophie
Gregs Ballad
And Its All Guns & Arrows
January Piano
Its The Whole Thing, Its The
December Sleep
White Fem Age 61

some of the track titles were cut off and idk what they're all supposed to be. "Its The Whole Thing, Its The" is known to be actually titled "At Irish Exit". it's "Three Types of Reading Ambiguity" obviously. "Leaves" was on the Aeon Station album almost unchanged, along with "Face Facts" (retitled "Air") and "Haiti" (retitled "Empty Rooms"). "Sophie" was re-recorded as "Queens".

OK yeah it popped up... weird that "wrens 4.5" didn't work but that did

i can't wait to hear how charles has ship-of-theseused all these songs in the decade since (if these versions really are from 2014) as well as the new songs that are going to be on it. i hope they're also all 7 minutes long and have these sort of ambitious ideas

I was one of the people that went to his house and listened to cuts in his lil studio room years back, where he personally told us that he was going to submit it to the label and it would be out within 6 months from there or whatever, then I came back here and was like “I think it’s really happening guys”... anyway these sound familiar and I wonder how different they are from the samples we heard or if they’re the same more or less, it’s hard to remember. Can’t imagine anything he’d have landed on anything relatively minimal or simplistic after all this.

Yup, it was 2017. Sigh.

there are two versions of "three types of reading ambiguity" that he previously released in 2015 and they're both relatively close to this, though one is two minutes longer and the other is a minute longer. both have a bunch of kalimba overdubs that aren't on this one at the very least. the final version is going to have kevin's bridge cut out though (it's "hold on" on the aeon station album) and i think he mentioned scrapping some of the verses at some point? he also released an instrumental of "at irish exit" in 2016 and he's clearly swapped a lot of the guitar parts there compared to this one. there were other fragments of songs that he posted on soundcloud after bits and pieces got cut from the album (a scrapped bridge from "and it's all guns & arrows" among other things) but i can't track those down now.

also worth comparing the "crescent"/"as i've known" here to the version from 2010/2011 - he's added a ton of overdubs since then, including some great new parts, but it's also so much denser

ufo thanks for all this including the insight - but I gotta know - where did the leak come from and how do you know it was the version as of 2014 specifically?

i don't have much insight at all! i saw it mentioned on hipinion (lol) and found it on soulseek but idk where it came from or whether it really is a 2014-era version of the album (that's just what someone claimed there). the tags do say 2014 and that would seem to make sense with the other versions of some of these songs we've heard but that's very hard to say with any real certainty or anything

charles posted about his mental health over the past years ahead of the big album announcement happening tomorrow/friday

https://www.wrens.com/news-etc/2023/10/5/the-mh-post

very glad to hear he's doing better these days

https://www.carcolors.net/news/happyannounceday

charles walked away from his sub pop deal to revive absolutely kosher, and is also doing nfts of alt versions of tracks because he's somehow still excited by them

... of course that's how this would end up

but at least the album is on its way at last

Very sad the band couldn’t come to terms on a 20th anniversary Meadowlands reissue.

the final "old death" is pretty great except the drums are mixed real weird, they're buried beneath everything else. it totally realises the ambition of the leaked version otherwise, though there are a bunch of structural changes. it's fascinating how different it is, sounds pretty much totally re-recorded. such a shame this isn't the triumphant comeback single of the wrens because it really is a triumph

the alt. version of "and it's all guns and arrows" is lovely too, way better than the leaked version. you can really get a sense of how much time he's spent obsessing over the arrangements if he has alternate versions like this lying around lol, it's quite different to the early version and i wonder what it'll sound like on the album.

"i'll bear" rules too, and that's a track that didn't make the album!

car colors is such a bad band name though, idk if that or aeon station is worse lol

congratulations to charles for finally releasing some stuff https://carcolors.bandcamp.com/album/old-death

should also add https://www.carcolors.net/news/old-death-released-unto-the-hideous-world

here's the three songs, they're very good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X832hhLW-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbUtB-MFNk8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Rq3wHp7p4

"old death" is so fucking good. i really missed charles's voice

does anyone have a non soulseek link to the 2014 demos?

i think i've figured out that the source of the 'album 4.5 demo' is a cd-r charles sent to sub pop in 2015 that was supposed to be an unmastered version of the final album

still blown away by "old death" and incredibly looking forward to the car colors album which charles is still promising is being announced soon (apparently the latest delay is due to issues with vinyl production, of course). i really can't wait to hear the final version of "in pairs to the palestra" since that's one of his very best tunes

loving Old Death and I'll Bear. Only gave them a cursory listen last Nov, but listening to them non-stop now.

yeah i absolutely love old death and think it's one of the best songs he's ever written.

if the demos are anything to judge it by the album should be an utter classic when it eventually comes out