We’ll have a full report—Dan Boeckner commentary track and all—on Wolf Parade’s latest LP, At Mount Zoomer, when it drops in a couple weeks. For now, Boeckner had a few details to reveal about the Handsome Furs record he’s currently working on with his wife, multi-instrumentalist Alexei Perry.
“This one sounds really heavy, with short songs—getting down to, like, Black Flag territory,” explains Boeckner. “We actually wrote a straight-up hardcore song yesterday. No joke.”
As for the album’s instrumentation, Boeckner promises “a lot of loops … like that Panda Bear approach to layering and a lot of shredding over that,” in addition to the duo’s standard guitar/drum machine/synth setup. He continues, “It’s a completely different feel than the last one. While it was subdued and melancholy, this one’s more up-tempo and angry.”
Curious as to how such a happy couple (they’ll celebrate a year of marital bliss in July) explores its dark side, we ask Boeckner where the frustration stems from.
“We’re not angry at each other,” he explains, adding quite cryptically, “It’s other things.”
One thing Boeckner doesn’t quite get at the moment is our current political climate, which he’s able to view from the comfortable confines of Canada. “What is going on down there now, man?” he asks. “They were fucking announcing Obama’s lock on the nomination before the votes were in. That’s fucking crazy! Didn’t [the media] learn their lesson from calling the (2003) election before it was done?”
Boeckner is also concerned about the country’s optimism heading into the election, adding, “I’m really wary of people putting all their eggs in one basket. I know the media is spinning it like the Republicans are obviously going to get outsted, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I thought that was gonna happen last time, you know?”
3 Responses to “THE S/T SCOOP: Dan Boeckner Revisits Hardcore Roots on New Handsome Furs LP”
Re: US politics
Just saying but Julie Couillard is far more scandalous than calling Obama’s nomination prematurely, right?
That being said, I like the album.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/world/americas/28canada.html?_r=2&ref=americas&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)
on November 27th, 2008 at 10:08 pm #
[...] Handsome Furs have wrapped up their new record. [...]
on January 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pm #
[...] later this year if Boeckner and his wife, multi-instrumentalist Alexei Perry, find time to finish what they already started. For now, he took time out to break down some key Zoomer [...]