News

Thus Owls: Free Download

• 27th Feb 2014

Montreal-based husband and wife duo Thus Owls have announced a London show ahead of the release of their new album Turning Rocks, out April 7th on Secret City Records (Patrick Watson, Suuns, Basia Bulat). The band will play The Ace Hotel, 100 Shoreditch High St E1, on Tuesday 4th March, entrance is free. Following this gig, Thus Owls will fly to Austin, Texas to appear at SXSW. More European and North American dates will be announced soon.

Thus Owls are a transatlantic band comprised of married couple Erika and Simon Angell. The band originated in Sweden as an outlet for Erika’s songs, while she was making a name for herself as a prominent vocalist in the Gothenburg and Stockholm scenes. Simon meanwhile was beginning to tour more internationally with Montreal’s Patrick Watson, as a founding member of his four-piece band. The two finally met when Erika was sitting in with Loney Dear, whom Patrick Watson were supporting on tour in Europe at the time. Erika recalls that she “fell in love with Simon’s sound right away,” citing the “harshness and the sweetness combined” of his guitar, as well as his experimental approach to music. It wasn’t long before they were married, and making music together as Thus Owls.

Turning Rocks is both a scrapbook of memories and oral transmissions from an island in Sweden, and a sonic experiment in tone and colour recorded in Montreal. The album was lyrically inspired by Erika’s childhood home: a small house in her family for generations, in a tiny village on Orust—an island in Sweden just north of Gothenburg. The process began with true stories that Erika’s grandmother told her about people and events from her own youth. “She was a little girl growing up on the exact same land and in the same house as I did,” Erika explains “so when she spoke about all those things I felt very connected to it.” The process followed from there, with each song on the record drawing inspiration from a different human life somehow connected to the place.

Though Thus Owls sound is rooted very much in Erika’s vocal style and Simon’s guitar tone, the new record also emphasizes a wider sonic palate. “We realized a lot of the things that was catching both our ears were those old vintage 60s organs,” Simon explains, when discussing their musical inspiration. “So we started buying a bunch of them: a Farfisa, a Wurlitzer,” he goes on, noting that their new keyboard player, Parker Shper, shared their enthusiasm for the older gear. “It was a nice fit,” he says, and it comes through on the recordings. In addition to Parker, Montreal drummer Stefan Schneider was added as a permanent fixture in the group, and he along with Swedish bass player Martin Höper round out the core band on the recordings. Notable guests on the record include Timber Timbre’s Taylor Kirk (who sings on closer, “Thief”), Pietro Amato, and Marie-Pierre Arthur.

LIVE:
4 March – London, Ace Hotel, Shoreditc