artist Library Voices

Library Voices could very well be the Dark Knight of indie rock. At every turn they’ve been met with curses of mythical proportions. While it may be true they’ve had their trailer robbed on tour and the following year, their instruments and studio destroyed in an unimaginable flood, the seven piece pop-outfit from Regina have refused to let anything bring them down. Summer Of Lust the bands newest full length offering, was released in Canada (Nevado Records) and the US (Dine Alone Records) in 2011.

Every winter, thousands of Saskatchewan residents pack up and head south to escape the soul crushing conditions of the prairie winter. While most of the province was basking in the desert sun from their campsite in some Arizona WalMart parking lot, Library Voices rented an old town hall in the frozen rural village of Kronau (population: 209) and bunkered down to write their sophomore release. As if that weren’t enough, they then packed up the van and drove headlong into the heart of winter on a cross-country road trip to Montreal, to commit the songs to tape.

The result is a bright-eyed, feel good rave-up that sounds like it’s been soaked in sunshine and gin sodas. Fueled by criminal amounts of espresso and a hundred odd bottles of gas station wine, the album was recorded in just ten days with engineer/producer Jace Lasek (Wolf Parade, Besnard Lakes, Suuns) at Breakglass Studios in Montreal.

On Summer Of Lust the band carries on their traditional of ever evolving instrumentation, this time around incorporating an Onmichord, a Prophet 08, and samples of NASA space recordings to their guitar/synth driven sound. Library Voices hyper-literate lyrics are once again teeming with pop culture references. The album offers respectful nods to Douglas Coupland, David Foster Wallace, John Lomax, Raymond Carver, Jacques Cousteau, and Joseph Heller (to mention only a few). Summer Of Lust also features an ode to Miles Davis and Juliette Gréco’s forbidden love affair (Be My Juliette Gréco, Paris 1949), the declaration of a truce with the bands own hometown (Regina, I Don’t Want To Fight), and a satirical stab at Stephen Harper for his stance on the arts and funding cuts to the CBC (The Prime Minister’s Daughter). 

The album has a guest appearance by multi-award winning audiobook narrator Simon Vance, who has narrated countless influential works including novels by Oscar Wilde, Dostoevsky, Huxley and Orwell, as well as Frank Herbert’s Dune series. 

Library Voices have performed well over 200 shows including stops at Virgin Fest, Hillside Festival, and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Their relentless tour schedule has allowed them perform everywhere from BC Place to public libraries and has landed them in SPIN, The New Yorker, and on La Blogotheque.