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THE DARCYS
PRESS KIT
“Downright stunning.”
GLOBE & MAIL
“The Darcys haven’t missed a step, expertly arranging their lush, effects-laden
soft-rock compositions.” NOW
“An ear-catching collection of sweeping, multilayered songs.”
“Lushly layered, lightly proggy arrangements.”
NATIONAL POST
CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND
“With a mix of lightly distorted guitars, melodic, instantly catchy riffs, drum
beats that propel songs forward to rewarding climaxes, and light keyboard touches
that give tracks depth and substance, The Darcys are showing that they are here
for the long haul.” BAEBLE
“A serious contender to next year’s Polaris Prize, The Darcys is a superb
achievement, both meditated and meditative.” HOUR
“The Darcys is a monstrously tuneful prog-rock epic that improbably finds
common ground between Radiohead and Steely Dan.” TORONTO STAR
“An inspiring blend of polished pop and avant garde experimentation.”
POP MATTERS
“The odd details throughout The Darcys —
­ a gospel choral breakdown, a barely
detectable violin solo... lyrics that wink at self-awareness — surface like cream.”
ONION A.V. CLUB
THEDARCYS.CA
MUSIC: CONCERT REVIEW
The Darcys: A New
and Momentous
Beginning
BRAD WHEELER
At The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, on Friday
There is the calm, there is the storm, and then there are the Darcys, young art-rock wonders who do both simultaneously.
Their results are meaningful, momentous and absolutely enviable.
In the beery dark showroom at the Horseshoe Tavern, in front of a bustling co-ed crowd, the Toronto quartet set
impassioned melodic emotion against funnelling washes of electric feedback and gauzy textures. Crescendos figured; the
drummer and bassist clearly had eaten their Wheaties or spinach.
As the band members set up their equipment, they did so to the relatively breezy sounds of Steely Dan, a progressive
group of music-obsessives who the Darcys admire (perhaps for their persnicketiness), but do not emulate. Rather, it is
Radiohead, one has to think, who the Darcys send fan letters to. Something like Don’t Bleed Me, which begins with a
tumbling beat, white noise and a simple sinister keyboard riff, features high singing synonymous to the arcing vocals of
Thom Yorke.
In another similarity to Yorke’s band, the Darcys’ latest album (self-titled) is free for the download — the only copies at
the merchandise table were vinyl, not compact disc.
There’s a colourful story ­— colourful to me; tormented to the band — to the making of the album. The plot involves
stolen equipment, a knifepoint stick-up, a van accident on an icy road, and the abrupt exit of their former lead singer.
Vocals tracks were re-recorded, lawsuits were filed and the album was re-mixed not once but twice.
The group’s debut album was 2007’s Endless Water, but that’s just what the Wikipedia discography will tell you. For all
intents and purposes, the gorgeous new eponymous release is the Darcys’ beginning. It’s the first instalment of a threerecord deal with Toronto’s Arts & Crafts label, and the songs played at the Horseshoe were drawn exclusively from that
new album.
Can’t say that the Darcys miss their former vocalist, no offence to that chap. Guitarist-keyboardist Jason Couse has a
lovely, lush soar to him. Whether it was the sound system, his concentration of conveying emotion at the expense of
enunciating, or my own mushy eardrums, his elegantly chosen words were hard to make out. A shame.
“Everyone has got all the time but me,” Couse sang on the shimmering I Will be Light. And it’s true that the Darcys
have time to make up. Apparently both of their next two albums are already recorded, with the talk being that the new
material is different than the sounds just out. Those sounds are grand, moody and uplifting – who knows what happier
days will bring.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
THE GLOBE AND MAIL NOVEMBER 2011
Toronto’s Darcys gaining after loss
The Darcys, from left: Jason Couse on vocals and guitar, Wes Marskell on drums,
Mike le Riche on guitar and organ and Dave Hurlow on bass.
VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR
BEN RAYNER
Although theirs has since become a textbook tale of rising
to the occasion and perseverance in the face of disaster, it
could have gone either way for the Darcys at this time last year.
Canadian Music Week of 2010 was to mark the proud
unveiling of the young Toronto outfit’s second album,
which they had only just completed after a somewhat difficult, but rewarding mentorship at the hands of their chosen
producer, Dears frontman Murray Lightburn.
The Darcys had all their ducks in a row: a loyal and growing live following; a few good notices in the press and the
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
“blogosphere” for their breathless gigs and their impressive
2007 debut, Endless Water; a nibble of record-label curiosity
here and there; and, most importantly, a solid new piece of
work to flaunt. And then, within days of finishing the album and with an important CMW showcase bearing down
on them in little more than a week, their singer quit. Not a
temper-tantrum, just-for-show quit, either. Quit. Gone.
“I’d just got the record and it was over. It felt terrible,” says
drummer Wes Marskell.
TORONTO STAR MARCH 2011
“But I’ve had this kind of awakening a couple of times in
the past where it feels really bad, but part of you knows
that it’s not. And I think that the one thing with moving
forward with CMW and beyond was that it felt like there
was nothing holding us back from going to the moon and
that we were all fully capable of doing what we were meant
to do. Before, it felt like there was always a hiccup or a
hitch.”
Faced with the decision of “either turn the corner or give
up,” the Darcys — suddenly a quartet composed of Marskell, guitarist/keyboardist Jason Couse, guitarist Mike le
Riche and bassist Dave Hurlow — elected to fight on and
honour their CMW commitments.
Couse stepped into departed vocalist Kirby Best’s shoes
and a week’s worth of nightly practices saw the band’s
dense, tricky songs hastily rearranged for fewer bodies.
Nerves generally frayed all around. But they pulled it off,
turning in a pointedly intense comeback performance at
El Mocambo during the festival that left those acquainted
with the recent drama relieved to see that, perhaps, things
were going to be all right. Now they’re back at CMW and
playing the Silver Dollar on Thursday.
rode to the rescue by roping engineer Dave Schiffman,
who’s worked on records by the likes of System of a Down,
Weezer, Rage Against the Machine, BRMC and the
Dears, into the picture.
“He just called me and said, ‘I’ll help you fix this. It’s broken, but we’re gonna do it,’ ” recalls a grateful Couse.
“Murray just pulled it out of nowhere,” says Marskell. “Not
only was (Schiffman) mixing it for way below what he
would normally work at, but the whole time he was saying:
‘This is great. I’m really into it. I like it.’ He was kind of
the shining star at the end of all this because he brought it
together.”
A text message from Lightburn confirms that he might
have believed in the record a bit more than he let on to the
band: “The songs are great, and great songs always win.”
In any case, here we are in a familiar position going into
Canadian Music Week 2011. The Darcys have a revamped,
reworked and remixed version of their self-titled sophomore album— a dense, challenging, monstrously tuneful prog-rock epic that improbably finds common ground
between Radiohead and Steely Dan— in hand.
“I actually hadn’t felt nervous — at least not anywhere near
that nervous — in a long time because we’d been touring
a lot and I’d become very comfortable in my role,” recalls
Couse. “Singing backup vocals was fine, but I’d never
considered myself a focal point. I wasn’t in charge of the
ebb and flow of a show. So I was really nervous. I still have
weird moments where I get a gust of that coming back to
haunt me.
Their following has only grown exponentially during the
months since their troubles, not least because the masochistically complicated, impeccably detailed and passionately
played live set has become one of the best in the city, on its
way to becoming one of the best in the country (“We don’t
get onstage to enjoy how awesome it is to be onstage,” says
Marskell. “We’re working.”), and record labels are once
again nibbling about curiously.
“Playing through it felt right, though. It felt more right
than it had been in the time leading up to that. There was a
sort of ‘brotherhood’ moment in it.”
It seems unlikely that the Darcys, the band, and The
Darcys, the long-fought album, won’t very soon find a
supportive home—it’s leaps and bounds ahead of Endless
Water—but the band itself is too shell-shocked from past
upsets to entertain such thoughts. The Darcys are, as they
say, just happy to be here.
The year since hasn’t exactly been smooth for the Darcys.
Best’s disentanglement started amicably and ended ugly;
lawyers had to be involved. Vocals were re-recorded and
the album remixed into a state that still didn’t please anyone in the band completely. Labels seemed to lose interest.
Spirits sagged.
Then, this past December, Lightburn — whose relationship with the band had been rather strained all along —
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
“That’s what really great about this moment and going into
CMW: We’re at the top of our game, we have something
to back and we have a reason to be playing these shows,”
says Marskell. “We’re not just playing them to stay afloat
anymore.”
TORONTO STAR cont’d MARCH 2011
“We lost sleep; we lost weight; we stopped eating — it was horrible,” Wes Marskell says of The Darcys’ sophomore slump.
By Mike Doherty
As Wes Marskell’s band, The Darcys, struggled to finish
their self-titled second album, he took up a bartending job
at Toronto’s Medieval Times dinner theatre. The drummer
would serve tourists drinks called Maiden’s Kiss and Dragon Slayer and tell girls he was really The Green Knight
(they never believed him), all the while repeating to himself
the mantra: “I’m in a rock band. It’s going to be fine.”
The Darcys are a talented quartet, but up until now, they’ve
hardly been an advertisement for giving up one’s day job. In
March 2010, after a trying year (during which they had
equipment stolen, were held up at knifepoint, and nearly
perished when their tour van spun out on black ice), they
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were preparing a showcase for the album they’d just finished recording, when their lead singer abruptly quit. Cue
much re-recording (with guitarist Jason Couse stepping in
on vocals), messy legal proceedings and three full mixes of
the album; finally, last month, they released it — for free.
“It’s not about making a million dollars on the record,”
Marskell says. “It’s about people having it.” Which isn’t to
say he’ll be back in a tunic and tights soon: the white
knight that rode in to save the band was Arts & Crafts
(Feist, Broken Social Scene), the highly regarded Toronto
label whose strategies sometimes seem perplexing but can
often prove inspired. Over lunch at a Queen Street eatery,
NATIONAL POST NOVEMBER 2011
Marskell and Couse reflect on their pursuit of musical
perfection, the obstacles they’ve faced and their sense of
hope after being a band in distress.
Enter Arts & Crafts, who, perhaps uniquely as a label, were
poised to help get the monkey off the quartet’s backs — by
releasing the album online, gratis.
The long-time friends from Etobicoke, Ont., started jamming as a two-piece in high school, influenced by densely
textured shoegazer music and yacht-rockers Steely Dan
alike; when they moved to Halifax for university, they met
like-minded bassist Dave Hurlow and vocalist Kirby Best.
Together, they bashed out their debut, Endless Water
(2007), which Marskell describes as the sound of a “postrock band … that wanted to get drunk and meet girls.”
“It’s something we need to share with people so we can
move on creatively and as people,” Couse says. Back in
2007, Arts & Crafts had pre-empted the physical release of
Stars’ album In Our Bedroom After the War with a digital
release (and thus angered industry folk who felt they were
devaluing physical product), but not even they had released
an album for free.
But there were signs their studies were having an effect,
beginning with their band name, taken from English-lit set
text Pride and Prejudice. Couse likens their writing and
rehearsing sessions to “all-night essay writing blitzes,” and
says a fourth-year course called The Deconstruction of the
Tradition of the 20th Century encouraged The Darcys to
rethink their strategy. “We responded to the feelings we
had about that [first] album by turning to a super-critical
work ethic.”
Upon graduation, the band members returned to Toronto,
added guitarist Michael le Riche, an electronics wiz who
makes his own effects pedals, and grew more ambitious.
When it came time to record The Darcys’ second album,
producer Murray Lightburn, whom they’d admired for his
“giant, sprawling” work with his band The Dears, told them
to simplify their approach. Couse and Marskell, who had
adopted an obsessive, Steely Dan-like attention to detail,
found it hard to relinquish control. Eventually, Marskell
says, Lightburn told them the album “can’t be in my life
anymore, but I can’t let it die.” They let go and wrapped up
recording, at which point Best left the band.
The split was initially amicable — “Everyone was trying to
make it work, but I think he just wasn’t into it,” Marskell
says — but it devolved into a legal nightmare that they’re
not now at liberty to discuss.
When “all of this bad stuff came to a head,” Marskell says,
“the record was in a shambles. It was like, ‘Why are we
doing this? Just walk away, give up.’ We lost sleep; we lost
weight; we stopped eating; I took up smoking — it was
horrible.”
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“It’s harder and harder to get anyone to pay attention to
new artists,” says the label’s co-founder and president,
Jeffrey Remedios. He believes Arts & Crafts have much to
gain “by people hearing this band and trying to cut through
some of the clutter” rather than “selling this album to a
much smaller base.”
So far, The Darcys — an ear-catching collection of sweeping, multilayered songs, both gauzy and abrasive — has
been downloaded some 3,000 times. They’ve received
emails from fans in the U.S. and Europe thanking them
and saying they’ve subsequently ordered copies on vinyl —
the only format in which the album is actually being sold.
Arts & Crafts plan to make money from LPs (the first
pressing of 500 having sold out), from merchandising and
from touring: with fingers crossed about their gear, The
Darcys are returning to the road. What’s more, making up
for lost time, they’ve already recorded a second album due
in January, with a third slated for later next year.
Marskell has left the medieval era wall behind, although his
bandmates are still working. “There’s a lot of moments
when one of us will phone each other about a song, and
you’ll hear the other person’s boss yelling in the background
’cause the table’s been waiting.”
If Arts & Crafts’ gamble pays off, the members of The
Darcys won’t have to worry. They’re in a rock band; they’re
going to be fine.
NATIONAL POST cont’d NOVEMBER 2011
Volumes have been written about the many influences Radiohead has had on modern indie rock music, from revolutionizing
how bands think about distribution methods to the way Thom
Yorke made it cool again for a grown man to sing in a falsetto
whine. You’ll definitely hear their influence in the lushly layered,
lightly proggy arrangements of The Darcys‘ self-titled new
album. In another very Radiohead-y move, The Darcys has been
offered up online as a free download from the band’s website.
There’s a clear through line to this album, with each of the 10
songs blending and flowing into each other; however, some of
the more intriguing twists and turns in the music happen within
single songs. Opening with a shoegaze-y guitar hiss, “House
Built Around Your Voice” contrasts this with arpeggiated guitar
picking and smooth, soft singing, flipping between the two with
relative ease. “Shaking Down the Old Bones” builds with a slow
burn, taking three full minutes at low volume levels before
leaping to a loud sonic payoff. The climb is more gradual in “The
Mountains Make Way”, which spreads layer upon layer of instruments behind the vocals with an admirable subtlety. The
crescendo in“Glasnost” comes courtesy of layered vocals rather than distortion. These changing dynamics follow a formula
that feels obvious after a few listens, but it’s effective nonetheless.
These Canadian rockers have been dabbling in relative obscurity for a few years, but that status quo should hopefully
change with a recently announced three-album slate from Arts & Crafts. “Ambitious” may be the best one-word description of that plan, as well as this first record. The Darcys takes a lot of risks, but the album hits pay dirt on most of them.
It’s an album certainly worth checking out.
And hey, you can’t beat the price.
Essential Songs: “House Built Around Your Voice”, “Shaking Down the Old Bones”, and “The Mountains Make Way”
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND NOVEMBER 2011
I’m in Halifax with the Darcys, watching their Pop
Explosion showcase. The sound is spotty, and due in
part to the out-of-the-way north-end venue, so is the
crowd. But by the time the Toronto band finish their set,
an enthusiastic assembly of fans is ready to meet them.
Seated in a row at their merch table, the four members look exhausted after the long drive to the Maritimes. But as they
greet the modest swarm, something else creeps into their expressions: relief.
After all, the table is stocked with vinyl copies of their self-titled Arts & Crafts debut album – officially their second LP,
but according to drummer Wes Marskell, their “first as far as we’re concerned” – and they’re sharing it for the first time
with the city where they started working on it way back in 2008 as students at Dalhousie University.
To say it’s been a long journey here might sound trite, but to me at least, it’s more than a metaphor. I’ve just spent the last
three days in the Darcys’ tour van, accompanying them on their drive from Toronto. For the past three days I’ve been
granted a front-row (well, really backseat) view of the touring life of an on-the-rise Canadian indie band, sleeping in
cities I’ve never heard of, urinating at highway roadsides and spending countless van hours in between.
If Cameron Crowe has taught me anything, it’s that the life of a touring rock band is a long string of groupies, intoxication, near-death ex-per-iences and Elton John singalongs. Though they’re happy to recount a few instances of each sort,
this trip isn’t nearly that glamorous.
But right now, the Darcys aren’t out for glory. They’re just happy to be out at all. “When we first got together, we were just
a few dudes who played instruments. We were happy to play for beers,” recounts bassist Dave Hurlow on our way from
Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, where the five of us have just spent the night piled into one mo-tel room. “Now this is what
we live for. We all really want to be here, and there’s nothing in the world we’d rather be doing.”
That’s the kind of resolute statement you sometimes hear from bands who’ve gone through a lot, but experiencing it
first-hand really hammers their sincerity home. It’s not easy for the guys to spend their mid-20s away from their girl-
friends, rationing drive-thru and crashing on the floors of casual friends, but the Darcys are firm in their commitment to
the lifestyle.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
NOW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2011
After all, there was a brief window last year where
it looked like the easy thing to do would be to
quit.
They’d already spent an arduous year recording
their self-titled record in Montreal with ill-tempered produ-cer Murray Lightburn (better known
as the frontman for the Dears) when, with a
long-laboured final version finally ready to go, they
abruptly part-ed ways with their lead singer, Kirby
Best.
Instead of breaking up, the remaining members
regrouped as a four-piece, re-recorded the songs,
honed their live chops and eventually found a home on Arts & Crafts, Canada’s biggest indie label.
“It was one of those cliché moments when it felt like we’d been working so hard for so long that something had to happen,” says drummer Wes Marskell over the sound of the appropriately chosen new Feist record. “Either the van was going
to explode with us all in it or the record was going to come out and find a home.”
That affirmation seems to have strengthened the dynamic, a necessary feat for a quartet forced to spend weeks at a time in
excruciatingly close quarters. Though they’re a little guarded at first to have a NOW journalist along for the ride (“off the
record” quickly becomes a familiar refrain), by the time we’ve crossed into New Brunswick new inside jokes have already
been coined, worn out and become fresh again. It’s the farthest east in Canada I’ve ever been, let alone by car, but by the
end of the second day it’s all blending into an amorphous blur of window-side scenery.
This is my first tour; these guys have been doing it over and over for the better part of four years. It’s a wonder they don’t
get sick of each other.
“Oh we do, but we’ve learned how to control it,” says guitarist Mike La Riche. “It’s like how if you’re married, you don’t
want to go to sleep mad. We make sure we won’t play a show if we’re mad at each other. We can be pissed off for all sorts
of stupid reasons, but by the time we’re up on stage, it’s like a reminder: ‘Oh yeah, that’s what we’re doing this for.’”
As an equalizer, the band wields the acronym
E.L.E., a sort bickering safe word that stands for
“Everybody loves everybody.” But since that can
only go so far – look what happens to George
Costanza when he overuses “Serenity now!” –
they’ve also devel-oped a pre-show routine to
blow off steam: two-on-two hockey.
Given their penchant for flannel lumberjackets,
beards and denim-on-denim, it seems like an aptly
Ca-na-dian band activity, but that’s no preparation
for the ruthlessness these four mild-mannered
art-rockers adopt under the guise of recreation.
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NOW MAGAZINE cont’d NOVEMBER 2011
Using an undersized Darcys-emblazoned equipment case as a makeshift goal in an alley in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the guys seem less interested in scoring than in pushing each other down.
You’d think they’d be worried about injuries,
especially since they’re due onstage any minute in
a pre-Halifax opening slot for Montreal classic
rock enthusiasts Plants & Animals, but by the
time they’ve swapped out their sticks for instruments, their antagonism has been re-placed by a
locked-in, well-practised groove.
It’s important that they function as a unit, especially given the complexity of the album, the result of years of tweaking, remixing and re-writing. It’s one thing to labour
over songs in a studio, but they only have so many hands between them to reproduce it all onstage. With help from a
crowded pedal set-up that looks like the exploded contents of a guitar shop, they’ve managed to translate the shifting,
multi-faceted compositions to a live setting.
Especially notable is the expanded role of Jason Couse. Once relegated to backup vocals, the velvet-voiced sing-er has
assumed the role of frontman, adding lead vocals to a set of responsibilities that also includes guitar and keyboard duties
(often both at the same time).
It’s an impressive showing, and one that noticeably impresses more than a few Plants & Animals fans, but the Darcy’s
aren’t yet marquee figures. Though they’re already speaking to some big-name producers and music video directors, they’re
still waiting to catch up to the success that potentially awaits them.
At least that’s what I make of the girl who approaches me after the set to congratulate me on a great set. “Thanks,” I reply.
“But I’m not in the band.”
“We’ve been living with these songs for so long that we sometimes forget that not everyone knows them as well as we do,”
Couse admits as we hit the road the next day. “It’s kind of like a first date every night. We’re waiting for the day when
there’s more of an established relationship between us and the audience. That’s when a performance can really take off.”
The impatience is understandable, especially
given the album’s long, fraught history. But the
cardboard box full of vinyl bouncing around in
the trunk of the van is a tangible reward for their
patience. By the time we pass the long-awaited
Halifax sign, Black Sabbath’s War Pigs cranked
on the stereo, Marskell is protecting it the way a
mother would her car-seated baby.
Although the band name hasn’t changed, they’re
not the same Darcys who once called Halifax
home. They’re not here to party, but to play an
album release show.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
NOW MAGAZINE cont’d NOVEMBER 2011
That determination is palpable when they take the stage at Halifax’s North Street Church. Overcoming an unforgiving
sound mix with volume and passion, they’re a band that’s learned to be professional. At the end, called back onstage for a
rare festival encore (declined due to a lack of songs), they look more at ease than at any time on the trip so far.
“That was so rewarding,” Marskell says. “Every show in the last year or so has sort of been about reclaiming territory and
saying ‘We’re still here,’ but to be able to do it in Halifax and have such a great response was therapeutic. It almost feels
like something we would’ve worked through with a therapist.”
After that release, the rest of the Halifax Pop Explosion weekend is lost in a blur of music, beer and donair sauce, but
climbing into the van for the long drive home, the Darcys know they won’t get much of a honeymoon period.
After stalling for so long with their self-titled album, they’re making up for lost time. To keep the momentum going, they
already have their next two releases planned. The first, a “curveball art project,” is scheduled for release in January, while
the next “official” LP is already being demoed while they search for the right producer. Both will come out on Arts &
Crafts within the next year.
“I feel like the story of this record has become ‘Band continues after loss of singer,’” says Marskell, anticipating the album’s
press. “It’s kind of frustrating, because I feel like we’re way beyond that, but everyone else is just catching up to the idea
that Kirby left. It’s like he’s not even a factor any more. I love this record and I totally stand behind it, but I’m more
excited about what comes next.”
For me, the trip is over, but the Darcys have many, many more van hours to look forward to.
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NOW MAGAZINE cont’d NOVEMBER 2011
At first, the story of The Darcys sounds like a
tale plucked from the little book of indie-rock
nightmares: star-crossed local band toils away
for three years, spending hundreds of hours and
thousands of dollars on the painstaking creation of what should be their star-making
album, and the money they ultimately pocket
off it hovers somewhere around zero.
tum, to the sophomore album they were forced to re-record without him.
The Toronto-based band’s tumultuous backstory has been well documented in the local
press, from promising beginnings as an upstart
five-piece, to the unexpected departure of their
singer that completely derailed their momen-
The majority of The Darcys’ trials and tribulations were tied up in the spectre of this second album, a collection of songs
that was recorded and re-recorded and tweaked and pushed back so many times it’s acquired a near-mythical legacy—the
Chinese Democracy of West Queen West, you might say.
The album, at one time titled Young Believers, but now simply self-titled, might easily have been abandoned in favour of
new songs after the band nearly fell apart in early 2010. Instead, they regrouped with their producer, The Dears’ frontman
Murray Lightburn, who in turn brought in engineer/mixer Dave Schiffman for what turned out to be another year of
on-and-off work on the project. Somehow, they rescued the record and got it done, once and for all. A few choice showcases later, the band landed on the radar of Arts & Crafts, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
Yet within this story of survival is a bizarre case study in today’s music-industry economics. The Darcys aren’t like so many
luckless unsigned outfits out there, armed with nothing but a .zip file of shitty home demos buried somewhere in the
Tumblr tundra; they’re backed by the city’s most powerful indie label. Yet, they’ve still chosen give the album away for
free—and they couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
THE GRID NOVEMBER 2011
But why exactly, have three years of blood, sweat and tears culminated in a mere digital-download link on their official
website?
For drummer Wes Marskell, the album’s unorthodox release strategy is designed not to line their pockets, but to raise
their profile.
“The record has become so much bigger than the recordings because of what we went through,” he says. “A traditional
release seemed silly for us. For a label like Arts & Crafts to give the record away for free, it seemed like we would get it
into the hands of more people than a band who puts out a record for $15 and hopes people buy it.”
With thousands of downloads flooding hard drives the world over in the two weeks since the album’s release, and a nearly
sold-out headlining show this Friday (Nov. 18) at the Horseshoe, it’s hard to argue that the tactic hasn’t been effective.
Marskell is also right to note that, given the band’s low profile, it would be a challenge for the casual listener to find the
album and illegally download it, even if they wanted to.
However, financially speaking, the decision seems like more of a questionable call on the part of the record label, who are
traditionally in the business of, you know, selling records for money. It’s interesting that Arts & Crafts co-founder and
CEO Jeffrey Remedios was compelled to write an accompanying manifesto on the Arts & Crafts blog detailing the
motivations behind the company’s decision to release their first free album. Over the phone, he explains it’s an opportunity granted by insanely low overhead costs.
“By the time we got involved with them, they came to us with two records done and a third in the works,” he says. “It’s a
pretty unique position to be in when you have a band with a significant amount of unreleased material, and you’re building them effectively from the ground. That afforded us some luxury with how we approach this.”
The second completed record he’s talking about is a curveball “art project” that’s apparently so mysterious no one involved
can even talk about it just yet. It’s currently slated to drop early next year.
But further questions about what’s to come reveal that Marskell and Remedios talk about the self-titled album in remarkably similar terms: they’re proud of it, sure, but they seem decidedly more excited about the records that lie ahead.
“I’ve come to think of this release as a robust single, a first offering,” Marskell says. “And the third record is the one that in
my opinion will be the Darcys record. It’s a way of building so that by the time that third record comes out, we’ll have the
audience there for it.”
And there lies the true virtue of the free album. It’s a foundation for career-building, what Remedios calls “a longer-term
bet.” He also sees it as a tool designed to cut through the clutter of the internet.
“The biggest day in an artist’s life is the release of the record, and we’ve seen this trend lately where you spend 18 months
to two years working on a record and then the next day, it’s effectively over. People are moving on.”
He’s absolutely right. This year alone we’ve seen new albums by traditional rock powerhouses (Radiohead, The Strokes and
Death Cab for Cutie spring to mind) effectively glide into the ether after only a few days on the Trending Topics list.
(Oddly, the local artist to gain the most traction in music-discussion circles was the one who gave his album away for free
and refused to even talk about it—Toronto’s frustratingly mysterious R&B star The Weeknd.)
Couple our reduced attention span with the rapidly improving sound quality of home recordings, and we could be approaching a time when every debut album arrives in your download bin absolutely free. Remedios says that day isn’t far off.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
THE GRID cont’d NOVEMBER 2011
“Two and a half years down the road,
we’re going to be there. With streaming
services like Spotify and Rdio, it’s almost
like your cable bill— you can stream
anything you want whenever you want.
We’re going to get to a point where
storage capacities will get so large that
people will be able to walk around with all
of the world’s copyrighted digital material
on a little drive.”
That’s the kind of heavy, futuristic thought
that suggests music will soon become
something you own all of and none of at
the same time. That’s when Remedios
conveniently reminds us that, if you’re
really desperate to take home a little piece
of The Darcys, you can. And it comes on
vinyl.
“The first vinyl pressing is sold out,” he
says. “We’re onto the second pressing, and the attention the band has garnered has already started to go beyond what I
think would have occurred if we’d just traditionally released this record and tried to work it on a regular album cycle.”
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, The Darcys doesn’t come in a CD version. (“I think CDs are for the car now?” Marskell
muses.) Because certainly, pressing a bunch of those useless things would be such a waste of valuable time.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
THE GRID cont’d NOVEMBER 2011
NEW RELEASES
ROCK: The Darcys
• The Darcys
• Arts & Crafts
• 4 stars
Between the assiduous detail of the instrumental arrangements
and the nuanced emotive power of the melodies, the Darcys
bring a level of vision and maturity to their sophomore effort
that is breathtaking. That the Toronto quartet managed to
deliver it despite the 11th-hour departure of singer Kirby Best
(keyboardist Jason Couse assumed those duties and re-cut the
vocal tracks) and more than 18 months of delay is impressive.
And the almost symphonic grandeur the Toronto quartet and
producer Murray Lightburn bring to the songs, from the dense
skirl of guitars driving Edmonton to Purgatory to the solemn,
multitracked chorale adorning When I am New Again, is
downright stunning. J.D. Considine
The Darcys can be downloaded for free at www.thedarcys.ca.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
THE GLOBE AND MAIL OCTOBER 2011
Q & A: The Darcys
sign to Arts & Crafts,
talk new record
Sam Sutherland
Today The Darcys will be announced as the latest
signing to Canadian fortress of song, Arts & Crafts.
The band, responsible for 2007′s sleeper critical hit
Endless Water, has been quietly assembling their
self-titled follow-up ever since. Scheduled for release
on October 25, the self-titled album was produced by
Dears frontman Murray Lightburn and mixed by Dave Schiffman (whose credits run the gamut from Johnny Cash to
Rage Against the Machine).
The road to the final release of The Darcys hasn’t been easy though. The band clashed with Lightburn so severely during
the tracking of the record that it nearly derailed its completion. Early in the process, their vocalist quit, forcing them to
regroup and re-record with guitarist Jason Couse stepping into the role of lead singer. They were then dropped by their
publicist, unsure if they would even finish their album, which left The Darcys sitting on a collection of songs they had
poured the better part of four years into. It was only a few months ago that the band found their current home with Arts
& Crafts, and with the release of The Darcys just a few weeks away, they suddenly have more than a few reasons to feel a
little optimistic about the future.
Check out a new song by the band, “Shaking Down the Old Bones,” available as a free download at the bottom of this post.
AUX: I’m not even sure where to start, because I know so much about the whole saga.
Drummer Wes Marskell: We demoed this record in our basement on Dovercourt in Toronto. Most of it before [two
mutual friends] even moved in.
This record began before I even knew you—
In Halifax in 2007. And I got a mastered, final record on March 1, 2011. Going from starting to record demos in late
spring of 2007, that’s a really long time. And to go from saying, “I’m walking away from the project.” To another person
actually walking away from the project. To this mix isn’t good enough. This master isn’t good enough. We have to rerecord
this. To have it done was… it was like we could quit there. Just finishing was such a major hurdle, anything after is just icing.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
AUX SEPTEMBER 2011
I’m not sure if the disagreements between you and the producer [Dears frontman Murray Lightburn] are on or off the
record.
I’m not going to dispel any of the classic rumours about Murray’s personality. He was challenging at times, but he also
challenged us, as goofy as that sounds. He got a lot of great sounds and performances out of the record. The record is
sprawling, at times, but our sense of economy came from him. He did a lot of great things. After we recorded, everyone
had their agenda. It was his first real production project, so I think between what we wanted and what he wanted, he
wasn’t sure he was going to keep doing it. Then all of a sudden he showed up and said he could help us fix it, and brought
in Dave Schiffman… who was a godsend.
Between that and your singer quitting, you had two major hurdles that might break up any other band. Were there
times that you considered just walking away?
After a while, I decided it was a lost cause. Until it’s in a record shop available for purchase, I’ll feel that way. Maybe a
truck will roll over, maybe the label will go under. Until that moment it’s in stores, it will feel like it’s still not going to
happen. I think the record was something we considered walking away from, but the band never was. We wrote a whole
new record while working on this record. It was really encouraging to rely on each other to push forward through it. Once
Dave Schiffman was on board, we were blown away that he would even touch the project. And once we heard what it
sounded like with him working on it, we knew it would work out.
So what was the timeline like for connecting with Arts and Crafts?
Aaron [Miller] runs a website called The Untold City, and he shot a segment on us about our singer leaving. Weeks later,
he said, “Do you want me to help the band at all?” Being a young band in Toronto, you get that a lot. But at the end, he
was like, “I work publicity at Arts & Crafts.” And I was like, “Why didn’t you tell me THAT?” And he said, “Why do you
think I didn’t tell you that?” But it wasn’t until July of this year that they actually came on board.
There aren’t a lot of labels that do what Arts & Crafts does anymore. In my mind, they’re kind of a relic, in the sense that
they still have an audience that buys their records. They have a viable business plan. They don’t really have a sound, but
they have an aesthetic.
They’re really genuine. It seemed like the top, to me. When they said okay, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather put the
record out. And it’s home, it’s Toronto. Now it feels like we have to work that much harder. We have to keep doing weirder, crazier things to justify someone like that helping us out. It feels wonderful, but it also feels like I have a job now, and I
need to work hard to keep my job. In the best way possible.
So what happens now?
The record comes out October 25. We do a bit of touring with Besnard Lakes and Plants and Animals in October, and
we’re still solidifying things for November and December. We have something big to announce in January as well. It’s
going to be quick. We’re behind, you know? It’s like when you squeeze a hose and you let it go and all the water comes
out at once. Maybe that’s not the best metaphor, but we have everything ready. We have so much just sitting at home
ready to put out, and now it’s all going to come out.
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AUX cont’d SEPTEMBER 2011
The Darcys
Disk Review
Four years after the release of their first album,
Endless Water, The Darcys were picked up by
Toronto’s faultless record label Arts & Crafts,
under which they are offering their self-titled
second opus. A potpourri of ten ambient, shoegaze-y tracks, The Darcys are undergirded by lead
singer Jason Couse’s soothing voice. The album,
sharply produced by Murray Lightburn of The
Dears, begins on a high note with the elegiac 100
Mile House, whose soberness is rapidly substituted
by the neurotic, Radiohead-like orchestrations of Don’t Bleed Me. The crescendo reaches its climax on the poetically
despondent The Mountains Make Way. A serious contender to next year’s Polaris Prize, The Darcys is a superb achievement, both meditated and meditative.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
HOUR COMMUNITY OCTOBER 2011
BAEBLE BLOG
MUSIC VIDEO PREMIERE: THE DARCYS
POSTED BY: ED MCGARRIGLE
With a mix of lightly distorted guitars, melodic, instantly catchy riffs, drum beats that propel songs forward to rewarding
climaxes, and light keyboard touches that give tracks depth and substance, The Darcys are showing that they are here for
the long haul. The Darcys’ self-titled debut album, out today, is just one of three scheduled for release within the coming
months. The Darcys is available now via the band’s website all for the price of an email address. If you’re looking for a
little preview, direct your eyes down below and be the first to watch the band’s live performance video for “The Mountains
Make Way,” and hear the lead track from the album, “Shaking Down The Old Bones.”
“Mountains” starts slow and moody, but it builds into an all out rock assault on your ears. The guitars jangle and groove
through the song with riffs that sound effortless and memorable. The stop and go off the drums is sure to get you tapping
on your desk. Check out the exclusive video and be sure to pick up a copy of The Darcys today. It’s free with the embedded widget. Have at it!
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
BAEBLE MUSIC OCTOBER 2011
The Darcys Sign
to Arts & Crafts,
Announce First
of Three New
Albums
By Alex Hudson
It’s been a whole four year since the
Darcys released their debut album, but
the Toronto-based group are ending
their silence with a bang. Now signed to
their new label home of Arts & Crafts,
the genre-busting rockers are getting ready to release three new albums, starting with a self-titled LP due out October 25.
The ten-song collection was produced by Murray Lightburn of the Dears. A press release describes it thusly: “Each
complex, effects-laden composition strives to cascade over listeners with layered vocals, loops, keys and shimmering
guitars. The Darcys is equal parts anthemic and moody, dark and soaring. Lush and heavily textured, the songs are as
meticulously constructed and as they are unrelenting.”
Digital copies of the album will be available for free via the band’s website on release day. Fans who want a hard copy can
buy one of 500 copies on 180-gram vinyl from Arts & Crafts’ webstore or select independent retailers.
Until the LP drops, tide yourself over by listening to the first single “Shaking Down the Old Bones,” which you can grab
over at the Darcys’ website, and pre-order the whole thing from the label. The Darcys also have a handful of Canadian
tour dates, which you can check out below.
As for those other two new albums, expect announcements in the coming months, and get some insight into the Darcys’
plans in Exclaim! TV’s recent interview with the band, which you can view at the bottom of the page.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
EXCLAIM! SEPTEMBER 2011
The model of indie rock success can be very kind or very cruel to young bands; those that match it could get carried for
years by positive feedback alone, those that don’t could struggle endlessly just for the faintest bit of recognition. It’s a very
thin, often invisible line between success and failure.
The Darcys are an interesting case, in that they were ready for success years before it actually happened. Their first record
with the current lineup, after Endless Water (2007), has been in the works almost since that debut dropped and their
original lead singer jumped ship, with the still-awesome “House Built Around Your Voice / Edmonton to Purgatory”
single released in early 2010. How this delay will ultimately effect the reception of The Darcys is still unseen, but coming
after such a long effort it sounds even more powerful and essential.
We spoke with drummer Wes Marskell about how The Darcys made it.
Must feel good to have The Darcys finally ready to ship.
Once the pre-orders were set up it felt like maybe the record would actually come out. After we signed (to Arts & Crafts)
I thought something would happen, like the label would go under or the vinyl shipment would catch on fire.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
TORO MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2011
Like it would never actually reach people.
When did work actually begin?
(Guitarist) Jason Couse and I started demoing the record in Halifax in 2007. The rest of guys were scattered around the
country at the time. When we got back to Toronto in early ‘09 we hunkered down and made the record properly. It’s been
a long time from then to now. Most of the songs have gone through three, four or five versions. The first track on the
record “100 Mile House” used to be a very epic song but we didn’t feel right about it. I think that’s how the creation
worked, we just kept changing and changing.
Did the extended process actually help make the album better?
I think so. Endless Water was very much a bunch of young guys drinking beer wanting to be in a band because it seemed
cool and fun. The last few years forced us to reevaluate. I think if we had finished in 2009 it would have sounded much
more amateurish. As the time passed we got better at our instruments which made us more of a cohesive group. When we
reformed in 2010 as a four-piece it felt like how it was always meant to be.
Production was handled by Dears frontman Murray Lightburn, who has a reputation for being a dominating personality. How did you find working with him?
It was challenging at times. We weren’t really sure what his process was in the beginning. He did bring a certain sense of
economy to the record in terms of cutting things down, saying “You can’t have two minutes here without vocals, people
will get bored.” In the end he did some great stuff for us but the process itself wasn’t always happy and rewarding. Murray
also brought in Dave Schiffman whose mix saved the record in a lot of ways. I didn’t know what Dave was going to do;
we’d gone through so many mixes I didn’t see how he could really change what we had done, but his skill level was so high
that he gave the record its current energy and quality.
How did the experience of making The Darcys change your outlook?
I think we’ve realized it isn’t just about making a record, or a single. It’s about continuing to move forward so that people
will always notice what we’re doing. We have a number of new projects coming that will show the partial insanity we’ve
all fallen into. Do the songs have a more bittersweet quality now?
At times they do. But we’ve worked on these songs so long we just needed to get them out. The album feels like a single in
that its our first offering (with this lineup) to the world. Time will show the most important Darcys records, but now we
have our very robust single out, if that makes any sense.
The Darcys’ sound on the Arts & Crafts label seems like a natural fit. How did they end up signing you?
Yeah, people said that long before we even started talking to them. We started working with (publicist) Aaron Miller who
has done a lot with them, and not to short-change them as they do know what is going on in Toronto, but working with
him helped the label notice what we were doing. They started helping us out, doing favours, then (the partnership) just
sort of became official.
Can you close by telling us a bit about the song you played in our Garage Band studio recently, “Edmonton to Purgatory”?
That song is about being young, going on tour and falling in love. All these cliched moments that happen in the life of a
19 - 25 year old rock musician. That was one the earliest songs on the record and we added a lot of noisy touches to it. But
it’s one of the faster, more upbeat songs. It’s become a great song to play at the end of our set.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
TORO MAGAZINE cont’d OCTOBER 2011
The Darcys Offer Free
Album Download,
Perform ‘Shaking
Down the Old Bones’
-- Video Premiere
THEO SPIELBERG
The Darcys have fostered a real penchant for
live craftsmanship, that much will be apparent
in ‘Shaking Down the Old Bones,’ the latest
installment in a video series of live performances given by the band. The video features
the Canadian buzz band in a smoky loft, delivering crisp rhythms hand in hand with surfy-meets-shoegaze guitars.
The hyped Toronto quartet has just released its self-titled debut today (Oct. 25) today through Arts & Crafts, and the
record is available below via the free download widget and as a 180-gram vinyl at local independent retailers and
GalleryAC.com.
“It is very important to us that this album is accessible and can be enjoyed easily,” drummer Wes Markel tells Spinnner.
“We are eager to have the world hear what we have spent a great deal of time creating. We would rather have you as a fan
tomorrow than have a little of your money today.” Check out the Darcys performing ‘Shaking Down Old Bones’ and
download the album below for the price of an e-mail address.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
SPINNER OCTOBER 2011
Premiere:
The Darcys give
away debut album,
release new video.
by Ro Cemm on October 25, 2011
It’s been a long journey to get there, but The
Darcys are finally ready to unleash their self
titled sophmore record on the world. Through
three years of line up changes, relocations,
recording and re-recording, the album is
finally ready to see the light of day. Produced by The Dears’ Murray Lightburn, it finds the band experimenting with
textures and layers, producing a dense and driving sound.
With two further records due to be released via Arts and Crafts in the near future, this self titled record serves as a new
beginning for the band. We’re pleased to present the record as a free download using the widget below.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
THE LINE OF BEST FIT OCTOBER 2011
The Darcys:
The Darcys
By Jonathan Sanders
Canadian art-rockers the Darcys
may be a complete enigma in the
U.S., where I’d be stunned if I could
find five people on the street who
are familiar with their music. The
hope, however, is that their arrival
this fall with an eponymous album could change all that. Their first full length since 2007’s Endless Water, the new album,
produced by the Dears’ frontman Murray Lightburn, is an attempt to push genre boundaries through complex arrangements, layered vocals and all manner of looped keyboards and guitars. The result is an album with 10 songs that blend
well with each other to form something of a song-suite, with arrangements which hearken back to Radiohead as the
vocals seem equally inspired by the pop hooks of Coldplay.
It’s odd that a band so obscure as this is so dead-set on defying classification and description, something which makes it
difficult to describe them to listeners who would likely enjoy what the Darcys have to offer. Thankfully the music speaks
well for itself. “Don’t Bleed Me” is a particularly strong introduction to the band’s sound, as frantic percussion provides a
backdrop to screeching guitar feedback and keyboard fuzz, made more interesting by the addition of Jason Couse’s layered, echoing vocals.
The song merges with “House Built Around Your Voice”, which sounds like a more restrained Kings of Leon track
recorded in an alternate universe where the Followills knew of such things as restraint. The hook of the chorus, with
cascades of arpeggiated keyboard and guitar, builds to a peak Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket fans would appreciate. This isn’t sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs music, but the melodies of these songs are perfectly matched to the intended mood, and the resulting mix is an inspiring blend of polished pop and more avant garde experimentation.
What really makes the band stand out is the fact that, while these10 arrangements work well as an album’s whole, each
individual track stands well on its own, too. And their experimental attempts to make genre distinctions more vague
makes the album one that reveals subtle nuances upon repeated listens. While no album of the year, The Darcys is more
than a mere diversion. This is an album acutely suited for headphone listening, most notably because the band is not
afraid to experiment with dynamic shifts. “The Mountains Make Way” opens with a building wall of ambient noise,
adding distorted keyboards and bass guitar as the arrangement builds. By the time the drums come in, the song’s at full
tilt, and at its zenith there is a screaming instrumental wall of feedback, keyboards and drums. At the same time, there’s
no sense that the underlying melody is lost in the mix. The result is music a great deal more invigorating than I’d expected
at the outset.
The Darcys have arrived after their four year absence to provide audiences with genre-busting art pop, succeeding at being
interesting which is easily the first step to success. They have their work cut out for them in today’s crowded musical
landscape, but here’s hoping these songs attract notice in the right circles. The Darcys is definitely a move in the right
direction for fans of meaningful pop music, and it deserves to be heard.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
POP MATTERS OCTOBER 2011
The Darcys
By Chandler Levack
People sell records with stories.
Whether it’s an addiction, an artistic
breakthrough or a change of scene,
any album automatically becomes
more fascinating if there’s a context
present in which to easily break it
down. If you strip away any rock band,
you’ll usually find three to five dudes
who’ve staked a career sleeping on stranger’s floors, which is much less interesting than old friends overcoming the odds.
Which is exactly what we find on the new album of Toronto four-piece The Darcys (guitarist/vocalist Jason Couse,
drummer Wes Marskell, guitarist/organist Mike le Riche, and bassist Dave Hurlow). The band formed in Halifax while
studying at Kings College, but with a different lead singer. The Darcys were poised for a breakout, but somewhere down
the line, their lead singer became the problem. Just after the troublemaking frontman quit the band, the band’s refusal to
play a show for Toronto MP Giorgio Mammoliti (who opposes same-sex marriage) thrust the group into the limelight.
Even though their debut record, Endless Water, didn’t sound like the band anymore, somehow The Darcys carried on.
Guitarist Jason Couse graduated to frontman, and The Darcys were signed to a three-album deal with Arts & Crafts.
Knowing this story makes the hazy guitars and spacey emotionality of The Darcys seem a lot more interesting. Each of
these 10 tracks operates in the zen space your brain inhabits once you finally move on from the person who once tortured
you (“right heart, wrong time,” repeats the coda of “Shaking Down The Old Bones”), set to icy minor-tuned guitars,
ghostly harmonization, and a Fender Rhodes. Clear-cut comparisons include Radiohead circa Kid A and English songbirds Wild Beasts. Couse’s voice can shift from a Nina Simone warble to a Kings Of Leon sex vamp at any time. A fever
breaks every time The Darcys get too far into their glowering (as in the propulsive, static-cling guitar that builds through
“Edmonton To Purgatory”). And because of the juxtaposition between crystalline indie rock and fully fused rock-outs
(aided dramatically by drummer Wes Marskell), the album grows with every listen.
This band doesn’t sound like any of the glock-collectives coming out of Arts & Crafts, but that’s a good thing. The odd
details throughout The Darcys—a gospel choral breakdown, a barely detectable violin solo that fades into static, lyrics that
wink at self-awareness—surface like cream.
THE DARCYS PRESS KIT
A.V. CLUB TORONTO OCTOBER 2011