Tuesday, August 9, 2016

The Wrens - 20 Years of Juvenilia 89-09 ep (2009)

I almost forgot this thing even existed, let alone was resident on my hard drive all these years until someone requested it last week.  This sporadically functioning and even more infrequently recording New Jersey unit have made best buddies with just about anyone in earshot of the fabulous three albums, Silver (1994), Seacacus (1996) and Meadowlands (2003).  Crafting a beguilingly smart and sonically dense indie guitar-rock maelstrom tethered to million-part harmonies, The Wrens, dare I say, are their own worst enemies in letting the rigors of day jobs and family life impede their pursuit of some deliriously sublime music.  I'm too short on time to tout their virtues, but you're welcome to peruse what text I've dedicated to them previously. 

As for the music hand 20 Years of Juvenilia was dished out as a cd-r only delight to fans who attended a particular Wrens gig at Maxwells in Hoboken in 2009.  The time frame indicated in the title is something of a misnomer, as the disc's seven tracks were all committed to tape between 1990-97.  The proceedings are doggedly lo-fi, with a couple of the more "ambient" pieces not even constituting 'music,' as it were.  Fear not, there's still a handful of gold nuggets to be excavated, specifically "Lips of Blue" and "Soft Castration," the latter of which could have rubbed elbows with the best of what constituted Guided By Voices' Alien Lanes

01. The French Song
02. Soft Castration
03. Lips of Blue
04. Don't Be Shy
05. Silverware
06. 6th & Atlantic
07. 65

Hear

5 comments:

johnnybgoode said...

Extremely excited to hear! thanks

Joe said...

They have a new record done and have signed with a major indie. Charles has been going back and forth remixing and remastering, but has been set back by some health issues.

Eric said...

I was so excited to see this posted as I've literally been searching for this on and off for years but was disappointed that I couldn't get the Zippyshare link to work. Is it still active? If not, can you temporarily re-up it so I can download this rare Wrens release?

spavid said...

The link is still active. Enjoy.

Ape Mummy said...

Spavid, as time and access allowed, would you kindly re-up? I must have missed this original post 5 years ago, and was thrilled to see it tonight when I was linking to another Wrens post on the blog.