The Besnard Lakes
» Grouplove - January 4, 2012
» The Dum Dum Girls - January 3, 2012
The Besnard Lakes Golden Plains sideshow at The Corner Hotel last week was an awesome psychedelic beast. These talented Canadian rockers have a very distinctive sound, one that can best be alluded to as what would result from The Dandy Warhols and the Fleet Foxes having a lovechild… conceptually, not literally. Formed around the husband and wife song writing partnership of lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Jace Lasek, and his wife and flutist/guitarist Olga Goreas, The Besnard Lakes are also comprised of Lead Guitarist Richard White and Drummer Kevin Laing.
Opening their show with an ethereal audio clip about life in the universe, The Besnard Lakes quickly set an immediate ambience for the night’s performance, one of psychedelic introspection, polished off with fuzzy reverb, walls of guitar and angelic harmonies and vocals.
Kicking off the set with Like The Ocean, which is also the album opener of most recent LP The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, Lasek quickly blew people’s preconceptions out of the water with the soaring range of his falsettic delivery, one with seemingly no roof, and throughout the night Lasek never failed to reach pitches most wouldn’t even attempt, what a truly extraordinary voice.
Comfortable in the spotlight, the band were easy going and built up a good rapport with the crowd in the Corner, trading jokes with their audience all night, whilst interspersing them with gems of 70’s inspired psychedelica contained in tracks like Light Up The Night, Albatross, Disaster and Your Lies To Me.
Whilst Lasek is the more traditional front man, Goreas shared the vocal duties and even took lead on some tracks, like the mesmerising Land Of The Living Skies. And props must also go to the interstellar guitar work of White; his finger work throughout the night was spot on, with the highlight being his guitar solo on Your Lies To Me and Light Up The Night.
Though I loved every minute of this performance, the culmination of the night had to be, And This is What We Call Progress, a blissful 5 minute sonical journey that after hearing live, just isn’t done justice on record.
After witnessing this amazing performance it’s easy to believe all the hype surrounding The Besnard Lakes, and why they have been twice nominated for Canada’s Polaris Award (The Canadian version of the Australian Music Prize). Definitely check them out when you get a chance, for The Besnard Lakes put on one of the most sonically rich and impressive gigs that I’ve seen in a long time.
