Swan Lake Aren't Book Nerds

04/09/09 5:02pm

by Jen Zoratti (CHARTattack)

Swan Lake — the ethereal, off-kilter brainchild of Canadian indie rock bards Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown), Dan Bejar (Destroyer, The New Pornographers) and Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes, Blackout Beach) — are something of an acquired taste.

The group are either absolutely beloved (lauded for being musical innovators and noted for their intricate arrangements) or absolutely hated (ripped into for their penchant for sentence-long song titles and accused of instrumental wankery), with very little lukewarm criticism in between.

The members of Swan Lake know all of this. That's why they decided to call their sophomore effort Enemy Mine. The record borrows its title from a 1985 sci-fi flick that ended up playing a not-so-defining role in Mercer's youth.

"I think we were aware that [2006 debut] Beast Moans got really mixed reviews," Mercer explains over the phone from his home in B.C. "Because of that, an analogy came into my head.

"I saw Enemy Mine in the theatre, and I wanted so bad for it to be another very important narrative in my life like Star Wars was. But it wasn't very good and I was so disappointed. I remember looking at the screen and thinking, 'Why can't you fucking be better?' I think Swan Lake is like that for some people."

Self-mockery aside, Swan Lake are striving to be a better, tighter band, and the fruits of their efforts can be head on Enemy Mine. One of the trio's main goals for the new record was to consciously adopt a more focused, deliberate approach to their music.

"I think the idea, because we all have such excessive tendencies, was to keep it as simple as possible," Mercer says. "We didn't want to have eight noodling things at the same time. We wanted it to be more like five noodling things at the same time."

Beast Moans was what you could call an excessive record. Since Swan Lake were a new project at the time of that record's creation, the three collaborators were still figuring out how to work together in the template of a band and, more importantly, how to let everyone's vision shine through on the album. The record has its moments of sheer art-pop brilliance, but, as Mercer says, "there were a lot of great ideas on Beast Moans, but they got lost in production.

"That's always the debate with us, production versus songwriting. I think a really wonderful record pleases both sides. It appeals to the intellect, but also to our primal urges."

With those primal urges in mind, Swan Lake were also looking to strip themselves of the literary tag with Enemy Mine. Although Mercer claims that the band voicing that particular desire in their press release was "just them being funny," there's a degree of truth there.

"When I hear the term 'literary band,' I roll my eyes," he says. "It's such a funny thing because the beast always beats the brain when it comes to music. Music's more about the visceral response as opposed to beard-scratching.

"We are just aware of the pompous nature of the band and the pompous nature of calling ourselves Swan Lake. That being said, what do you do when you have an emotional response to a novel and it makes you want to write a song?"

If you're Swan Lake, you write a song. Enemy Mine still has a strong storyteller's sensibility to it, but the record is more of a stripped-down and listener-friendly affair than its predecessor. Instead of throwing in as many ideas as possible, the trio run with only the best ones on this effort, making for a lean album that has very little fat on its weirdo pop skeleton.

Enemy Mine appeals to the intellect, but it's also a wonderfully evocative collection of songs that perhaps appeals most to the imagination. Swan Lake's three songwriters are still as idiosyncratic as ever, but Enemy Mine sounds like it was made by a band, not three very different people with three very different visions.

"For all my Beast Moans bashing, I really like that record," Mercer says. "But Enemy Mine turned out to be a really cool record."