LAE Break The Clasp [2xLP]

Break The Clasp is the otherworldly debut album from Montreal-based psychedelic post-rock artisans, LAE -- with Steve Austin from Today Is The Day on lead vocals -- released amidst the eclectic outfits absolute rebirth. Performing as LAE-TSEU, their initial moniker, the outfit initially impacted the Quebec art and post-hardcore/emo/indie circuits in the apocalypse-ready Y2K era of the mid 1990s, having set out to distance themselves from the established conventions of rock music as well as the trappings of the various alternative subgenres. However, after carving an excellent name for themselves regionally, and as they prepared to record their debut album, the band dissolved, with several members’ lifestyles beginning to rot away at the rest of the band, professionally and personally. In mid-2013, having restructured the lineup and dropping half of their previous band name, LAE emerged from the unfortunate ashes of what transpired two decades ago, completely re-envisioning the songs with new life knowledge and a ravenous hunger to make them better than ever. To capture this soundtrack, bassist, Ronald Jean-Gilles, drummer Serge Nakauchi Pelletier, and guitarists Stephane Desgroseilliers and Marc Lucas Ablasou contracted Steve Austin (Today Is The Day), flying him and an arsenal of gear from his Austin Enterprises from Maine to record in Ablasou’s wood shop/warehouse. Here, the five musicians utilized acoustic and electric guitars, trumpet, saws, multiple electric organs and pianos and more to capture their long-awaited full-length, Break The Clasp in full analog on a vintage Neve Console. However, as Austin became immersed in the recordings, eventually his producer duties shifted to more instinctive musician sense, and in the end, Austin ended up performing lead vocals to the entire album in addition to other musical contributions. After being mastered at Austin Enterprises back in Maine, and being fitted with imaginative cover art crafted by the band’s longtime cohort Sonny Kay (The VSS, Gold Standard Laboratories label), LAE’s Break The Clasp will finally see its birth this Autumn. Encompassing nearly fifty-three minutes of unclassifiable, unearthly, heartbreaking psychedelic audio artistry, while fans of Three Mile Pilot, Swans, Sonic Youth, Unwound, Slint, Shellac and more will be instantly hooked by these tales of love, devotion and loss, Break The Clasp is an incredible experience, the record unfathomably original and unlike anything accessible on this planet. Break The Clasp was released as a collaborative title between The Compound and Battleground Records. This deluxe vinyl version features the album as it was meant to be heard; on two massive slabs of 180-gram black wax. Packaged in black poly-lined inner sleeves in a gatefold cardboard outer sleeve, both the front and back covers feature spot varnish treatments, the entire thing shrinkwrapped with a free download card included. [The Compound / Battleground]