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THE DARCYS

PRESS KIT “Downright stunning.” GLOBE & MAIL

“ haven’t missed a step, expertly arranging their lush, effects-laden soft-rock compositions.” NOW

“An ear-catching collection of sweeping, multilayered songs.” NATIONAL POST

“Lushly layered, lightly proggy arrangements.” 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 and .” 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 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 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 (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 — 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 three- record 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 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 Free Download: The Darcys’ ‘Josie’ Listen to the group’s take on a Steely Dan hit

Toronto-based group The Darcys released their self-titled debut on October 25th and have recently recorded a cover of Steely Dan’s “Josie” for their upcom- ing AJA tribute album, set for a January 24th release. Giving a nod to one of their favorite bands, The Darcys decided to craft their version of “Josie” in a decidedly different tone.

“With ‘Josie,’ we wanted to create an ominous mood to close the record. The Steely Dan version plays like a breezy pop song about a beautiful girl, but the lyrics hint at violence and reckless abandon,” The Darcys’ Wes Marskell says. “Who is Josie to incite all of this? And where has she been? We loved the incongruity between Steely Dan’s feel and lyrical content, but our goal was to subvert the original by undermining that polarity.”

You can download The Darcys’ dark version of “Josie” for free here.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT JANUARY 2012 “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 were preparing a showcase for the album they’d just fin- their self-titled second album, he took up a bartending job ished recording, when their lead singer abruptly quit. Cue at Toronto’s Medieval Times dinner theatre. The drummer much re-recording (with guitarist Jason Couse stepping in would serve tourists drinks called Maiden’s Kiss and Drag- on vocals), messy legal proceedings and three full mixes of on Slayer and tell girls he was really The Green Knight the album; finally, last month, they released it — for free. (they never believed him), all the while repeating to himself the mantra: “I’m in a rock band. It’s going to be fine.” “It’s not about making a million dollars on the record,” Marskell says. “It’s about people having it.” Which isn’t to The Darcys are a talented quartet, but up until now, they’ve say he’ll be back in a tunic and tights soon: the white hardly been an advertisement for giving up one’s day job. In knight that rode in to save the band was Arts & Crafts March 2010, after a trying year (during which they had (Feist, ), the highly regarded Toronto equipment stolen, were held up at knifepoint, and nearly label whose strategies sometimes seem perplexing but can perished when their tour van spun out on black ice), they often prove inspired. Over lunch at a eatery,

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NATIONAL POST NOVEMBER 2011 Marskell and Couse reflect on their pursuit of musical Enter Arts & Crafts, who, perhaps uniquely as a label, were perfection, the obstacles they’ve faced and their sense of poised to help get the monkey off the quartet’s backs — by hope after being a band in distress. releasing the album online, gratis.

The long-time friends from Etobicoke, Ont., started jam- “It’s something we need to share with people so we can ming as a two-piece in high school, influenced by densely move on creatively and as people,” Couse says. Back in textured shoegazer music and yacht-rockers Steely Dan 2007, Arts & Crafts had pre-empted the physical release of alike; when they moved to Halifax for university, they met Stars’ album In Our Bedroom After the War with a digital like-minded bassist Dave Hurlow and vocalist Kirby Best. release (and thus angered industry folk who felt they were Together, they bashed out their debut, Endless Water devaluing physical product), but not even they had released (2007), which Marskell describes as the sound of a “post- an album for free. rock band … that wanted to get drunk and meet girls.” “It’s harder and harder to get anyone to pay attention to But there were signs their studies were having an effect, new artists,” says the label’s co-founder and president, beginning with their band name, taken from English-lit set Jeffrey Remedios. He believes Arts & Crafts have much to text Pride and Prejudice. Couse likens their writing and gain “by people hearing this band and trying to cut through rehearsing sessions to “all-night essay writing blitzes,” and some of the clutter” rather than “selling this album to a says a fourth-year course called The Deconstruction of the much smaller base.” Tradition of the 20th Century encouraged The Darcys to rethink their strategy. “We responded to the feelings we So far, The Darcys — an ear-catching collection of sweep- had about that [first] album by turning to a super-critical ing, multilayered songs, both gauzy and abrasive — has work ethic.” been downloaded some 3,000 times. They’ve received emails from fans in the U.S. and Europe thanking them Upon graduation, the band members returned to Toronto, and saying they’ve subsequently ordered copies on vinyl — added guitarist Michael le Riche, an electronics wiz who the only format in which the album is actually being sold. makes his own effects pedals, and grew more ambitious. Arts & Crafts plan to make money from LPs (the first When it came time to record The Darcys’ second album, pressing of 500 having sold out), from merchandising and producer , whom they’d admired for his from touring: with fingers crossed about their gear, The “giant, sprawling” work with his band , told them Darcys are returning to the road. What’s more, making up to simplify their approach. Couse and Marskell, who had for lost time, they’ve already recorded a second album due adopted an obsessive, Steely Dan-like attention to detail, in January, with a third slated for later next year. found it hard to relinquish control. Eventually, Marskell says, Lightburn told them the album “can’t be in my life Marskell has left the medieval era wall behind, although his anymore, but I can’t let it die.” They let go and wrapped up bandmates are still working. “There’s a lot of moments recording, at which point Best left the band. when one of us will phone each other about a song, and you’ll hear the other person’s boss yelling in the background The split was initially amicable — “Everyone was trying to ’cause the table’s been waiting.” make it work, but I think he just wasn’t into it,” Marskell says — but it devolved into a legal nightmare that they’re If Arts & Crafts’ gamble pays off, the members of The not now at liberty to discuss. Darcys won’t have to worry. They’re in a rock band; they’re going to be fine. 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.”

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NATIONAL POST cont’d NOVEMBER 2011 Toronto’s Darcys gaining after loss

The Darcys, from left: Jason Couse on vocals and guitar, Wes Marskell on drums, VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR Mike le Riche on guitar and organ and Dave Hurlow on bass.

BEN RAYNER

Although theirs has since become a textbook tale of rising “blogosphere” for their breathless gigs and their impressive to the occasion and perseverance in the face of disaster, it 2007 debut, Endless Water; a nibble of record-label curiosity could have gone either way for the Darcys at this time last year. here and there; and, most importantly, a solid new piece of work to flaunt. And then, within days of finishing the -al Canadian Music Week of 2010 was to mark the proud bum and with an important CMW showcase bearing down unveiling of the young Toronto outfit’s second album, on them in little more than a week, their singer quit. Not a which they had only just completed after a somewhat diffi- temper-tantrum, just-for-show quit, either. Quit. Gone. cult, but rewarding mentorship at the hands of their chosen producer, Dears frontman Murray Lightburn. “I’d just got the record and it was over. It felt terrible,” says drummer Wes Marskell. The Darcys had all their ducks in a row: a loyal and grow- ing live following; a few good notices in the press and the

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT TORONTO STAR MARCH 2011 “But I’ve had this kind of awakening a couple of times in rode to the rescue by roping engineer Dave Schiffman, the past where it feels really bad, but part of you knows who’s worked on records by the likes of System of a Down, that it’s not. And I think that the one thing with moving Weezer, Rage Against the Machine, BRMC and the forward with CMW and beyond was that it felt like there Dears, into the picture. was nothing holding us back from going to the moon and that we were all fully capable of doing what we were meant “He just called me and said, ‘I’ll help you fix this. It’s bro- to do. Before, it felt like there was always a hiccup or a ken, but we’re gonna do it,’ ” recalls a grateful Couse. hitch.” “Murray just pulled it out of nowhere,” says Marskell. “Not Faced with the decision of “either turn the corner or give only was (Schiffman) mixing it for way below what he up,” the Darcys — suddenly a quartet composed of Mar- would normally work at, but the whole time he was saying: skell, guitarist/keyboardist Jason Couse, guitarist Mike le ‘This is great. I’m really into it. I like it.’ He was kind of Riche and bassist Dave Hurlow — elected to fight on and the shining star at the end of all this because he brought it honour their CMW commitments. together.” A text message from Lightburn confirms that he might Couse stepped into departed vocalist Kirby Best’s shoes have believed in the record a bit more than he let on to the and a week’s worth of nightly practices saw the band’s band: “The songs are great, and great songs always win.” dense, tricky songs hastily rearranged for fewer bodies. Nerves generally frayed all around. But they pulled it off, In any case, here we are in a familiar position going into turning in a pointedly intense comeback performance at Canadian Music Week 2011. The Darcys have a revamped, El Mocambo during the festival that left those acquainted reworked and remixed version of their self-titled sopho- with the recent drama relieved to see that, perhaps, things more album—a dense, challenging, monstrously tune- were going to be all right. Now they’re back at CMW and ful prog-rock epic that improbably finds common ground playing the Silver Dollar on Thursday. between Radiohead and Steely Dan—in hand.

“I actually hadn’t felt nervous — at least not anywhere near Their following has only grown exponentially during the that nervous — in a long time because we’d been touring months since their troubles, not least because the masoch- a lot and I’d become very comfortable in my role,” recalls istically complicated, impeccably detailed and passionately Couse. “Singing backup vocals was fine, but I’d never played live set has become one of the best in the city, on its considered myself a focal point. I wasn’t in charge of the way to becoming one of the best in the country (“We don’t ebb and flow of a show. So I was really nervous. I still have get onstage to enjoy how awesome it is to be onstage,” says weird moments where I get a gust of that coming back to Marskell. “We’re working.”), and record labels are once haunt me. again nibbling about curiously.

“Playing through it felt right, though. It felt more right It seems unlikely that the Darcys, the band, and The than it had been in the time leading up to that. There was a Darcys, the long-fought album, won’t very soon find a sort of ‘brotherhood’ moment in it.” supportive home—it’s leaps and bounds ahead of Endless Water—but the band itself is too shell-shocked from past The year since hasn’t exactly been smooth for the Darcys. upsets to entertain such thoughts. The Darcys are, as they Best’s disentanglement started amicably and ended ugly; say, just happy to be here. lawyers had to be involved. Vocals were re-recorded and the album remixed into a state that still didn’t please any- “That’s what really great about this moment and going into one in the band completely. Labels seemed to lose interest. CMW: We’re at the top of our game, we have something Spirits sagged. to back and we have a reason to be playing these shows,” says Marskell. “We’re not just playing them to stay afloat Then, this past December, Lightburn — whose relation- anymore.” ship with the band had been rather strained all along —

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT TORONTO STAR cont’d MARCH 2011 PAUL LESTER guardian.co.uk Thursday 12 January 2012

Hometown: Toronto.

The lineup: Jason Couse, Wes Marskell, Dave Hurlow and Michael le Riche.

The background: We got taken to task by a couple of respondents to Tuesday’s New Band of the Day, the gist of their ire being that things are not what they used to be, and how dare we say nice things about new music that doesn’t match up to music of the past. Coincidentally, we are currently reviewing, for the Jewish Chronicle, a biography of Lionel Bart, the famous British musicals composer, whose title, taken from a song (and play) that Bart wrote, is, irony of ironies, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be. Bart, of course, meant it as a joke, playing on the Brits’ tendency to delight in periods long after they’ve ended, even a wartime notable for bombings and rations. Well, we refuse to succumb to nostalgia – it’s a proper, identifiable syndrome/sickness, you know, a term with a Greek deriva- tion and everything – mainly because it’s utter hogwash (fings are just fine as they are right now, fank you), but even we would be forced to concede there is no band on earth extant quite like those masters of 70s studio proficiency and lyrical piquancy, Steely Dan.

Another coincidence: we’ve been listening a lot to Steely Dan lately, perhaps subconsciously prompted by excellent pieces of writing on latterday Dan-alikes Destroyer, but mainly because they are so damn fine, and one of the few acts – we hesitate to call them a band, not just because of the jazzy fluidity of their set-up but because they were so far above the grubby rock milieu – who genuinely make us hold up our hands and declare, oh all right then, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be. And lo and behold, who should hove into view with an entire recreated version of Steely Dan’s 1977 album Aja but an indie band from called the Darcys. Amazing!

Immediately, this set alarm bells ringing. Before the recent habit, arguably first formed by with his re-enact- ments of /SMiLE, for performing whole albums live, there was another micro-tradition – instigated by Pussy Galore with their rendition of the whole of ’ Exile On Main Street – of bands re-recording a album. To this day, rock scholars can’t tell if PG came to praise or take the piss. Which got us wondering: would this Darcys-do-the-Dan thing be an act of veneration or degradation? And would we actually, secretly, prefer the latter than the former?

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT JANUARY 2012 First, some info. The Darcys’ version of Aja is part of a trilogy of releases, all freely available as part of a “dark but bold declaration of self-sufficiency”. Their debut album was decent indie fare, albeit more lush and complex than the usual, furious and forlorn in places, some of it even quite lovely. But the point is, there is nothing on their debut to suggest they would one day tackle one of the most notorious examples of shiny sophistication and polished professionalism in the pop or rock canon, namely Steely Dan’s sixth album, released at the height of punk and so un-punk it ended up being more punk than punk.

So how does it sound? Nowhere near as pristine and perfect as the original, not surprisingly, but then the Darcys didn’t have the cream of the planet’s most skilled virtuoso sessioneers at their disposal, nor the budget of a group who had sold millions of records. Their version of Black Cow can’t help reminding us how superior the Dan were, how acerbic and acidic, yes, but also aloof. This is a long way from that. We’re not sure what the object was here, but we admire their gall. On the title track it occurs that, if anything, the already cryptic lyrics seem even more difficult to decipher: Donald -Fa gen’s genius was to make whatever he sang sound accessible, probably why Steely Dan were in the commercial super- league alongside the Bee Gees and , incredible considering the subject matter and delivery of their songs. “Esoteric” doesn’t even come close. Deacon is rendered as a sort of dubstep/ hybrid, but then the Dan were always at right angles to rockanyway.

Peg doesn’t quite have the jauntiness of the original: in the Darcys’ hands it’s thrash pop. Home At Last features a squall of noise. There was no squall of noise on the original. The guitar solo is more than Larry Carlton – the Darcys’ Aja is four minutes longer than the Dan one, so some liberties have been taken with length. I Got the News never approaches the Dan’s rarefied orbit but it has a scuffed charm all its own. Finally, there’s Josie, one of three singles from the original Aja. Singles! They actually dared to release music of this quality and distinction into the marketplace as potential chart hits. And do you know what? They charted! But hold on, watch out, because in a minute we’re going to start singing an old Max Bygraves number …

The buzz:“An inspiring blend of polished pop and avant-garde experimentation” – Pop Matters.

The truth:Don’t start the countdown to ecstasy just yet …

Most likely to: Make you miss the Dan’s musicality.

Least likely to: Encourage them to make Steely Dan: The Musical.

What to buy: The debut album and Aja are available now for free download from Arts & Crafts.

File next to: Dears, Delgados, Elbow, Steely Dan.

Links: thedarcys.ca.

Friday’s new band: Woman E.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT THE GUARDIAN (cont’d) JANUARY 2012 “She’s the raw flame, the live wire. She prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire.”

With these lyrics, The Darcys, a Toronto-based art-rock outfit, crafted the harrowing allegory of modern womanhood that is their latest video. “Josie,” a cover of Steely Dan’s 1977 hit, is re-imagined in the eyes of the band and video director Aaron Miller. Brooding organ and droning guitar replace the song’s original -tinged rhythm. Miller matches the atmosphere with languid shots of modernist architecture and various female subjects—each stranded in a towering world of concrete and urban malaise.

“With ‘Josie,’ we set out to juxtapose the always-engrossing power of a woman’s eyes with some of the monolithic structures that often define the places we live,” explained drummer Wes Marskell. “So many of our communities simultaneously prize and objectify their young women,” he said. “It’s easy to lose a sense of who those girls really are.”

Penned by core Steely Dan members and Walter Becker, “Josie” tells the story of fiery socialite who’s just come back to town. Everyone anticipates her arrival: “She’s the pride of the neighborhood,” after all. But the Darcys turn this concept on its head, casting Josie’s fast-paced existence as a winding cavern into complete self-degradation. Miller expresses this in beautiful black and white, capturing each woman in the throes of decay, the “raw flame” flickering in each of their eyes—on the brink of burning out.

“We wanted to let each subject define her presence within this simple and honest concept,” said Marskell, “then set that against our relatively dark interpretation of the song.”

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT INTERVIEW FEBRUARY 2012 THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NY DAILY NEWS MARCH 2012 THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NY DAILY NEWS (cont’d) MARCH 2012 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 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 LIVE, IN PHOTOS: Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah And The Darcys At El Rey (5/19/12) By Angelica Corona on May 24, 2012

Canada natives The Darcys have just finished an extensive European tour in support of Bombay Bicycle Club. Now that it’s over, they’re back at it again, taking on a full Summer US tour. I was fortunate enough to see them perform at El Rey on May 19th in Los Angeles supporting Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah. The consistent live performance practice seems to be paying off, because these boys put on quite a show. With momentous guitar riffs, soulful vocals and epic drum, keyboard, and guitar solos, watching the Darcys perform quickly made them a new personal favorite band. Get their self-titled album free here.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT FILTER MAY 2012 The Darcys on Covering Steely Dan

Nonstop Sound sat down with Toronto-based indie rockers The Darcys during their recent visit to City. The band decided to cover Steely Dan’s flawless album Aja in its entirety, putting their own dark twisted fantasy upon it and reinventing the slick classic jams for a younger audience.

Interview by Dale Eisinger.

Music video courtesy of The Darcys.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NBC NEW YORK MARCH 2012 HIGH FIVE The Darcys’ Wes Marskell

THIS STORY APPEARED IN THE BOSTON GLOBE January 20, 2012 By James Reed

Steely Dan’s “Aja’’ is not the most obvious album for a young indie-rock band to reimagine from tip to tail. Its songs are dense with complex structures, blurring the line between and rock, and they’re emblematic of their era.

And yet the Darcys have re-created the classic album in its entirety. Simply called “Aja,’’ the Canadian band’s interpre- tation will be released on Tuesday, but it’s by no means a straight homage to the original.

“To be honest, I don’t think we could have done it note for note. It’s a really [expletive] difficult record,’’ says Wes Mar- skell, the band’s drummer who, at 25, wasn’t even alive when “Aja’’ was released in 1977. “My dad would play it when I was growing up, and we sort of it dedicated [our version] to our fathers.’’

Calling from his Toronto home, Marskell recently weighed in on five other albums the Darcys would like to cover.

1. “Voodoo,’’ D’Angelo. “It’s so far out of our reach. Doing our post-rock version of ‘Voodoo’ might not sit well with people.’’

2. “Shine a Light,’’ . “I grew up on that record, and one of the reasons why we formed our band was because we all unified over loving Constantines.’’

3. “Endtroducing. . .,’’ DJ Shadow. “Trying to pull that off organically would be interesting. I loved that record in high school when I was learning to drive. Every time I got in the car, I would put it in.’’

4. “100th Window,’’ Massive Attack. “It’s so dark and heavy, and at times it’s really sparse. I think pulling that record together as a a band would be challenging.’’

5. “Aja,’’ Steely Dan. “I’d love to keep going back and re-recording the album from where we are as a band at that moment in time.’’

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT THE BOSTON GLOBE JANUARY 2012 The Darcys – ‘Don’t Bleed Me’ video premier

The Canadian rock band release their first single from their Murray Lightburn-produced, self-titled debut album which is being released on Arts and Crafts records. The vid sees them running away from an end of the world situation.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NME MAY 2012 Sometimes, when two bands really really love each other, they get together and make… a remix. Such is the love affair that caused The Darcys to give the already stellar Zulu Winter track “Silver Tongue” a dance/trance rerub. A stand-out track on Zulu Winter’s debut full-length Language, the new version is an all-together weirder, darker, and mysterious beast.

Says Zulu Winter of the remix: “We haven’t actually met The Darcys yet but when we do I’ll definitely be saying thanks and buying them a drink...They’ve brought so many different layers and emotions out without really alienating the original which is pretty impressive. I love how it focuses on the darker and more claustrophobic elements which is epitomized by the reverse whispering vocals. It gives the song a real menace and broodiness that isn’t as obvious in the original. I tried watching the “Silver Tongue” video with this as the audio and things got pretty tweaked!”

Check out the premiere above, or catch the band live at the in New York on June 12.

(www.facebook.com/ZuluWinter)

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT UNDER THE RADAR MAY 2012 The Darcys Free Album Today & Life on the Road: Q&A

POSTED BY MARIE BARTLETT

The Darcys recently released an interpretation of Steely Dan’s 1977 classic album AJA, which as of now you can download for free on their website. Recently I caught up with them to talk about their tour and life on the road. Wes Marskell of the band took some time out to talk about inspiring other young bands and the avoiding the danger involved in traveling from city to city.

The Darcys’ massive tour with the and Bombay Bicycle Club begins on January 27th. Check the dates below.

Best thing about touring? From tour to tour we have watched our shows grow and I am starting to get that people care about what we are doing. Maybe not 3000 people in every city, but every now and again we will get an email from a kid in Denver or who says, “I started a band to sound just like yours.”

Some crappy or creepy thing that has happened to you on the road? We were held up with a hunting knife in . The guy had this look of fear in his eyes and no one was really sure how the whole thing was going to play out. It was very scary at the time. Looking back, I feel bad for him because he clearly was just a kid in way over his head. He was trapped in our van and knew that he wasn’t going to get away from us so he started to panic. There was a struggle and in the end, he spent the night in jail. No one was cut and to this day, we tour with the knife hanging around our rear-view mirror.

What awesome place should we know about? Depanneur le Pick Up in . They have the best vegetarian pulled pork sandwich on the planet. Murray Lightburn first took us there when we were recording our self-titled album with him.

Who band(s) are you into right now? Anyone you’ve seen lately who’s rocked your world? Before we started this tour with Arkells they were kind enough to invite us to their show at Sound Academy in Toronto. Not only is Max a very strong frontman, the band is a force. They are going to kill us every night. We have been practic- ing four times a week so we can try to keep pace with them on this tour. Most interesting person you have met on the road?

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT CBC RADIO 3 JANUARY 2012 Rob Pattinson showed up at one of our shows in Vancouver. Essentially, he started a riot of 16-year-old girls and we had to create an elaborate diversion to help him leave after the show. He wasn’t the most interesting person, but the ensuing insanity of the night will stay with me forever.

We love stories – embarrassing, scary or happy, tell us your best. We tour with hockey sticks and play road hockey for an hour before every show. The games are less about scoring goals and more about knocking each other down. The last game we played Jason accidentally slashed me in the face with this stick and I had to play the whole show with a welt the size of a grapefruit on my face.

Anything else? Buy winter tires.

The Darcys endless tour schedule after the jump 01/27 Kingston, ON // Ale House * 01/28 Montreal, QC // Petit Campus * 01/31 Moncton, NB // * 02/01 Fredericton, NB // The Ballroom * 02/02 Halifax, NS // Grawood * 02/03 Charlottetown, PEI // The Wave * 02/04 Antigonish, NS // The McKay Room * 02/09 Kitchener, ON // Elements * 02/10 , ON // London Music Hall * 02/14 San Diego, CA // The Casbah ^ 02/15 Los Angeles, CA // El Rey Theatre ^ 02/16 San Francisco, CA // Popscene @ Rickshaw Stop ^ 02/17 Portland, OR // Doug Fir ^ 02/18 Seattle, WA // Crocodile ^ 02/20 Vancouver, BC // Commodore ^ 02/21 Kamloops, BC // Blue Grotto ^ 02/22 , AB // Republik ^ 02/23 Edmonton, AB // Starlite ^ 02/25 , MB // West End Cultural Centre ^ 02/26 Minneapolis, MN // 7th Street Entry ^ 02/27 Chicago, IL // Subterranean ^ 02/29 Columbus, OH // The Basement ^ 03/01 Toronto, ON // The Mod Club ^ 03/03 Brooklyn, NY // Music Hall Of Williamsburg ^ 03/05 New York, NY // Ballroom ^ 03/07 Washington, DC // 930 Club ^ 03/08 Hoboken, NJ // Maxwell’s ^ 03/09 Boston, MA // Middle East ^ 03/10 Philadelphia, PA // Union Transfer ^ 07/14 Toronto, ON // ()

* Arkells ^ Bombay Bicycle Club

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT CBC RADIO 3 (cont’d) JANUARY 2012 Watch AUX’s Canadian premiere of the new Darcys video, “Josie”

The Darcys just released their reimagining of Steely Dan’s classic album Aja, and from it, they’ve made a video for the song “Josie.”

“With ‘Josie,’ we wanted to create an ominous mood to close the record,” Wes Marskell recently told Rolling Stone on their version of the song. “The Steely Dan version plays like a breezy pop song about a beautiful girl, but the lyrics hint at violence and reckless abandon. Who is Josie to incite all of this? And where has she been? We loved the incongruity between Steely Dan’s feel and lyrical content, but our goal was to subvert the original by undermining that polarity.”

Watch the video for “Josie” above.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT AUX FEBRUARY 2012 The Darcys – ‘Josie’ video

Beautifully shot by Aaron Miller this clip shows, according the frontman Wes Marskell: “the always-engrossing power of a woman’s eyes with some of the monolithic structures that often define the places we live.”

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NME FEBRUARY 2012 Though you may not think it at first, seventies jazz-rock pioneers Steely Dan are probably one of the hardest bands out there to cover. How difficult it is to do justice to Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s zealous studio perfectionism and heavily layered sinister undertones. Yet that didn’t stop Toronto prog-rockers The Darcys from deciding to try and reinterpret the entirety of Steely Dan’s seminal 1977 album, Aja.

As we noted in yesterdays review of AJA, The Darcys “sonically unearth Steely Dan’s buried lyrical darkness” with their meticulously tuned noise that borders on Radiohead-like, and menacingly heavy instrumentation. Not without its missteps, the band’s modern interpretation still passes as an interesting and aesthetically refreshing effort.

Right now, you can get a taste of a version of Aja closer, “Josie”, that the The Darcys chose to leave on the studio floor. “Josie (Vol. 2)” takes Steely Dan’s lively ode to a fiery man-eater who returns to town after a long absence and fleshes out the darkness underneath. Check out the results below.

AJA is out today via Arts & Crafts.

The Darcys – “Josie (Vol. 2)” AJA Tracklist: 01. Black Cow 02. Aja 03. 04. Peg 05. Home At Last 06. I Got The News 07. Josie

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT COS JANUARY 2012 The Darcys vs. Steely Dan TORONTO ROCKERS REINVENT A CLASSIC BY RICHARD TRAPUNSKI

When the Darcys finally released their long-awaited self-titled album on Arts & Crafts last November, they promised that fans wouldn’t have to wait nearly as long for the next one. What they didn’t say, however, was that the next album would be a full-album post-rock reinterpretation of Steely Dan’s 1977 classic, Aja.

At least not officially, anyway. The Darcy’s Aja record, now set for release on January 24 (free, like their last album), has been a poorly-kept secret in the Toronto music scene since its inception.

When I went on tour with the band to Halifax Pop Explosion back in October, all they would tell me “on the record” was that the next album would be “a curveball art project,” even though I had sat in the backseat of their tour van while they played it for members of the night before (and later lent them their copy of the original Steely Dan album to play in their own van).

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I called up drummer Wes Marskell, who took a break from band practice to give some more concrete details.

“Basically, it sprung out of creative frustration,” he says of the album, which the band recorded at the apartment of Marskell and lead singer Jason Couse while their self-titled remained in limbo.

“We had this record that we thought was done, that we thought was finally over, and it just wasn’t. We had to keep re- cording and mixing and mastering. And as it was lying in limbo, we couldn’t really record a new record because we didn’t know what was happening with our old record. Somewhere down the line, we came up with this fantasy of covering Aja.”

How it turned from a fantasy, a self-admitted joke, into a full-realized album stemmed from the band’s weakness for discretion.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NOW JANUARY 2012 “I started to talk about it openly to people, as if this joke idea was actually something we were working on,” admits Mar- skell. “It was just something I was spouting on about because I was sick and tired of talking about why the record’s not finished, why the record’s not out. But I planted enough seeds that we either had to deliver on it or look like idiots. And then it was hard to keep it a secret in Toronto because we had run our mouths to so many people.”

Despite the concept’s origin, Marskell insists their version of Aja is no joke. Aja is both his father’s and Couse’s father’s favourite record, and so they made sure to treat it with the reverence befitting of their early musical upbringing. The Darcys’ Aja strips the songs of their professional “” sheen and rebuilds them in their own brooding, atmospheric indie-post-rock style.

Doing so, however, was no easy task. Aja is infamously the apex of Steely Dan’s studio perfectionism, an album that was meticulously recorded by Walter Becker, Donald Fagen and the era’s most immaculate session musicians. Legend has it they even rejected a guitar track from Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler for not being “perfect.”

“We sat down to do it and realized ‘oh fuck, this record is really difficult’,” Marskell says. “It’s intensely dense, and it took a really long time to learn how to play. But what we learned during the process is that these are really dark songs dressed up as ‘70s pop jams. When you strip them down they’re really dark and interesting.”

The Darcys have been practicing playing their chilly version of Aja live and hope to eventually perform the album from start to finish. First, however, they’ll be on tour until April with Bombay Bicycle Club and The Arkells, before they return home to Toronto for a live date at Downsview Park on July 14 as part of Edgefest.

And don’t be surprised if it’s not long before the Darcys next Arts & Crafts release, a full-length LP comprised entirely of originals.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NOW (cont’d) JANUARY 2012 Mp3 Roundup: The Darcys, Jay-Z and The War On Drugs

1. The Darcys – “Josie” (Steely Dan cover)

The Darcys have never been a band that have done things by the preverbal book. After signing a multi-album record deal with Arts & Crafts and the release of a free sophomore record, the boys from The Big Smoke are already primed to give us more. Yesterday, the band announced the release of a complete cover album based on Steely Dan’s 1977 classic, Aja. It was actually recorded during the group’s self-titled album sessions last year and is said to be “as much an art project as an album,” explains drummer Wes Marskell. Get the first taste of the reimagining here with the (sort of ) brand spanking new track/cover, “Josie”.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT JANUARY 2012 The Darcys Explain Their Take on Steely Dan’s ‘Aja’

BY CAM LINDSAY As promised, this week the Darcys released their cover version of Steely Dan’s Aja, free of charge, only a couple of months after putting out their long- awaited self-titled album. Considered by the band to be more of a reworking of the 1977 jazz rock classic, the whole thing may not be as strange as it first seems, but that doesn’t mean the reworking came easy.

Speaking to Exclaim!, Darcys drummer Wes Marskell says the idea of covering Aja “existed solely to redirect conversa- tion” about when they’d be done with their self-titled album. “I had no intension of actually delivering the album. [But] in the summer of 2010, there was a turning point: I realized that we had run our mouths so much that if we didn’t put this idea into practice it would seem as if we had two failed records. It was only then that I realized how difficult covering Aja was going to be.”

Why they chose to do Aja in the first place stems from a longtime relationship with the album.

“I grew up on Steely Dan,” says Marskell. “My father would play me Aja as a child, and by the time I was ten, I knew every word. The real problem was not the creative process, but the reality of destroying our fathers’ favourite record. Aja is important to a lot of people, and we realized that nothing we could make would compare to the original. What we really didn’t want was the project to be perceived as a tribute, as ironic or funny, and most of all, disrespectful. This is a record we grew up on and a record we love -- we had no idea how to do it justice.”

Marskell and his bandmates knew that tackling an album that belongs in the homes of millions would be a daunting task. So instead of doing a straight cover of it, they improvised.

“We knew churning out literal covers would be an embarrassment to our band,” he explains. “The idea of destroying the sterility and perfection of a Steely Dan record stemmed from that reality that we were unable to imitate the originals in their true form.

“I have always viewed Aja as an art project more so than an album. I wanted to subvert Steely Dan’s clinical attention to detail and make breezy pop songs angular and dark. We had no chance against the masterly of the ‘77 version, so the idea was always to claim Aja for our own. Part of our agenda with Aja was to create an atmosphere that dissociates the listener from the original work. Many of the songs begin and end with ambient, instrumental sections that do very little to reflect the Steely Dan originals. We were hoping that when the chord structures and vocal melodies from the original appear in our interpretation they will be considered relative to our noisescapes, not the ‘77 version.”

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT EXCLAIM! JANUARY 2012 As previously reported, up next for the Darcys is a Canadian tour with Hamilton, ON rockers Arkells and then a month- long North American jaunt with UK indie act Bombay Bicycle Club. But that isn’t stopping the band from planning the third part of their trilogy.

“We have written almost 30 songs towards a new record and are hoping to put out ten of them,” says Marskell. “We have been playing with the idea of writing songs without guitars, Rhodes, or a number of other familiar sounds from our self-titled record. I want to make something that is sparse, bass-heavy and focuses on lead and back-up melodies. Most importantly, we are going to make a record that blows our version of Aja and our self-titled out of the water.”

For now, you can download Aja at the Darcys’ website or stream it below.

Tour dates: 1/27 Kingston, ON - Ale House * 1/28 Montreal, QC - Petit Campus * 1/31 Moncton, NB - Manhattan * 2/1 Fredericton, NB - The Ballroom * 2/2 Halifax, NS - Grawood * 2/3 Charlottetown, PE - The Wave * 2/4 Antigonish, NS - The McKay Room * 2/9 Kitchener, ON - Elements * 2/10 London, ON - London Music Hall * 2/14 San Diego, CA - The Casbah ^ 2/15 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre ^ 2/16 San Francisco, CA - Popscene @ Rickshaw Stop ^ 2/17 Portland, OR - Doug Fir ^ 2/18 Seattle, WA - Crocodile ^ 2/20 Vancouver, BC - Commodore ^ 2/21 Kamloops, BC - Blue Grotto ^ 2/22 Calgary, AB - Republik ^ 2/23 Edmonton, AB - Starlite ^ 2/25 Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre ^ 2/26 Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry ^ 2/27 Chicago, IL - Subterranean ^ 2/29 Columbus, OH - The Basement ^ 3/1 Toronto, ON - The Mod Club ^ 3/3 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall Of Williamsburg ^ 3/5 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom ^ 3/7 Washington, DC - 930 Club ^ 3/9 Boston, MA - Middle East ^ 3/10 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer ^ 7/14 Toronto, ON - Downsview Park (Edgefest)

* with Arkells ^ with Bombay Bicycle Club

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT EXCLAIM! (cont’d) JANUARY 2012 Trending: January 9

BY: LARA ZARUM TRENDING UP

1. Toronto band The Darcys have recorded a cover of Steely Dan’s classic 1977 album, Aja, in its entirety. 2. Look, we’re all pissed about cuts to the TTC. You could spend hours writing letters and making phone calls to your city councillor, or you could just check out the episode of Undercover Boss Canada in which TTC Chair Karen Stintz poses as a run-of-the-mill TTC worker and just sort of feel like you’re doing something about it. 3. Write this down, immediately: Mad Men finally has an air date for the premiere of its delayed fifth season, and it’s March 25. Let the countdown begin!

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT THE GRID JANUARY 2012 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, intoxica- tion, 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, , 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-tem- pered 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 hap- pen,” 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.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT NOW MAGAZINE cont’d NOVEMBER 2011 Using an undersized Darcys-emblazoned equip- ment case as a makeshift goal in an alley in Fred- ericton, New Brunswick, the guys seem less inter- ested 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 instru- ments, their antagonism has been re-placed by a locked-in, well-practised groove.

It’s important that they function as a unit, espe- cially 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 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.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT 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 cre- ation of what should be their star-making album, and the money they ultimately pocket off it hovers somewhere around zero.

The Toronto-based band’s tumultuous back- story 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- tum, to the sophomore album they were forced to re-record without him.

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 show- cases 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 , 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 opportu- nity 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 build- ing 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 remark- ably 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, 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 .)

Couple our reduced attention span with the rapidly improving sound quality of home recordings, and we could be ap- proaching 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 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 The Darcys opening for Bombay Bicycle Club on North American tour

BY APRIL SIESE, 04 January 2012

Art rockers The Darcys ate set to embark on a North American tour with Bombay Bicycle Club starting on Valentine’s Day at San Diego’s Casbah. The Toronto band first gained attention for their recently released self-titled debut (available for free at their website) and have previ- ously touted with the likes of Tennis and Deerhoof. Bombay Bicycle Club continue to turn heads with their 2011 release A Different Kind of Fix. Tour dates below:

San Diego, CA, The Casbah, 2/14 Los Angeles, CA, El Rey Theatre, 2/15 San Francisco, CA, Rickshaw Stop, 2/16 Portland, OR, Doug Fir, 2/17 Seattle, WA, Crocodile, 2/18 Vancouver, BC, Commodore, 2/20 Kamloops, BC, Blue Grotto, 2/21 Calgary, AB, Republik, 2/22 Edmonton, AB, Starlite, 2/23 Winnipeg, MB, West End Cultural Center, 2/245 Minneapolis, MN, 7th Street Entry, 2/26 Chicago, IL, Subterranean, 2/27 Columbus, OH, The Basement, 2/29 Toronto, ON, The Mod Club, 3/1 Brooklyn, NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg, 3/3 New York, NY, Bowery Ballroom, 3/5 Washington, DC, 930 Club, 3/7 Boston, MA, Middle East, 3/9 Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer, 3/10

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT PUBLICATION DATE 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 weird- er, 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.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT AUX cont’d SEPTEMBER 2011 CHEEKY T’S AND BUCKETS OF BOOKS

BY LAURA CAPPE If you spot someone on the street wearing a shirt that says “Stop Thinking Like A Millionaire” emblazoned on the front, think about taking a second to introduce yourself. You should do so, because we’re telling you that this stranger listens to some pretty rad music. Maybe they’ll be your soul mate, but if not, you’ll find love in The Darcys, the musicians behind the tee.

If you don’t already know this group, – Jason Couse (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Wes Marskell (drums), Dave Hurlow (bass), and Michael le Riche (guitar, vocals)– they’re Toronto boys who are dashingly au courant, practice quick wit, and share a love of reading. It is no wonder that they churned out a clever band shirt that delivers a message that is both applicable to their music (a focal line from their single ‘Shaking Down The Old Bones’) and the socioeconomic mood of the day.

I sat down with The Darcys drummer, Marskell, for some light banter and a much-needed coffee following his previous night’s show in Guelph, ON. Being so intrigued by these shirts, I asked him what that specific line meant to him.

“I like its cheekiness,” he said. “Where it came from, I’ll leave up to interpretation, but it seemed current with the eco- nomic landscape. It made sense at the time. I heard this story about a friend that bought the record online [pre-order came with the t-shirt] and walked down to Occupy Toronto. He didn’t even realize that he was wearing it, but everyone seemed to embrace him.”

Band shirts aside, these guys have maintained a refreshing attitude after four years together. Recently signed to Canadian indie label Arts­ & Crafts, they have just released a solid self-titled record (available for free to download) and have a Canadian tour underway. The Darcys seem to have finally paved a path for themselves, but it certainly hasn’t been a smooth ride. With the departure of their lead singer in January of 2010 the band was forced to regroup and rediscover their sound. Luckily, their prior guitarist, Jason Couse, took over the role and The Darcys’ new voice emerged.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT PLAID MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2011 “I think that when you get to a certain place you have to work even harder to stay alive,” Marskell explained. “It seems like we’ve worked really hard up until this point, but I feel like we have to work even harder to stay where we are now and to keep moving forward… We’re constantly writing. We’re actually almost done demoing a new record. It can be a bit stressful at times, but the shows have been getting bigger and people have the record now, so it’s exciting stuff.”

The Darcys have created a sound that leaves a wide footprint – rich in texture, peppered with introspective lyrics, with faint vocal echoes of Jim Morrison. Having been compared to the likes of Radiohead and Steely Dan, I asked what influences their sound.

“A lot of our influences are from growing up, more so than what we’ve been listening to over the past few years, but I do think that there is this weird nineties-rock-influence that sort of sneaks its way into our music. I think we’re mostly influenced by places and going on tour, though – just distance.” Marskell continues, “We try to recreate sounds from moments. For example ‘The Mountains Make Way’ is about driving trans-Can from coast to coast. Such a long and heavy ride.”

Jason Couse joins us later in the interview toting a copy of White Noise by Don DeLillo, while Marskell had brought Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark – one of his all time favourite authors.

“We don’t really watch TV or anything when we’re on tour… All we do is read,” Marskell admits. “We have this bucket where we just discard books we’ve read and other people in the band read them. It’s a long, long trip across Canada.”

They read, have “cheeky” band T-Shirts, and deliver alt- that comes across with an electricity that makes your arm hairs stand on end.

The Darcys play Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern on Friday, November 18th

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT PLAID MAGAZINE (cont’d) NOVEMBER 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 100 Mile House

Review of The Darcys’ The Darcys

There’s no shortage of variants on the sentiment that good things come to those who wait, but in the case of Toronto’s Darcys, keeping the faith would have been trying for the most steadfast optimists. The specifics of their long, four-year gap between their debut Endless Water and their self-titled follow-up – out today – are still best documented in this Toronto Star feature from back in March, which is also approximately when I got a finished copy of the record to preview. To reiterate: this album was finished and ready for the world in March, and probably even a while before that. And it’s only coming out today.

But to invoke another platitude, was The Darcys worth the wait? Has the band who has been carrying the mantle of potentially being the city’s next big thing for so long that other big things have already come and gone finally delivered on that promise? I give that a very qualified, “yes”. It definitely confirms them as an inordinately talented and ambitious outfit with a gift for dramatic, prog-pop songcraft. With lush keyboards, nimble, complex rhythms, intricately-arranged guitars set to chime and squall, and rough yet soaring vocals from frontman Jason Couse, their sound is evocative of turn of the century Radiohead and Elbow; certainly heady reference points and ones that set them apart from many of their peers.

So why the reservations? Because for as long in coming as this record has been, in the end it still tantalizes more than it satisfies. The Darcys excels at building and teasing out tension but for all the moments of release, be it instrumental or vocal, it doesn’t quite manage to offer that one grand moment that pulls it all together and transcends. It’s essentially what I noted when I saw them in Halifax a year ago, in thinking they were one big chorus away from stardom. That’s a lot to ask of a band, especially on what is for all intents and purposes a debut album, but great artistic ambitions come with great expectations.

That said, it’s important to again note that these songs and this record have been hanging around for a long time and might very well not reflect where The Darcys actually are, circa late 2011. I remain confident that any expectations around the band will still be realized, and possibly sooner than we might expect; to make up for the delay in getting The Darcys out, the band already have two more albums in the can and will be putting them out in the new year. If you consider The Darcys as the first instalment in a trilogy, then it becomes a much more exciting entity as it sets the stage for the sequels. And for all the extra pressure that may put on the band, one suspects that after spending so long waiting for their mo- ment, they’ll relish the opportunity to rise to the challenge.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT CHROMEWAVES OCTOBER 2011 The Darcys is being made available for free digitally and for sale as an LP; head over to the Arts & Crafts website to download it in exchange for an email address or stream it in whole at Spinner. Additionally, the band has recorded a live video for each song from the album and I’m pleased to be able to premiere the one for the album’s lead-off track, “100 Mile House”. The others will be going up today at a variety of sites around the internet – I’ll update this post with links as I collect them, starting with Exclaim (“Glasnost”), aux.tv (“I Will Be Light”), Baeble Music (“The Mountains Make Way”), Chart (“When I Am New Again”), Spinner (“Shaking Down The Old Bones”), The Line Of Best Fit (“Don’t Bleed Me”), Absolute Punk (“Edmonton To Purgatory”), Wood & Wires (“Des Animeaux”) and CBC Radio 3 (“The Mountains Make Way”). That’s all!

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT CHROMEWAVES (cont’d) OCTOBER 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 person- ality. 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 perfor- mances given by the band. The video features the Canadian buzz band in a smoky loft, delivering crisp rhythms hand in hand with surfy-meets- 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 THE DARCYS “DON’T BLEED ME” (VIDEO)

No one really wants to see the world come to an end, but in many ways “Don’t Bleed Me” is something a lot of Canadians outside of the T-Dot will revel in. Toronto band The Darcys provide the soundtrack to the end of days, beginning with their hometown, and yep, the CN Tower eats in the very first shot.

You can download The Darcys’ recently released debut album for free here.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT MUCHMUSIC DECEMBER 2011 Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Mike Gentry

You never really know when or where that little piece of wisdom for the day is going to be imparted on you. It’s a deceptive sort of runaround and some days you realize that what you got out of the day wasn’t too goddamned much, but you have to attribute something to the 24 hours that went by. Toronto band, The Darcys, gave us one of those parts with its inter- pretation of Steely Dan’s “AJA,” which we listened to for the first time tonight. It alone was something special, a lush and joyous escape from all of the non-Steely Dan shit that was happening today. There was no feeling high, no changing like a gangster, just getting chewed up a little and getting spit out. There was a lot of working on the couch, getting overheated by the laptop resting on the thighs, expelling its microprocessor exhaust as if it were doing laps around the track, burning everything up.

It wasn’t much, but then we came across a section in a story about Curt Schilling in . The former Boston Red Sox pitcher — whose prowess is apparently wildly appreciated in the state of Rhode Island (go figure!) — created a video game company that somehow secured a $75 million dollar loan from the state to create video games and in-turn bring jobs to the state with the second-highest unemployment rate in the U.S. It turns out that he and his com- pany are bouncing checks and the people of Rhode Island are ticked the fuck off. The best piece of the article was a quote from the former head of the state’s economic development agency, explaining his resignation.

He classily quoted William Faulkner, saying, “All of us fail to match our dreams of perfection.” Damn if that isn’t a way to go out. Not only does it make you sound incredibly well-read - unless he’s strictly reading Bartlett’s - but it also makes everyone check themselves for their own flaws and all of their sure-to-be shortcomings that will allow others to point fingers at them too. That Faulkner quote about the feeling of knowing failure is due ALL of us for going after the ideal somehow feels like a theme that The Darcys enjoy contemplating. So, we listened some more and heard it again. We continued listening until it was WAY too late, again.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT DAYTROTTER MARCH 2012 Volumes have been written about the many influences Radio- head 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 descrip- tion 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 Bands to watch at Great Escape 2012: The Darcys

Recently seen opening for indie-youth darlings Bombay Bicycle Club on their US tour, Toronto’s the Darcys are an experimental indie-rock band who, despite having been around for a while, are just beginning to gather a head of steam. After a vocal line-up change followed their debut album release in 2007, the band took until the tail end of 2011 to finally release a follow-up, and in what is perhaps a preview of musical Christmases to come, have made their albums available free to download on their website. It’s a remarkable decision for a relatively unknown band, even more so when you listen to the quality of the releases, particularly their recently released sophomore, self-titled album.

The four-piece bring to the table a style somewhat reminiscent of “In Rainbows”-era Radiohead, allied to Jason Couse’s falsetto vocal style (which recalls a less stylised Antony Hegarty) and a penchant for dabbling in interesting layers and textures. There are shifting rhythmic undercurrents with a an off-kilter slippery dynamic and an undeniably epic feel to proceedings. The opening track of their aforementioned sophomore release, “100 Mile House”, previews the band’s style rather well, a big, rich, beauty of a song, with distant drums, warm, intimate vocals and oodles of feedback angst. “Don’t Bleed Me” adds layers of broody, choppy guitars and angry, waspish rhythms to create a lacerating maelstrom of a song. “Shaking Down the Bones”, meanwhile, merges the band’s yin and yang elements. Soulful and slinky, the song builds and steadily spirals from sexy mood music to a kicking, twisting mule of a song, guitars building in layers before settling into a gorgeous, resolved denouement.

Not content with a rattling off a very fine second album, the band have also recorded their take on Steely Dan’s classic album “Aja” in full (also available for free), not an easy undertaking but one pulled off with great confidence and no little nerve. There’s no doubt that the Darcys are a band committed to doing things their own way, and with some serious grace and style. If they can recreate the multi-faceted pleasures of the new album live, then they’ll certainly be one of the secret treats of this year’s festival.

Download the band’s self-titled album and cover of Steely Dan’s “Aja” here.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT LAZY BRIGHTON APRIL 2012 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, shoe- gaze-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 achieve- ment, both meditated and meditative.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT HOUR COMMUNITY OCTOBER 2011 Making Steely Dan their own Toronto band The Darcys record AJA lyrics with new music — and releases it for free

After finally releasing their long-awaited, much-delayed self-titled sophomore album via Arts & Crafts late last year, The Darcys decided to make up for lost time.

In January, the Toronto indie rockers returned with an unconventional follow-up: a full-length, track-for-track reinterpre- tation of Steely Dan’s 1977 jazz-rock classic AJA, released digitally for free.

“I grew up on the record — I knew all the words when I was 10 or 11,” says drummer Wes Marskell, now 25, over the phone from Queen Street in Toronto.

“I used the idea as a way of deflecting the conversation when our second album wasn’t coming out.”

It’s easy to understand why the band felt a deflection was necessary. The Darcys had a rough year in 2010, what with the less-than-amicable departure of former singer Kirby Best just days after The Darcys was completed. The group subse- quently re-recorded an album that had already been hyped in the Toronto music press.

At the end of those travails, the band — which includes Jason Couse, Mike le Riche and Dave Hurlow — realized it was really interested in the AJA idea.

“We realized, ‘Fuck, we better actually make this record,’” Marskell say.

The Darcys also realized that redoing their “fathers’ favourite record” outright would be a) challenging and b) “kind of lame,” which is why they opted to approach it as an art project that pays homage to an album of great personal impor- tance as opposed to a straight-up cover record.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT UPTOWN FEBRUARY 2012 That’s right, people — AJA is not a cover album.

“We wrote an artist statement to go along with it.” Marskell says. “Some people have chosen to ignore it, but it’s not a cover album. We were writing and arranging our own songs and putting the Steely Dan lyrics over top.”

By doing so, the band gave itself a lot more creative freedom; after all, it’s been well-documented that the original AJA was an album born out of almost slavish attention to detail and near-obsessive perfectionism. The Darcys’ vision was to strip the Steely Dan originals of their sterile studio sheen and create grittier soundscapes that better reflect the songs’ decidedly dark themes.

“I think there’s a polarity between the style of the songs and the lyrics (on the original),” Marskell says. “We wanted to bring them closer together.”

The end result is very much in line with The Darcys’ own musical vision — read: it’s dense, artful and moody — but it pays its much-loved source material the respect it deserves.

“It’s definitely its own thing,” Marskell says. “I see it as a project more than an album, but I definitely like it. It was inter- esting to see how easy it was to do, in a sense — to actually pull it off in terms of getting the rights and stuff like that.

“We got to experiment with sounds, and I think it’ll be a good bridge between our last record and our next one. And, because it’s someone else’s record, you can detach yourself from it and have the freedom to fuck with it.”

While AJA was all about experimentation, it sounds like The Darcys are employing a more puritan Steely Dan work ethic to their next outing for Arts & Crafts.

“We’ve written 30 songs for it, but we want to write 45 and edit it down to 10,” Marskell says. “This record has to be really good so we’re taking every precaution.”

THE DARCYS Feb. 25, 8 p.m. West End Cultural Centre Opening for Bombay Bicycle Club

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT UPTOWN (cont’d) FEBRUARY 2012 The Monday Mp3 Playlist: Azealia Banks, , Gotye, Trust, The Darcys

The Darcys Interpret Steely Dan’s Aja

Over at Spinner, you can stream the latest album from Toronto’s The Darcys, an airy, glacial revision of Steely Dan’s iconic album Aja. The band has taken tracks like “Deacon Blues” and “Peg” in a new direction (think of how Radiohead might approach it), but it’s an invigorating, dynamic listen.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT TORONTO.COM JANUARY 2012 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 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 embed- ded widget. Have at it!

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT BAEBLE MUSIC 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 arrange- ments, 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 .

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 lay- ered, 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 appre- ciate. This isn’t sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs music, but the melodies of these songs are perfectly matched to the intend- ed 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 , and it deserves to be heard.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT POP MATTERS OCTOBER 2011 I got (the) news

LISTEN: THE DARCYS “JOSIE”

I’m not a fan of Steely Dan (hey that rhymes!), so forgive my ignorance when it comes to their landmark album, Aja, but I am most definitely a fan of The Darcys, and quite intrigued to hear their song-for-song interpretation of said LP, the second of their planned 3 record releases for new label Arts & Crafts.

Why cover an entire record released in 1977? “We did it because we could,” claims the band’s Wes Marskell, “And because we thought we couldn’t. It became as much an art project as an album.” Recorded while The Darcys struggled to finish their second record, their version of Aja will be available for all as a free download from their website, and eventually as a limited edition 180-gram coloured LP from Arts & Crafts’.

Besides my stated ignorance above, I am familiar with the original version of “Josie”, and much, much, much prefer The Darcys take on it, so I’ll be sure to set my alarm bright and early to ensure I get the whole affair when it becomes available next Tuesday, January 24.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT QUICK BEFORE IT MELTS JANUARY 2012 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 song- birds 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 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 Home at last

QBiM SPiNS The Darcys, Aja

Okay, I’m sick and tired of writing and rewriting this review. So you tell me, what do you need to know more: a) how in God’s name did The Darcys end up covering the whole of Steely Dan’s Aja, or b) how good (or bad) said cover album is?

If you said a): Picture it: Toronto, early 2010. The Darcys are a week away from playing an anticipated Canadian Music Week when their singer Kirby Best ups and leaves the band. Boom! Not only that, but they just finished recording their self-titled sophomore album with The Dears’ Murray Lightburn as producer and Best’s voice all over it, a voice they’d no longer be needing. Double boom! They elect keyboardist/guitarist Jason Couse to step into vocal duties, fulfill the CMW commitments, and start reworking and rerecording the disc to excise the voice of singers past and try to move into the future. Except the future isn’t coming so fast. Work on the album stalls, and the band can’t move onto new music with The Darcys in limbo, so instead they half-jokingly, half-seriously decide to reinterpret a collective favourite, the aforemen- tioned Aja. That in itself became a chore, as Aja is a complicated and intricate record to unravel and re-imagine in The Darcys’ dark, brooding tones, but they kept at it, part out of sheer stubbornness, and part out of sheer desperation to keep the creative fires burning.

If you said b): It’s fucking incredible. I’d never listened to the original Aja front to back before hearing The Darcys’ interpretation, so I came at the songs with fresh ears and no bias. Since then, I’ve gotten to know both versions well, and I can appreciate the reinvention and rebuilding they put into this art project turned obsession. Right from the opening, the flawless sheen of the original has been peeled away to reveal a throbbing, pulsating, dark and menacing set of songs that will bowl you over with bombast. The Darcys’ “Black Cow” will slam into your subconscious like a charging bull, their “Peg” is next to unrecognizable from the original and all the better for it, and closer “Josie” shoots daggers through your heart with it glowering, smoky, soulful sound. Yeah, bands cover songs all the time, and websites are commissioning compilations of artists doing a track from some classic albums, but I can’t think of anyone else having the audacity to tackle an album held in such high esteem as this, and have the talent and creative genius to make it sound like it was their record all along.

Aja is being released in the same way that tortured (and terrific) sophomore album made it out into the world: as a free digital download from the band’s website, starting today. It’s the second album of three releases planned by The Darcys and their new label Arts & Crafts; a third full album of original material is slated for release later this year.

THE DARCYS PRESS KIT QUICK BEFORE IT MELTS JANUARY 2012