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Since they popped onto the local scene just a few months ago, Le Loup has been making major waves. They were filling local music venues, getting signed to a great label, and setting up tours with big name artists in the time it takes most bands to decide on a name and set up a MySpace page. They've worked their way into our hearts here at DCist too, as a Three Stars band and headlining our most recent Unbuckled show. All this foreplay has built up quite a bit of anticipation for their album, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly, which is finally coming out tomorrow.
If you've seen the band live, you'll notice right away that the album seems slightly thinner than what you've heard. That's because you're not hearing the full band on this album: you're just hearing Sam Simkoff. Le Loup was, as most people know by now, his creation. He wrote and recorded the songs himself, long before ever forming the seven person army that currently fills out the band's lineup. Hardly Art was so impressed with the original recordings, they didn't see a need to re-record anything. So rather than hearing four guitars surging at once, and a chorus of varied voices, you're hearing Sam manning everything at once. Which isn't as exciting as the full band, but is still something very special.
Just because Simkoff went it alone when he was making this record doesn't mean it's lacking any of the band's signature layering. Aside from sheer size and volume, the ebb and flow of the band's music is the main take away from one of their live shows. The quiet drops and giant swells are present throughout the album, as well as varied string instruments -- including lots and lots of banjo, harmonies, and an overwhelming sense of delicate complexity. He's deft with so many instruments, rhythms, styles and ideas, but the album still maintains unity and doesn't seem splintered or undecided.
Effects made possible by laptop composition punctuate the record -- from the backtracked conversation on the first song, "Canto I," to the bird sounds on the last. The album is beautifully arranged, with peaks and valleys placed proportionally, and ending with the dramatic, "I Had a Dream I Died," -- a song whose refrain repeats, "this is the end." Tracks like, "Outside of This Car, The End of the World!" display Simkoff's more upbeat, electro-pop interests, and "Look To The West" shows off his straightforward rock & roll capabilities. But Simkoff really shines on the... how shall you say... more... Canadian sounding numbers. Big topics, from modernity to the apocalypse, are being tackled here, and the big, overwhelming instrumental and vocal approach they take to songs like, "To The Stars! To The Night!" and "Le Loup (Fear Not)" suits those themes very nicely.
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly is quite an accomplishment by an artist with unreasonable amounts of talent. The album is complete and complex and a hell of a listen. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but, we can't wait to hear what happens when all seven members of the band take to the studio and show how they really shine.
Le Loup's debut album will be available Tuesday, Sept. 11 at Olssons, Melody Records, hardlyart.com, subpop.com, amazon.com, insound, iTunes and more.
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Hope they give credit to James Hampton for the title of the album: http://americanart.si.edu/collections/interact/zoom/hampton_throne.cfm
Is the title a reference to that folk art piece at the NPG?
My favorite piece of art ever. (The piece at NPG, not this album -- though I'm sure the album's fine.)
The most amazing thing about The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly is that the guy made it in secert, in his garage, over a long period of time. It was 'discovered' after his death.