Los Angeles, CA. (Capitol Records) - The Crane Wife, the Capitol Records debut from the Decemberists, will be released on October 3rd. A North American tour will kick off on October 17th with a two-night stand in their native Portland, Oregon.
The Decemberists have risen from beloved cult favorites to the first rank of the indie music world with a series of beautiful and fantastical albums brimming with flawless melodies and songs inhabited by casts of legionnaires, chimney sweeps, sea captains and seekers of all kinds. Led by these songs, and by a group dynamic that embraces experimentation even as it celebrates everything from classic pop to klezmer to Irish jig to prog rock, the Decemberists have hand-crafted a purely original aesthetic all their own.
But upon first listen it's immediately apparent that The Crane Wife is the band's most ambitious and enthralling album to date. Decemberists songwriter and frontman Colin Meloy first came across the story of "The Crane Wife" several years ago in the children's section of a local bookstore. A venerable Japanese folk tale that's been handed down in countless variations and translations through the centuries, the deceptively simple story has stayed with Meloy ever since.
Drawing on the long-simmering inspiration of the tale, Meloy, along with his fellow Decemberists - multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, bassist Nate Query and drummer John Moen - set about creating a rich collection of songs which leap off from the story itself into a deeper, more unpredictable musical world.
And, significantly, the band was able for the first time in its career to take ample time building their arrangements in a well-equipped studio in Portland. Granted the luxury of preparation, the band, along with co-producers Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie) and Tucker Martine (Laura Veirs), cultivated an environment of total creative freedom.
It's tempting to think of The Crane Wife as a concept album but that's not entirely accurate. It's more like an extrapolation of the folk tale, a re-imagining of its themes on a broader canvas. For every song that touches directly on Meloy's interpretation of the Japanese legend (gorgeous album opener "The Crane Wife 3," or its prequel, "The Crane Wife 1 and 2"), several more take their cue from the fabric of the story and stretch outward into other visions.
Sometimes the visions are of bleak urban murderers on the prowl in "Shankhill Butchers"; sometimes the waterlogged mingling of love and death in "Summersong," sometimes the bloodied pop confection of "O Valencia!" But the album's unquestionable centerpiece is the 13-minute murder ballad "The Island" and its subsections "Come and See," The Landlord's Daughter," and "You'll Not Feel the Drowning." As the lyrics chronicle a tale of murder and rape, the instruments chart a far-flung course through multiple musical genres into a full-blown masterpiece.
"There was a real strong sense among the band that we were not going to try to make a record that someone would typically make for a major label," says Meloy. "In some ways I think it pushed us farther to the left, farther out of the Decemberists comfort zone."
THE DECEMBERISTS FALL 2006 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
10/17 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
10/18 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
10/19 San Francisco, CA Warfield Theater
10/21 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
10/22 Tucson, AZ Rialto Theater
10/24 Austin, TX Stubb's
10/25 Dallas, TX Gypsy Ballroom
10/26 New Orleans, LA House of Blues
10/27 Atlanta, GA Tabernacle
10/29 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
10/30 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
10/31 Northampton, MA Calvin Theater
11/01 Philadelphia, PA Electric Factory
11/03 New York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom
11/04 Boston, MA Orpheum Theater
11/05 Montreal, QC Metropolis
11/06 Toronto, ONT Kool Haus
11/07 Pontiac, MI Clutch Cargo
11/09 Cleveland, OH Agora Theater
11/10 Columbus, OH Lifestyle Communities Pavilion
11/11 Chicago, IL Riviera Theater
11/12 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
11/14 Denver, CO Paramount Theater
11/16 Missoula, MT Wilma Theater
11/17 Seattle, WA Paramount Theater
11/18 Vancouver, WA Commodore Ballroom
* $1 from each ticket purchased through pre-sale or the band's website will go to Ethos, an organization providing programs which make the benefits of music education available to all students regardless of income.
