Handsome Furs / Sound Kapital - SP881

Sound Kapital is the third full-length from Handsome Furs, the Canadian two-piece of husband and wife Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry. It’s also the first Handsome Furs album written exclusively on keyboards. This was a conscious decision. Here in 2011, the suggestion that electronic music is cold, alien or unfeeling, somehow detached from the human experience, is as lingering as it is outdated. Handsome Furs don’t just shrug off this myth on Sound Kapital, they reject it with every fiber of their shared being. On this new album they use keyboards and drum machines to forge life-affirming anthems taut with muscle and blood. These nine songs of innocence and experience occasionally look ahead to a better world in the not-so-distant future, but Handsome Furs know what time it is: Now. They are fully engaged in the moment and their surroundings, wherever that may be.

Sound Kapital was recorded quickly, polished and rehearsed in the Furs’ derelict Montreal studio, then preserved for posterity by longtime producers Howard Bilerman and Arlen Thompson at Hotel2Tango, mixed by Finnish dudes Antti Joas and Jonas Verwijnen at Kaiku Studios in Helsinki and Berlin, and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal.

Cold, alien and unfeeling? Hardly. Sound Kapital is hot, noisy, over-stimulated… and ready to take on the world.

PLEASE NOTE! When you pre-order Sound Kapital on CD or LP, we will give you a 320k download of the entire record! This download will be available on your sp.com account page, sensibly enough, under “available downloads” after you’ve placed your order.

The above thing is in addition to the thing where we will be giving the first 350 people who pre-order Sound Kapital a 9-postcard set featuring photos taken by the band, all packaged in a fancy custom envelope. It is, as I am told they say, a “real classy piece.”

Released: June 28, 2011

Handsome Furs / FACE CONTROL - SP790

FACE CONTROL is the second album by Montreal’s Handsome Furs, 2007’s Plague Park was their first. Alexei Perry and Dan Boeckner wrote the songs on FACE CONTROL together. The album was recorded and mixed by Arlen Thompson at Mount Zoomer. It was mastered by Harris Newman at Hotel2Tango. It will be released on March 10th, 2009.

Released: March 10, 2009

Handsome Furs / Plague Park - SP733

The duo of Handsome Furs began as an idea in the winter of 2005, comprised of Vancouver residents Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade) and his fiancée, Alexei Perry. Dark and minimal while noisy and earnest, the point was to be as sparse and repetitive as possible with the help of little more than vocals, guitars, and a new drum machine. Through this, songs of earthbound captains, eggs made of gold and iron, and sleepless bodies were born. Boeckner’s disenchanted vocals thinly resonate while cloaked in a frenzied undertone of fear and uncertainty, all punctuated by bare drum machine beats. Through the course of each track, a deep-seated sense of longing struggles with staunch realism as a restless disdain for both urban life and smaller towns collide. Handsome Furs toured Europe before writing any songs. They have since opened for the likes of David Cross and Modest Mouse before releasing a proper record. Recorded at Wolf Parade’s studio, Mount Zoomer, in the heart of December, Plague Park is their debut. It is a record of melancholic tendency and heartfelt desire; a stripped-down symphony roaming between city and country, and made for ears of either side.

Released: May 22, 2007