Sweet Flyer Alert: The Besnard Lakes In China

Eerie pop catharsis spattered all over the place in this Besnard Lakes promotional tour poster!

Watch Killer Besnard Lakes Live Footage, Tour Dates in Australia

The Besnard Lakes have had an outstanding run since the March 2010 release of The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night. It’s almost been a year and they continue to bring new meaning to the brilliance of a fog machine and real stage presence.

Preceding their January performance at Chicago’s Tomorrow Never Knows Festival, Besnards played a whirling rendition of album standout “And This Is What We Call Progress.” Watch it over at Pitchfork.TV or in the video above.

If you’re in Australia or Hong Kong, peep these Besnards tour dates below!

3/10/11 Sydney, AU – Manning Bar                                                               3/11/11  Brisbane, AU – The Zoo                                                                   3/12/11 Melbourne, AU – Corner Hotel                                                         3/13/11 Victoria, AU Meredith Supernatural Amphitheater @ Golden Plains Festival

3/17/11 Hong Kong, China – Hidden Agenda

The Besnard Lakes Polaris Prize Official Countdown: Send Your Best Vibes North

…or, wherever you live, in the general direction of TORONTO. The final countdown has begun! The ticker at the Polaris Prize website has a little more than 12 days left before the final gala and announcement of the WINNER. As you might already know, the Polaris Prize is given to the artist who had the best album in Canada in late 2009/early 2010, regardless of genre. No offense, other nominees, but that is The Besnard Lakes for The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night.

If you live in Canada (and a lot of the Jag blog readers do), you can watch the Gala where each nominated band performs one song. Then the prize is awarded, and it’s 20,000 bones!

So, my Canuck dawgs, listen to the gala, September 20th at 8pm EST, on Sirius XM 86 or you can watch it on Much Music’s website at 8pm (with tv broadcast on the 25th).

Vote for Jag! Besnard Lakes, Gayngs, Peter Wolf Crier all nominated in NPR’s All Songs Considered Best of 2010 (so far) Reader’s Poll

NPR’s All Songs Considered has compiled a list of their picks for Best Albums of 2010 (so far) in their new readers poll. We are very proud to say that not one, not two, but three of our releases this year have been nominated for Best Album. Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, Gayngs Relayted, and Peter Wolf Crier’s Inter-Be have all been nominated. But never fear, you do not have to pick between your favorite Jagjaguwar artist, in this poll you can vote for up to five albums. Voting ends this Sunday June 27 at midnight so head over to the All Songs Considered Blog and vote for your favorite albums today!

THE BESNARD LAKES Are the Roaring Night

THE BESNARD LAKES, the Montreal collective fronted by husband-and-wife duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek, has returned, crafting a majestic, sprawling vision of guitar bombast and captivating pop experiments. On March 9th of 2010 (March 8th in the UK), Jagjaguwar will release The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night, a twisting chronicle of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods turned violent. Loyalty, dishonor, love, and hatred are all seen through the eyes of two spies, communicating through short wave in code and fighting a war that may or may not be real.

The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night was recorded at Lasek’s Breakglass Studios with a vintage 1968 Neve germanium mixing console used to record portions of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night is a dark bliss-out that folds the eerie guitar epics of the band’s breakthrough, The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, into a wall of affected drones and atmospherics. The toughened immediacy and grit that gives the form a much-needed shove over the cliffs makes for a haunting, provocative swan dive into the crushing tide.

February 9th (February 8th in the UK), a standout song from the new LP, “Albatross,” will be released on a vinyl 12″ with the gentle and ghostly exclusive b-side, “Four Long Lines.” “Albatross” has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison reimagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star — dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants.

Read more about The Besnard Lakes HERE.