ladiesauxiliary:

This weekend we finished mixing our 2nd album (that’s the cover up there), and dropped it off with Shep to get mastered! Here’s some stuff about it:

Ladies Auxiliary’s second album of 2011 is On The Shadow .  Since putting out My Side of the Mountain in March, much of what they do has remained the same, but, even so, a lot has changed.  Lo-fi Spectorish pop songs crammed with drum machine, Casio, steel guitar, harmonies and reverb still aptly describe record #2.  But whereas the Ladies kept the songs on My Side as compact vignettes, with On the Shadowi they rarely, even in the spare and quiet parts, hold back.  

Initially conceived as a just a few songs to give away here and there, somehow that idea gradually faded.  Towards the end of the summer, it became clear the Ladies had almost completed an album.  And they were very excited.  

Without much thought, the group submerged their twangy, whimsical impulses, and went right for the gut.  Taking cues from early Factory Records, Suicide, Philly Soul, Scott Walker and anthemic heartland rock, the songs have gigantic hooks and melodic arcs, but still allow for nuance and space.  Lyrical themes, though they remain personal, touch on universal notions of the comforts and distress of nostalgia, loss of friendship, and fear of demise. 

Besides singers/keyboard players Colin Pate and Jesse Moore, longtime member Tom Scheponik makes his most focused and beautiful pedal steel guitar and vibraphone contributions.  In addition, Jennifer Brehm took the bus down from New York to add a few chilling harmonies, Jesse Sparhawk drove over from West Philly with his harp, and Dan Olson walked from 4th Street to play a keyboard solo.  Still, perhaps the most striking contributions come from Mike Brenner.  Late of Magnolia Electric Co. and Marah, Brenner came on with the Ladies to fill in from time to time when Scheponik was too busy with session work.  By the end, he had shaped almost every song on the album with his inventive, often bizarre, steel guitar playing, mutating it to sound like lush string arrangements, Moog leads or beds of Eno-esque ambience.

On The Shadow will be available Nov. 8.