Pitchfork: Wrens to Release Expanded EP, Tour

After more than 10 years, three LPs, and countless singles, the Wrens have finally found their home-- a recording studio to call their own. Speaking to Pitchfork via phone, singer/guitarist Charles Bissell described the band's first order of business, putting together an expanded and revamped version of their 1997 EP Abbott 1135. According to Bissell, "We'll be done on our end by the 4th of July, if not the end of June. We actually haven't done anything on it in quite a while. We moved last year, kind of set everything up in the fall and started all the stuff, then kind of made the decision to step up some of the equipment we had in the studio."

The newly re-minted EP will include in the vicinity of six extra tracks. "It's going to be a full length," said Bissell, adding that the new songs won't be "in the same water...it will be both something kind of new and something kind of old. It's very Mommy Dearest-- 'Here is the dinner you didn't finish last night.'" One such morsel is even already titled: "Don't Be Shy".

Meanwhile, the band have shelled out for some new equipment and look forward to siccing it on their old songs. As Bissell told us, "I actually just got done purchasing the final monitor needed for the recording. Since the holidays we have all come together and now have a fancy little two room studio-- it has the vision of a real studio, but in a suburban house. All [the EP songs] are being remixed, and then by default you remaster. Sometimes, just for sonic reasons, if you're gonna remix, it's easier to re-record the guitar than to make it sound better by tweaking knobs. The technology was not as happening in 1997 as it is now."

Sure, but what's it like diving eight years into your own past? "I forget how dark those days were, and how depressed we were. If my hunches are right, all this work and getting the house set up as a functioning studio, kind of the way we always wanted it, we're gonna have a real productive period. It's gonna be now, for the next year and a half, that we're gonna crank out all the stuff we're going to release for the next 10 years."

All this activity has to be woven into the New Jersey band's upcoming tour schedule. Before the Abbott 1135 reissue sessions reconvene, the Wrens will play a few shows in late May/early June. After Abbott's all done, Charles has a solo set followed by a short Midwest voyage culminating in their appearance at Pitchfork's Intonation Festival. Then, Texas. Does there really have to be a reason? Dates:

05-21 Allston, MA - Great Scott
05-27 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
05-28 Scarsdale, NY - Scarsdale Teen Center
06-02 Columbus, OH - Little Brothers #
06-03 Newport, KY - Southgate House #
06-04 Athens, OH - South Green Lawn #
07-07 Brooklyn, NY - Pete's Candy Store (Bissell solo)
07-14 Indianapolis, IN - Vogue *
07-15 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick *
07-16 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock *
07-17 Chicago, IL - Intonation Music Festival
08-25 Houstin, TX - Mary Jane's
08-26 Austin, TX - Emo's
08-27 Denton, TX - Hailey's

# with Troubled Hubble
* with Sparrow, Get Him Eat Him

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* Absolutely Kosher Records: <a