Besnard Lakes Share Recording Equipment With Led Zeppelin

Ask someone what makes their all-time favourite album special and you'll probably get a slew of adjectives like "timeless," "epic" and "mesmerizing" -- none of which actually tells you anything substantial about their selection.

In the case of Besnard Lakes' forthcoming record, 'The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night,' it might be a little easier to account for the disc's 'Je ne sais quoi' factor. Recorded on the same mixing console used to record portions of Led Zeppelin's 1975 watershed album 'Physical Graffiti,' the new release has a retro vibe that feels altogether uncanny given the console's history.

"My studio [Breakglass Studios] was in the market for a large frame console and this broker who had it stored in his warehouse caught wind and emailed us out of the blue," Jace Lasek tells Spinner on the line from Montreal. "We saw the pictures he sent and had to have it -- it was a bit of a dream come true."

Built in England, the 1969 Neve germanium mixing console was used in Los Angeles and New York before making its way to the dingy storage facility Lasek rescued it from last year. The timeline could not have been better for Besnard Lakes, as the outfit were getting ready to lay down tracks for 'The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night.'

"It's pretty cool to record on a console like that," the band's guitarist and recording engineer Lacek says. "You start twisting the knobs and then it slips into your head that Jimmy Page or John Bonham could have been working on this console at one point, and it kind of blows your mind."

While you certainly can't credit the majestic soundscapes on the upcoming disc to the mystique of the vintage studio equipment alone, it's hard not to entertain the notion that Besnard Lakes' latest batch of saturnine melodies aren't somewhat indebted to the famed mixing console -- at least in spirit.

"Aside from the fact that it sounds absolutely incredible, it's pretty inspirational to be able to work on something that is a piece of history like that," Lasek says.