Young Galaxy Get US Release Date, Play NXNE Date

It took Montreal's Young Galaxy two years to follow up their self-titled debut in Canada, but until now American fans have been left wanting. Thankfully, the last year's 'Invisible Republic,' which just snagged a coveted spot on the Polaris Prize long list, will finally see release in the US on July 27.

"It's been a long time coming," agrees the band's lead singer and guitarist Stephen Ramsay. "We're excited to see how it will do in the rest of the world."

The record, released independently in Canada last August, is hitting the US through Paper Bag Records. "They were very kind to extend a helping hand," he says.

And if dropping their most recent record in the States wasn't enough to keep the quartet busy, the band are currently on the road with Besnard Lakes, including a showcase during NXNE, and Ramsay reveals that the band have finished recording 'Invisible Repubic's follow-up. Although no release dates have been set, he hopes to have the as-yet untitled record out sometime in the fall.

So you've got 'Invisible Republic' coming out in the US on July 27, but you're already done the next album?

The crossover nowadays is pretty intense. You kind of have to scrabble together your plan if you're not on one big label. Being independent you have to hunt down interested parties to help put out your album. There can be big delays or gaps in the process. We preferred it didn't happen that way but it comes with the territory of independence.

Because it took us a long time between the first and second record and we felt like it took longer than we wanted it to, we jumped right in after Christmas on recording the third record. That's been tracked and it's pretty much done. It's with a guy in Sweden who we're big fans of named Dan Lestick, he has a band of his own named Studio that we really love. It's kind of interesting. We don't really know what's going to come back. It's like a glorified remix project. "Here's the tracks, do what you want with them. Send them back when you're done." He's had them for a while and it keeps getting delayed. We should know hopefully by mid-June.

Does it sound anything like 'Invisible Republic?'

No, it's very different. We like to think we're the kind of band that can do 180-degree turns after every completed document that we make. We came out of doing this full-on studio project with the band rehearsing and doing pre-production and then we had five weeks of studio time. We spent a lot of money on the record.

What's happening now is that we were getting into the world of software and computer-based songs -- we started to make songs from an electronic perspective. It dawned on us, why don't we make this record in a way that we don't spend as much money in the studio and we use all these different tools that we've only incorporated in small ways and make them a bigger part of the sound? That became a very exciting idea. By giving it to a guy that's renowned for his electronic work, we feel like it's definitely going to come back something entirely different than what we're known for. That's the beauty of being an independent band, you get to call your own shots.

Would you go so far as to say it's dancier than the last one?

Definitely. The guy in Sweden is saying, "I picture kind of an R&B feel. Maybe I'm gonna make it more minimal." He's using language outside of the initial terms and referencing Bjork's 'Hunter' and 10cc's 'I'm Not in Love,' which are songs with no drums and weird vocal percussion things, so it could get freaky.

We were listening to Fever Ray from the Knife and really got into that sort of vocal effect thing she does. We started to play around with that aspect, too. It's about trying to create a very surreal world compared to what we were normally used to. The days of just sitting in a room together as a band in a very earnest way is over for us. That has for us a very limited shelf life.

Rock music is in a low ebb compared to where it was in the '90s or early 2000s when there were a lot of big indie bands crossing over and breaking through to the mainstream. They were leading the way, now it's gone into these almost tribal sects of people working in very coded terms -- and that's come from the fragmentation of the industry. The post-modern musical landscape, there's no one predominant theme at all. People are coming up with really weird interpretations of what it means to be a band.

Young Galaxy will play the Horseshoe Tavern on Thurs. June 17 as part of NXNE.