The Acorn need No Ghosts on new album

Sometimes when you listen to a band, you can hear just how quickly it all came together. When you listen to The Acorn, however, you can hear the meticulous workmanship that goes into crafting each and every word and note of every song.
The apparent perfectionist apects are evident simply when listening to their work. Exclaim! Magazine explained it almost perfectly - "to live in the music of The Acorn [.] is to be surrounded by those who care for music and want it to thrive under any circumstances".
For proof of this, one need look no further than their 2007 breakthrough album, Glory Hope Mountain. Weaving through the album's 12 tracks is the partially biographical story of The Acorn singer Rolf Klausener's mother, from her life in Honduras to her immigration to Montreal.
"There was a lot of research and there was so much thought put into the songs and the ideas and the metaphors," said Klausener, who is joined in The Acorn by Jeff Debutte, T. Jeffrey Malecki, Howie Tsui and Pat Johnson.
But according to Klausener, The Acorn have moved beyond Glory Hope Mountain with their upcoming album, tentatively titled No Ghost, which is set for a June release through Paper Bag Records.
After being on the road for nearly two years straight, the band decided that they needed to take a new approach to writing. With Mountain, the group practiced and recorded on weekends; this time around, they rented a cottage near Ottawa and moved in for three weeks while they wrote the album.
"This one, what was challenging was that I don't write around people," said Klausener. "I don't write my songs with people staring at me, or people asking me if I've finished the chorus. It was a much more intrusive process, but it was much more interesting, what it yielded. [Also,] we had no phones, we had no TV, no Internet, no cell phone reception, so it was completely isolated."
With the new album, the band has pushed their sound into new directions. From the eclectic folk-based songs of their past, Klausener suggests that the band has moved towards a more electric sound, fit for the larger venues they've been playing since the release of Glory Hope Mountain.
"The last record was definitely happy in a lot of different ways, but it was serious," said Klausener. "There were a lot of serious thoughts, serious ideas, serious stories. This one doesn't have, I think, that kind of emotional weight as the last one. It's definitely got a lot more levity, a lot happier tunes in general. It's a lot harder, it's got a lot more electric guitars, it's got a bit of Yo La Tengo-y or Talk Talk kind of spaciousness, but then it also kind of feels a little like a Crazy Horse record sometimes. It's pretty neat."
Having already recorded the epic tale of Glory Hope Mountain, with its expansive soundscapes and incredible lyricism, will No Ghost bare the concept album tag like its predecessor?
"It was interesting, because I didn't have any specific themes in my head, but there were a lot of, I guess you could say, sub-themes," said Klausener. "There was no concept, but there are certain sub-themes and certain ideas that resonate throughout the record."
Performing at this year's Canadian Music Fest serves as a reintroduction to the band. Since finishing the album in December, the members of The Acorn decided they deserved a much-needed break from all the hard work of being in a touring band. It's been almost six months since their last gig, and Klausener sounds excited to get back on stage.
"It's going to be exciting because we're going to be playing," he said. "I mean, we haven't played in months, we've all been doing different things, so it's going to be great to actually see each other. And we're playing with friends of ours in Plants and Animals, so that's going to be super, super fun [.] I'm hoping we might have some guests come up with us [.] Otherwise, we're probably going to be debuting most of the new record."
The Acorn play Lee's Palace on Fri., March 12 as part of Canadian Music Fest.