Premiere: The Great Speckled Fritillary - Her Majesty's Secret Circus

The Great Speckled Fritillary is a collaborative retro-psych project comprising members from other well known Vancouver bands (The Psychic Alliance, Yep, The Elven Twelves). For most it acts as their side project but the enormity of their debut album, Her Majesty's Secret Circus, has us wondering if that statement could truly be accurate.

How enormous?

Well… the album is a conceptual double LP.

Yup… THAT Enormous!

Now that statement may sound like a daunting introduction but the band is releasing the album in two parts so the listening experience is a little more inviting. Both volumes were recorded purposely 6 months apart at different studios utilizing different producers, mastering engineers, and drummers in order to achieve a feeling of thematic diversity. Everything was recorded live-off-the-floor with minimal takes in an attempt to capture the immediacy of 60's era recordings (most specifically the template for recording was based on The Beatles Rubber Soul and Revolver albums). Each album was fully tracked and mixed over a seven day period, as a self-imposed challenge to the musicians…. Again… Enormous!

That band brought in some well-known names in Canadian music to act as producers. Volume one was produced by Justin Wong & Christine Church of Audiogator (Fake Shark Real Zombie), and volume two produce by Jo Hirabayashi (Sub Pop recording artist Jo Passed)

The album arrives tomorrow digitally and as a limited edition double cassette tape by Haushome Records but you can hear the entire thing a day early courtesy of the Cups N Cakes Network.

Enjoy!