Focus track, Doiron’s “Last Night I Saw My Love,” is a stripped down, melodic love song spontaneously composed in winter 2023. Julie recorded it at home with her friends and collaborators Dany Placard (bass, engineering, mixing), and Colleen Coco Collins (drums and background vocals).

The song was written very quickly, in the wintertime. It just fell from the sky and into my head. It’s also about being in love with someone who lives far away. – Julie Doiron

Matthew Swann and Julie Doiron first crossed paths in 2006 when they were both signed to the same label with Swann’s then-band Hot Little Rocket. Since then, Julie and Matthew have been crossing paths all over their shared home country of Canada.

They have performed live together as well, with Julie contributing vocals to Astral Swans’ self-titled 2021 record as well.

Split 2 is a lesson in contrast, with Julie’s songs being joyful expressions of love, and Astral Swan’s contributions being absurdist slacker meditations on identity.

Auteur Research

“The Coward” is a “weird one” for Swann, playing on different valences of what the word means, contrasting synthesized and live recorded instruments in a rumination on – among other things – suicide; how those that go through with it are often labelled with the term. Listen to “The Coward” HERE and watch the official music video HERE.

“The Coward” is a slacker jam that I wrote when I was living in a hotel doing an artist residency. I would have written a song called “The Rich Fearless Champion,” but I’m broke, and deeply afraid of the world, so this made more sense 😉 The recording is DIY. I wrote, and recorded it myself (for better or worse). Sonically, it contrasts some abrasive synthetic noise elements with melodic sensibilities. It’s intended to be a catchy nihilistic pop song mixed with some fun anti-aesthetics. Hope ya like it! – Matthew Swann

Can’t live within the now

I’m stuck in other realms

Split 2 also features two raw, off-the-floor tracks by Julie Doiron, for whom Astral Swans owes a strong musical debt dating back to her seminal indie band Eric’s Trip. The two first crossed paths in the ’00s when they were both signed to the same label with Swann’s then-band Hot Little Rocket. This created a longstanding mutual appreciation that led to Doiron lending vocals to the 2021 self-titled Astral Swans release.

Auteur Research

Chad VanGaalen and Matthew Swann (Astral Swans) met in the 00’s as mutual fans of each other’s music, DIY outsider artists in a burgeoning oil city, and this split hearkens back to their scrappy, improvisational roots. VanGaalen produced Swann’s first album as Extra happy Ghost!!!, the ravishing Modern Horses. VanGaalen “we went through his vault a little” as Swann describes it, carefully selecting his self-recorded songs to put on the split including a cut featuring Alex Edkins (METZ, Weird Nightmare) on broken electronics, the mysterious ‘Frogman.’

Astral Swans has toured North America, Europe, China and Japan performing everywhere from house shows to festival stages, Swann has shared bills with a laundry list of artists including Angel Olsen, Feist, Malcolm Mooney (CAN), Grimes, Julie Doiron, Colin Stetson and & more.

The Split EP is the first in a series of sonically stranger releases from Astral Swans continuing into 2024 and carrying on an orbit that attracts some of the best artists in Canada to rally around him. Vancouver troubadour Dan Mangan first signed Astral Swans to his Arts & Crafts imprint Madic Records, which released the debut, All My Favorite Singers are Willie Nelson. Scott Munro of Calgary post-punk legends Preoccupations co-produced the follow up Strange Prison, and ASTRAL SWANS (self titled), was co-produced between Swann, Brock Geiger (Reuben and the Dark, Etamine), and Paul Chirka (Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra) with vocal contributions from the legendary Julie Doiron, guitar by Cassia Hardy (Wares) and a host of others.