Friends!

After a year of intense rehearsals and pre-production here in NY we are heading back up to Montreal later this week to start recording the last group of songs that will constitute our second album. YAY! Feels good to type it. It’s been a long time coming. For those of you who have caught us playing various “surprise” shows around town in the last year you have gotten a chance to hear some of the new stuff. For those of you who have not and live far away we are planning to tour as soon as this record is done, out, and in your stereos feeding sunshine vibes into your life.

Lastly for those of you who were bummed that our song Carousel didn’t make onto the Twilight 3 soundtrack it will be on this record.

Will report how it goes from the studio.

See you soon!
Asher

(posted by Asher)

It’s been a bit since any of us have posted. Hope you’re all well.

We’ve all been busy of course. Working on new songs here in New York. As of now we have half an album recorded and it looks like we’ll be heading back up to Montreal in a few moths to get more songs on tape.

We have a couple of shows coming up including CMJ so definitely check out the myspace page for upcoming dates. We will be debuting some new material and putting out general good vibes for those of you who are around.

In other news we are planning to put out a new 7” in late Fall. It will be two new songs one of which we recorded with Howard Bilerman and Larry Crane at the Hotel 2 Tango back in April called Clarissa Explains It All. The other song is one we recorded here in New York with Patrick called Hearts Of Palm.

John Richards from KEXP will be premiering Hearts of Palm on his show this week so tune in to KEXP (90.3 Seattle, 91.5 New York, KEXP.org Everywhere) from 9-noon EST to hear it.

Hope you enjoy. Talk more soon.

Asher

(posted by Asher)

I’m new here. To the band and bloggerfying. In the band I play bass guitar. 

Ravens inducted me to the band way back in October when we were where we are right now…Montreal. Back in October we were playing up the street from the studio at a place called Sport Benfica, which as far as I can tell is a social club for fans of the legendary Portugese club football team Benfica.

As Avery has already told you, we are in the beautiful and wonderful sounding hotel2tango with our trusty navigators Larry and Howard. Our journey to get here began on Thursday night in good ole NYC. We all piled into the big blue van (which I’m told doesn’t have a nickname….yet) and headed up to Asher’s parents place upstate where we stayed the night. When we got in at around 1 in the morning there was a fully roasted turkey with some homemade stuffing waiting for us. Awesome. Delicious. Thanks Mrs. Lack!

We rolled into Montreal on Friday afternoon and began setting up and starting to record beds (bass, guitar, drums). This place sounds really really good. Well for the next two days Larry worked Mike and I like we were oxen in the video game Oregon Trail. We sweated, we cried, even bled a bit, but we got through it and now there’s a great foundation for everyone to build on. Mike Riddleberger (new drummer) played the crapola out of the drums, but had to split early this morning to head back to NYC (11 hour train ride, ack!). His first show with us will be this Saturday at Mercury Lounge, so you should come check him out as well as the new songs we’ve been working so hard on.

While we record here at hotel2tango, we camp out in what I’m told is the French section of Montreal…about a ten minute drive from here. The digs are nice little duplex with two bathrooms and a nice little deck/porch that I’ve been doing my morning stretches and sun worshipping on. Also included in our cozy little apartment is an abnormally large rear projection television. This thing is huge. Mike liked to refer to it as our “glowing wall”. Avery promised me that he’ll post a picture of it later. Stay tuned!

Last but not least I have to tell you about a special person.

Gus!

Gus is the trusty studio manager here, beautiful brown eyes, playful attitude, and can chill hard.

He is also Howard’s border collie.

(posted by Patrick)

Hello friends!

We’re back in Montréal at Hotel2Tango, recording the beginnings of something.  The new studio that Howard and the rest have built is really wonderful – it retains all the charm of the old location, with the addition of some amazing new facilities.  The main tracking room is huge and the resulting sound (most notably on drums) is huge.  There is even a new espresso machine (it’s a Gaggia)!  We are lucky enough to be working with our friend Howard Billerman again, as well as Larry Crane.  Won’t say too much more because I don’t want to incur the wrath of lord mother Ash-tron, but suffice it to say, tape is rolling, and things are sounding great so far.

See you all soon,

Avery

(posted by Avery)

Things are heating up around the release so I think it’s about time I started taking part in this blog.

We’re playing our release show at Union Hall in Brooklyn on October 11th with Division Day and the first of our CMJ shows on October 16th at Fontana’s. Then we’re hitting the road on tour November 8th.

Stay tuned to our myspace page for more show info. If you live in Chicago and you can help us out with a show then drop us a line.

In case you guys didn’t know there’s an article on us in the new issue of V magazine with the picture of Brad Pitt on the cover.

Also we got a really sterling writeup here:http://rawkblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/first-look-ravens-chimes-reichenbach.html

Anyway if you love our music you will be able to buy it on October 9th from Amazon or iTunes or your local independent record shop. We are going to throw a party on October 9th where us and all our buddies go to Other Music and buy it together! If you want to come and then get a drink at Black and White email us through our contact link on this here site.

I’m turning 25 on Saturday. No more “early 20’s recent college grad” and on to “twentysomething”

Wish me luck.

Good vibes,

Asher

(posted by Asher)