Southwestern Ontario is spooky and sad and dotted with ghost towns. It's also severely romantic, what with all the quiet farmland and proudly optimistic cities. It seems fitting, then, that London spawned the band Raised By Swans, who make lushly melancholic music - the sort that seizes the emotionally-invested internal organs and folds them in on themselves. This is music that faces up to pretty brutal realities, untempered by irony, logic or distance. Led by Eric Howden (ex-Gandharvas), the band also includes Chris Donais on guitar and vocals, Brady Parr on drums, and during live shows, Andy Magoffin of the Two Minute Miracles on bass. Play their new album (Codes and Secret Longings, produced by Magoffin at his House of Miracles studio) through big headphones in the dark and thank me later. Kate Carraway of WL and Eric of RBS, who share a best friend and a small degree of antagonism, instant messaged the night away.

Eric: So how are we going to do this? As in, do you have a finite number of questions?

HAVE YOU READ MY INTERVIEWS BEFORE? THEY'RE LIKE A KINDERGARTENER TOOK MDMA.
Okay.

OH, RIGHT, HERE IS MY KILLER OPENER: IS THE FACT THAT YOU GO BAREFOOT ONSTAGE A RESPONSE TO BEING IN A BAND OFTEN LABELED "SHOEGAZEY"?
Yes. But I also just kind of loathe shoes.

TELL ME HOW THE RECENT PRESS STUFF FOR THE NEW ALBUM HAS BEEN GOING.
I would have to say that the press, besides a few notable exceptions, is not overly thrilled with our album.

DO YOU HAVE ANY STABS AS TO WHY THAT MIGHT BE?
I don't really know. I try not to care. It's a terribly intimate album, and it certainly doesn't stray very far from its main, ridiculously obsessive and insular theme, ever. I suppose that makes some people angry. Or just bored.

TORONTO SEES ITSELF AS THIS JUPITER WITH A FEW LITTLE MOONS AROUND IT. OR SATELLITES, MAYBE. CHARACTERIZE LONDON MUSIC AS IT IS TO YOU.
Shall I use the same metaphor? London is like a tiny ice-covered planet with a few outposts scattered here and there on its surface. The planet has billions of opposing poles, and each outpost is at its own pole.

SO WHY STAY? OR, IS THAT REASON ENOUGH?
Because there are a few beautiful, warm places here. I guess they're beneath the surface. One of them is the House of Miracles. I guess we've stayed this long because we were hiding out making an album, and it was important to see it through with Andy.

I THINK THERE IS A CERTAIN COMFORT AND SPACE TO BE CREATIVE IN A PLACE LIKE LONDON, BECAUSE WHILE THERE'S LITTLE GOING ON, IT HAS LESS TEETH, LESS PSYCHIC DISTRACTION.
Agreed.

PLUS: BETTER SOUVLAKI. TELL ME WHAT YOU WERE DOING TEN MINUTES BEFORE I TALKED TO YOU.
I arrived home from eating Korean food. I took all my clothes off and watched part of an old WKRP episode.

DID I TELL YOU THAT THE LAST TIME I TOOK THE TRAIN TO MONTREAL I LISTENED TO 'œVIOLET LIGHT'? FROM THE NEW ALBUM ON REPEAT FOR TWO HOURS?
You had mentioned that you listened to it....many times.

THAT SONG AND THE WHOLE ALBUM IS REALLY EERIE AND EMOTIONALLY BRUISING AND ECHOEY, AND ALSO GORGEOUS. ANYHOW I'M GOING TO BORROW A QUESTION FROM THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE HERE. WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF PERFECT HAPPINESS?
Hmmmm... That question is painful.

EXACTLY
Loss of control.

I'M PRETTY SURE THE TITLE OF THE ALBUM HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH CODES AND SECRET WRITINGS, IS THAT RIGHT?
Yes. It does. A small yellow book that enthralled me when I was a child. My friend Mike and I, when we were kids, would yell coordinates at each other when we were leaving the school bus for our respective homes. He'd pick a letter and I'd pick a number. The coordinates would refer to an enormous cornfield, where we'd meet....at 'G-17' for example.....Anyway, we'd conduct very serious meetings in these tiny clearings, whilst eating Creamsicles. Everything we did, all communication was done in code. I think most kids did that. It let us have something that our fucking parents couldn't poke their noses into. Then, as I got older, I started thinking about how much of what we do, how we interact, is codified, often beyond our realization, and really only understandable to ourselves. If that. Codes took on a much darker, lonelier meaning. Then the book came into City Lights bookstore, as the album was nearing completion. And it completed this circle, kind of, for me.

THANK YOU. YOU'RE LOVELY.

By Kate Carraway