In my younger and more vulnerable years...records that had a lasting impact on Eagle Lake Owls

Welcome to a regular feature on Painting over Silence in which musicians share records that had an indelible impact on themselves and discuss what it is about these albums that were - or continue to be - so important toward their own musical development.

In this edition of In My Younger...we're joined by two members of up-and-coming Winnipeg folk group Eagle Lake Owls: leader-songwriter Andy Cole and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Dominique Lemoine. 

Rounded out by cellist Nathan Krahn, the trio will introduce the city to its stripped-down folk stylings this Saturday night at its EP release going down at the Exchange Community Church. Federal Lights and Man The Selector kick off the event. Show starts at 8. 

Both Cole and Lemoine each picked two records, and here's what they had to say about them: 

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Andy Cole's Picks:

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

It remains something I often go to in my mind, intentionally or not, when I'm writing. It's sad, tragic, dirty, frenetic and raw. There are layers upon layers of meaning, but you can take a lot of it on face value and feel like you understand. It's one complete experience that leaves me emotional and exhausted every time. Musically, it taught me that a melody can expand greatly across just a few chords. I pretty much learned to sing by playing these songs on my guitar and howling the words when nobody else was home. 

Transistor Sound & Lighting Co. - Self-Titled

I was 16, and it was my first indie record ever. It's noisy in a way that serves the melody, and production tricks become a part of the music rather than just some kind of sheen. White noise, feedback and phone filters are as much a part of the songs as the guitar. The songwriting is very organic - if the point is made and it's only been a minute and ten seconds, then that's it. That was a big lesson for me to learn, that a song didn't have to fit the verse-chorus-verse template. It's such a "summer" album for me that I can only listen to it at that time of the year, and keep the CD stashed away til then. 

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Dominique Lemoine's Picks:

No Doubt – Tragic Kingdom

In 1995, I was in Grade 4 and the girls in my class were talking about No Doubt. I didn’t know what it was but I wanted to find out, so I asked for Tragic Kingdom on tape for Christmas and was surprised and ecstatic that my conservative parents actually bought it for me. It was a treasure, my first record, other than mix tapes of songs recorded from the radio. I still know it by heart.

The Beatles – 1

In 2000, my parents separated and my dad asked me for The Beatles’ greatest hits record for Christmas. I happily bought it for him, knowing they were a famous band from the 60’s but not knowing their music at all. The next summer, my dad took my siblings and I camping in the Whiteshell and we listened to the CD I’d gotten him on the way there. I was flabbergasted. For years after that, I couldn’t get enough of them.