SongVault Artist Profile

In January of 1998, in the mountain shadows of Nelson, British Columbia, a creatorship was formed between two recluses. One had long hair, strange tattoos, and rode a motorbike and played guitar. The other was a tall, pale, librarian-type figure, with a voice that as easily terrified as soothed.

For more than a decade the pair has been at work, assembling songs of a dark nature, giving refuge to the melancholy, the wanting, and at times, the disturbed.

The debut recording, Surgical Transfusion of Molting Sensory Reflections, identified Fen as “the only band of its kind on the coast” (The Nerve Magazine), perhaps due to its nauseating rhythms and cranial song forms. A concept album followed, set in an isolated estuary. Entitled Heron Leg, this album left listeners both wondering and unnerved, and has been called “one of those great CDs the listener can get into more and more deeply” (Discorder Magazine). The latest from Fen, Congenital Fixation, is a Freudian-esque phantasmagoric acid crash into the subconscious. Drawing comparisons from Opeth to Faith No More, it features drum guru Randall Stoll (KD Lang, Tom Cochrane), and on bass, Mike Young of The Devin Townsend Band.

This spring, Fen will complete their long-awaited fourth recording, a collection of lullabies and ballads, called Trails Out Of Gloom.