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We are thrilled to announce that the third album has reached final completion! The bulk of it was recorded in 5 days at Studio Sud-Ouest with the illustrious Mark Lawson. Working with Mark was revelatory in so many ways. We learned how to clap on the twos and the fours instead of the ones and the threes, we implemented Foley effects and ever since my mind has been buzzing with the possibilities that come along with creative production. We also did a day with our dear friend Sam Woywitka aka Montreal’s Rick Rubin aka Raggles at Mixart. Sam is an amazing sound engineer and a real sweetheart, listen to his band. Also special thanks to Josh Toal, Frisco Lee and Will Poulin for their contributions. New music soon!

”My two favorite things when it comes to songwriting are lyrics and structures. I’m most happy with my songs when the lyrics and the structures are married together in an interesting way, when a change in feeling, pace or dynamics reinforces the story I’m trying to tell. I have found that this does not happen by either writing the music and then matching the lyrics to the structure, nor from writing the lyrics and then building a structure around them. It happens slowly and simultaneously, in a maddening process, that involves me playing my acoustic guitar and saying anything that comes into my head until magically the guitar and the words sync up. It’s very important to me that I have a gestation period where I can enjoy endless malleability. I know a song is done when I can play it on the acoustic guitar and it feels complete.” -Gus

”Music is communication. What listener and artist have in common, whether they know it or not, is the desire to connect. Communication is what allows that to happen. Something of the artist is revealed and given away in the process and that’s why you end up feeling like you really know your favorite artists. Just as if you were talking to somebody and suddenly the conversation veered into incomprehensibility and you lost track of the meaning, the same often goes for a song. The cumulative effect of each word being delivered to you hitting the mark and being understood again and again have led to some of the best songs ever written. But also, a Dada collage of words, being delivered just the right way can lead you to thrilling results. And that’s songwriting. You can never pin it down. At least, I know I can’t.” -Gus

Here’s an acoustic performance of Dead Swan, a song off Death & Transfiguration, shot in November 2023 on the Oregon Coast.

”Dead Swan was the last song I wrote for Death & Transfiguration. Two days after I finished it, we played our first show in Montreal. On our way down, we got severely lost on a dirt road in the countryside of Quebec. After driving down this road for many miles, we came to a dead end. A large gate blocked the way and attached to it was nothing other than a dead swan, the magnificent creature seemingly placed there as some sort of admonishment of danger. We spun around as fast as we could and sped away from that ill-omened place kicking up dust and rocks as we went.” -Gus

New acoustic video on Friday, or subscribe to the newsletter to watch it now.

Things are stirring again and new music is near! Subscribe now! https://gusenglehorn.com/#newsletter The newsletters will be sent on a monthly basis and will include early releases, news about upcoming tours and special merch releases, but most importantly they will keep you in the loop about new music.

Gus’ cult debut album Death & Transfiguration turned 4 on January 24th 2024! Here are a few words from Gus: ”We released our first album Death & Transfiguration 4 years ago today. It was recorded in 3 winter days in Quebec city after several failed attempts. Estée started playing drums two weeks before we recorded it. By the time we released it, I was feeling pretty exhausted by the whole process of writing and recording. I had blocked out everything else in my life, moved to Quebec from Alaska, stopped snowboarding and put all my energy into songwriting for 4 years by the time it was released. But the response I received gave me the motivation to keep going. So thanks to everybody who took the time to listen to it and to those who reached out to me.” -Gus

A little inside on all it all started: ”When we finished our first album, we realized pretty quickly afterwards that we were going to need some music videos. It seemed like a tall order at the time and we weren’t really sure what direction to go in visually speaking. At first, everything we tried seemed to turn out wrong and just when we were ready to throw in the towel, I decided to buy a couple books (The Bare Bones Camera Course For Film and Video, Film Lighting). Then we borrowed our friend Dragos’ Bolex camera and we set out to make our first video on 16mm film. When we got the results back from the film lab, we were so thrilled and luckily Estée knew how to edit from her days back when she was making all female snowboard movies. Everything we’ve made since has been shot either on super 8 or 16mm film. The biggest thing I learned from the books I read was the power of storyboarding. Hitchcock said if an architect can put down a building on paper a director can do the same with a movie.” -Gus

If you’d like to catch up on all the acoustic versions released so far, we’ve created a playlist here: http://tinyurl.com/b9w75cv2

Today marks the 2 year anniversary of the release of Tarantula. For the occasion Gus and Estée made a special acoustic version with their friends Bibi Club and their manager Gabriel Aucoin-Lo on the sax.