when i saw spiral beach a handful of times in the mid 00s in ottawa - at the now defunct zaphod's, at the bluesfest opening for the white stripes - i interpreted them as a heavily zappa influenced goof-rock band that wasn't taking itself very seriously, but was having a lot of fun. i had no idea that they would become a kind of document 0 for a solid decade of various stuff that would develop out of it.

the core of the band were two brothers, along with a longterm partner of one of them. when the band broke up around 2010, one of the brothers went to montreal (where he became good friends and massively influential on an eventual pop star named grimes) and the other went to toronto with said partner, and then eventually to detroit, where he emerged under the moniker moon king. the bassist ended up in a pop-opera band called austra that released records under a number of monikers, after morphing in a few different directions.

so, while this record is a little bit unknown, it's existence is actually rather historically important as it formed the central focus of the very small canadian independent music scene that survived the 00s and moved into the 10s.

here's some kids having fun making a video:

and, here's some live footage, too: