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Taking requests for Snailhouse 30 year anniversary album by Michael Feuerstack
2025 marks 30 years since the release of the first Snailhouse album (1995’s Fine)! If you are new to my music, you may need to be informed that Snailhouse is the pseudonym under which I used to perform and record – right up until about 2012.
To be totally honest, it’s been closer to 35 years if you include all the early homemade tapes (which reached a total circulation of about 35 people) from long before I ever had any occasion to sing in public.
I’ve never been very nostalgic about my music – always preferring to put my resources and energy toward making new things. As a result, I have blown past every obvious milestone anniversary – until now.
30 years seems undeniable and I feel the need to celebrate it, so I’m making a new album of this older material that was originally recorded under the Snailhouse name between 1995 and 2012. It will be something like a greatest hits collection, but with new recordings. I’ll be making new versions of the songs that want to be re-sung. Brought to you by my longtime friends at Forward Music Group, this collection will involve lots of the old collaborators from over the years – people you’ve seen onstage and in the liner notes who are also the people who helped me keep the proverbial ball in the air for so many years.
Each guest will only work on songs that they did not contribute to on the original recordings. New players, new outlooks, new skills and life experiences will all amount to refreshed, updated takes on these classic jams. I won’t promise the new versions will better than the originals, but they will be great.
I’ll rewrite things if I can find improvements, and we’ll be as free and open with the interpretations as we can be while still delivering something that has the spirit of the original songs.
I reiterate: I am taking requests.
Will you be my trusted selection committee?
If you are a fan of this music, especially if you’ve been following along since those days, I want to hear from you. I want to know what songs from the Snailhouse era have held their meaning for you. Do you have songs that you’d like to hear re-imagined in 2025? I’d love to include you in this process. Send your thoughts (email, social media, snail mail, carrier pigeon, broken telephone, message in a bottle, whatever).With much love,
MF
PS: I hope you’ve been enjoying Eternity Mongers since it reached your ears. If it hasn’t, you can remedy that immediately.
You can find the Snailhouse discography on Bandcamp or your streaming platform of choice. or check out the my primer/refresher playlist on Tidal, Apple Music and Spotify.
[Pics courtesy of Peter Murray, who beautifully captured that first record in his garage studio all those years ago]
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New video for your eyeballs
On this day, approximately 6 months or so since Eternity Mongers hit the streets, I want to share with you a stunning new video, made by my dear old friend Ian Roy, for the song When Heaven Dies and Comes to Me.
I’m very grateful to Ian for this amazing companion piece to one of my weirdest and proudest moments on the record.
Here is what Ian had to say about this mesmerizing work:
Sometimes I make music videos, but only ever for MF. I shot most of this footage (on my phone) while I was at NES Artist Residency in Iceland. I was thinking about making a video for MF’s new album, Eternity Mongers, while filming all these birds, but then I got busy with my book and put the video aside. In the fall, Forward Music hired me to write a bio for MF’s wonderful new album and I ended up listening to it about a hundred times while working on the bio—and then I started remembering all those birds flying around over my head. It started out as a video for another song, but then we landed on this one. Which is fitting because out of all the great songs and all the great lyrics on this album, there is not a line I connect with more than “Do you ever get tired of having fun?” That line is the reason why I wanted to make this a lyric video: so I could see it spelled out.
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Eternity Mongers is out now!
I’m very pleased to announce that you can get the new record in physical or virtual form worldwide as of now from Forward Music Group. Find it on all the streamers: order it, save it, stream it – get it in your ears however you usually like to access your music.
I’m immensely proud of having composed, played on and mixed these new songs, but I must take a second to send love and a huge thank you to all of the amazing collaborators, without whom this record would not be what it is: Michael Belyea (drums), Kyle Cunjak (bass and label ops), Karen Ng (woodwinds), Tim Crabtree (woodwinds), Erika Angell (voice), Laurel Sprengelmeyer (voice), Charles Austin (recording), Heather Kirby (mastering), and Paul Henderson (art and layout).
Thanks for listing. -
MF interviewed for Kreatove Kontrol with Vish Khanna
I am touched to have been given the time and space in this forum to talk about my new album and many of the themes around it. Vish is a tireless provider of probing conversations with a huge array of artists. There is definitely something for everyone on the Kreative Kontrol podcast. Ours was a fun, sprawling discussion that might be of interest to some of you. Thank you Vish for inviting me.
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3rd single out now!
Hi all!
The 3rd single from Eternity Mongers is available now at all the usual places. The next big announcement will be the release of the album in its entirety. Can’t wait. In the meantime, please enjoy No Such Thing, which is about trying to stand tall in what Devo would call a wiggly world. xo MF -
Big Sails video is here
The new MF album, Eternity Mongers, is due out of April 19 from Forward Music Group. Big Sails is the 2nd single so far, and it comes to you now with a fresh new video, courtesy of the amazing Stacy Lee. Shot by Stacy and Martin Reisch , the video features me at dawn doing what I do best: grappling with myself and the big, blue world.
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New record out soon, new single out now.
You can listen to the new single, Your Mind’s Made Up as of now. The entire album, Eternity Mongers, will be released April 19 2024, via Forward Music Group.
I’m extremely excited to begin sharing this stuff you all. -
Eternity Mongers
That’s the title of the next record. It is tracked, mixed and mastered and on its way to you … very slowly. Stay tuned – I’ll keep you posted.
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Brussels and London shows added!
Hi all|
Just a little update from the road to let you know that shows have been added to the itinerary along with all the other dates:
18/02 Brussels BE – L’Estaminet
19/02 London UK – House show in N1. Tickets + infoHope to see you!
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Finally on tour again
Michael Feuerstack is hitting the road again.
After the last 3+ years of making music in and around my home city of Montreal, I’m thrilled finally to be returning to the road to play music for you in person. 2021 was spent creating Harmonize the Moon, my 6th collection of my own songs under my own name since dropping the Snailhouse moniker. Making the recording was a deep yet playful experience of solo music making, and for world wide reasons I won’t bore you with, I was largely unable to tour to perform that material. Now I’m finally heading out on a solo journey with this new collection of intimate, wild and sweet songs. I’ll also happily dig into the back-catalogue (reach out in advance if you have requests) and maybe even selections from my recent covers record Translations. I cannot wait to see your beautiful faces again.
I’m also stoked and grateful to mention that the Belgium and Netherlands dates are in support of Ben Caplan. Thank you Ben for the invitation!
Before this all kicks off, I’ll be in London with my dear Bell Orchestre to play our newest album House Music with the BBC Orchestra, presented by Elizabeth Alker, scored by Owen Pallet, and conducted by Andre de Ridder.
