The Most Serene Republic

History

In 2003, Ryan Lenssen and Adrian Jewett started a band called Thee Oneironauts. They recorded and put out an EP, Night of the Lawnchairs, on the GROK Studios label, which had also released Lenssen’s earlier project Rushing To Redlights. When guitarist Nick Greaves joined, the duo became a trio, and the group eventually changed its name to The Most Serene Republic. Their first album, Underwater Cinematographer, was produced, mixed, and engineered by Lenssen, mastered by Ryan A. Mills, and recorded at ASF Studios.

It first came out in late 2004 on Sunday League Records, then was picked up by Arts & Crafts and re-released on June 28, 2005, with new cover art. The Most Serene Republic was the first band signed to Arts & Crafts that had no connection to Broken Social Scene. After touring heavily with Metric, Stars, and Broken Social Scene, they made the Phages EP, which first became available when they opened for The Strokes on their 2006 Canadian tour. That same year, drummer Adam Nimmo left the group and was replaced by Tony Nesbitt-Larking, who played on their second album, Population, and toured with them through 2008.

The band spent most of 2007 working on Population, which Arts & Crafts released on October 2, 2007, to generally good reviews. In 2007, Jewett and Lenssen appeared on MTV Live to promote the album, marking the band’s first TV appearance. During the interview, which aired while Making the Band was on, they wore Star Trek costumes and said they were heading to a Star Trek convention afterward. In 2008, the full band returned to MTV Live for an interview and a three-song set.

In a June 17, 2008 interview, guitarist Nick Greaves said the band would record their third album with David Newfeld, a producer who had worked with Broken Social Scene and Super Furry Animals, and hinted at a possible shift in musical style. That same year, the band released Live at XMU, a four-song acoustic EP featuring tracks from Population and Phages. It was recorded on December 11, 2007, at XMU studios in Washington, D.C., and came out exclusively on iTunes on August 12, 2008.