New Music – Grizzly Bear, Broken Social Scene

First of all, I’ve been suffering from tonsilitis the last few days so I’ve been quiet.

The gradual release of decent-quality MP3’s from Grizzly Bear’s Veckitisawhatsitagain? continues, with “Cheerleader”, previously heard live, making its way out onto the big wide Interwebz. The live version, as you would expect, was rough and lacking their expert use of the studio, but certainly sounded promising.

Now, bizarrely, I got hold of this last week and thought it was fab. And thought I’d uploaded it here. But I hadn’t. Doh!

The word on the street is that it’s actually one of the weaker tunes from Veckatiswheresmyspellchecker. If that’s the case, then we’ve got rather a lot to look forward to when the album is released on May 26th. (Don’t you go and download the leaked version, as it’s pretty poor quality and you’ll miss out on all the detail. When I get the CD it’ll be ripped at about 14,000kbs, you know, and will take up half my iPod. And I’ve got a biiiig iPod)

“Cheerleader” is certainly a bit more relaxed and less ominous than tracks from Yellow House, it fair floats along in a rather dreamy way, with guitars cutting through Ed Droste’s beautiful singing, and yes, a children’s choir. A five minute slice of loveliness and I think, yes, I’ve got to mark it with my famed¹ Sonic Cathedrals of Sound tag.

An album that passed me by last year, thanks to a continually changing UK release date that baffled the lovely folk at Rough Trade as much as me, was Brendan Canning’s “solo” album with Broken Social Scene. The founder of Broken Social Scene who’s not Kevin Drew, he’s the chap who looks a bit like a physics teacher who someone has put a bass on him and told him to be funky². Lovely fella, having had all of a thirty second conversation with him and Kevin after their Shepherd’s Bush show last year. Anyway, I stumbled across their video for “Churches Under The Stairs” the other day, and rather fine it is too:

The band, who at their smallest number about 16 (ok, 8), do a Soundclash-style face off, Drew vs Canning. The song itself is almost Type-A BSS, with that wonderful motorik/New Order groove and great little drum rolls, fills and pauses that make your heart stop for an instant before suddenly throwing you forward again. Great interplay between Canning and Drew as well, as you’d expect.

Is it just me that prays every night to an uncaring God, to get all the top people in BSS together – you know, Feist, Amy Millan, Jason Collett, Emily Haines
³ – to make another album as good as “You Forgot It In People”? Yeah, I know, it’ll never happen.

¹ Round here, at least.

² The bassline of “Stars and Sons” was his work, and quite frankly is possibly the funkiest bassline in indie music since “Barbarism Begins At Home”: