Grizzly Bear
Those who number Grizzly Bear are these – a guitarist and keyboardist called Daniel Rossen, a man called Ed Droste who plays the same instruments as the Rossen fella, a bass and woodwind master called Chris Taylor and the aptly named Christopher Bear, who you’ll find behind the drumkit. They all sing. Often at the same time. Just imagine.
Grizzly Bear started in Brooklyn in 2004 as mainly a solo project of Daniel Rossen’s, releasing the album Horn of Plenty, an experimental folk piece that was later re-released with an additional disc of bonus mixes by the likes of Final Fantasy and The Soft Pink Truth. It wasn’t until 2006 that the band would expand in to a quartet for the recording of Yellow House, their first for Warp Records, who released what was an uncharacteristically folky album for the label in the September of that year.
Keeping themselves busy, in 2007 the band reconvened for the rapturously received Friend EP, which featured outtakes from the Yellow House sessions, different versions of well loved songs, and covers of tracks by the likes of CSS, Band of Horses and Atlas Sound. They also proved themselves to have a particularly talented group of buddies – Dirty Projectors and Beirut both chipped in on a couple of tracks for good measure, and the band were invited to support Radiohead on a tour of North America. They said ‘yes’. They’re not idiots. Did you know they were also Paul Simon’s backing band for five nights in 2008? Cool!
This month, the band released Veckatimest, their most accessible, commercially successful and artistically triumphant album yet. It’s not often you get those three things in one LP. But it’s not often a band like Grizzly Bear come around either. We live in blessed times, kiddo.
MYSPACE.COM/GRIZZLYBEAR: A generous nine tracks to stream, and a nice background you might want to use for inspiration next time you decorate your living room. Plus – see where we nicked all our pictures from!
GRIZZLY-BEAR.NET: In an age where so many bands seem to not bother with an official website at all, rather leaving it to the MySpace profile to do the job, it’s nice to see a band take as much care and attention over their web-presence as Grizzly Bear clearly have with this one.
GRIZZLY BEAR @ WARP RECORDS: As slick and stylish a site as you’d expect from the Warp guys and girls, but not short on content either, oh no sir.
FINEFORNOW.COM: If you’re a Grizzly Bear fan, chances are you post on this forum. And if you’re not posting on this forum, you’re probably not that much of a Grizzly Bear fan at all. Be gone, foul pretender!
FRIEND – EP REVIEW: “In an overpopulated world of crass “am a facking mockney” parochialism and too-tight-trousered to say anything smart indiedom, the Friend EP is a refreshing diversion that demonstrates that mining the past need not equate to retro fetishism…” – Steve Pietrzykowski
TWO WEEKS:
KNIFE:
SHIFT:
