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Alt-rock supergroup
Broken Social Scene, hailing from Toronto (Canada) and led by
Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, debuted with
Feel Good Lost (Arts & Crafts, 2001), a low-key (mostly instrumental)
atmospheric fresco made of many interlocking parts, from the
impressionist watercolor Guilty Cubicles to the
easy-listening parody Alive in 85
to the dissonant violin lullaby Mossbraker
to the gently droning and looping eight-minute Last Place, the most
atmospheric composition.
The band rarely repeats itself.
I Slept With Bonhomme at the CBC harkens back to the minimalist nostalgic chamber music a` la Penguin Cafè Orchestra.
The drums trigger the metamorphoses of Love and Mathematics, from jazzy interlude to minimalist iteration to emphatic crescendo.
The electro-orchestral lull of Passport Radio dilates and distorts a soul ballad.
The closer, Cranley's Gonna Make It, is an upbeat country-rock shuffle.
The vocal songs are no less creative.
The seven-minute Blues for Uncle Gibb is indeed an old-fashioned blues, although recorded as if we were listening to it from a keyhole.
The Stomach Song does the same thing to folk music, except that it adds
a psychedelic touch.
The project truly
blossomed with the more robust and varied
You Forgot It in People (Arts & Crafts, 2002), that employed 15 players.
Bookended by two brief instrumentals, the first one an
ambient watercolor (Capture the Flag) and the last one
a neoclassical interlude (Pitter Patter Goes My Heart),
the songs run the gamut from
ebullient noise-rock (Almost Crimes)
to Latin-tinged folk-rock (Looks Just Like the Sun),
from childish folk lullaby (Anthems for a Seventeen Year-old Girl, penned by vocalist Emily Haines)
to poppy Dinosaur Jr-esque work-outs (Cause = Time).
The most memorable moments are not the melodies or the guitar riffs or the
solos, but the ones in which the music gently morphs into its own negation:
Stars and Sons (from mellow soul-pop to surreal dissonant freak-out),
Shampoo Suicide (from Latin-funky shuffles a` la Santana to eerie bacchanals),
the exotic twang-driven muzak of the instrumental Pacific Theme.
The lyrical impetus of the album peaks with the moving six-minute dirge Lover's Spit, sung in a tone that borrows from both Lou Reed and Bob Dylan at a funereal tempo against the backdrop of a horn fanfare.
While lacking a unitary theme, the parade of styles was captivating precisely
in its anarchic and protean overreaching.
Beehives (Arts and Crafts, 2004)
collects B-sides, alternate takes and studio demos.
Broken Social Scene (Arts & Crafts, 2005) recaptured the ambition
of You Forgot It in People but not its spontaneity. In fact, this
smoldering cauldron of contradictory ideas sounded positively overwhelming
precisely because there was little left to "feeling". In a sense, there was
too much substance in tracks such as
Ibi Dreams of Pavement, Handjobs for the Holidays and
Windsurfing Nation: too many sounds to be sorted out, too many
combinations to be unpacked.
While occasionally lively (7/4 Shoreline) and atmospheric
(Hotel, Major Label Debut), it was clear that the band's effort
went into the brainier pieces. Unfortunately, those
(particularly the ten-minute It's All Gonna Break) were just about
the least engaging ones.
Toronto's singer-songwriter and Broken Social Scene's guitarist
Jason Collett, who had already released Chrome Reflection (2000) under the moniker Bird, started his solo career with
Bitter Beauty (2002), one of the best country-pop recordings
of the year.
Motor Motel Love Songs (2003) collected early material,
but Idols Of Exile (Arts & Crafts, 2006) was an even bouncier collection
than the first one
(We All Lose One Another, I'll Bring the Sun,
I'll Bring The Sun, Feral Republic).
Broken Social Scene's vocalist
Leslie Feist, who had already recorded
Monarch (Not On Label, 1999),
transformed herself into a
pop chanteuse for
Let It Die (2004), half covers and half originals, and
The Reminder (Cherry Tree, 2007), almost entirely co-written by her.
The third one marked a mature achievement as she propelled herself to the
forefront of the female singer-songwriters trying to bridge the
Joni Mitchell generation
and the Bjork generation.
Just like those two role models, Feist too placed the voice centerstage,
her voice making up for most of the appeal of their albums.
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Translation by/ Tradotto da MassimoMascia)
La superband di alternative rock Broken
Social Scene, originaria di Toronto (Canada) e guidata da Kevin
Drew e Brendan Canning, ha esordito con l'album Feel Good Lost
(2001), affresco prevalentemente strumentale di sobrie atmosfere.
Tuttavia, la vera fioritura è arrivata con l'album You
Forgot It in People (Arts & Crafts, 2002). Il lavoro, al
quale partecipano ben 15 musicisti, è uno tra i più
compositi e creativi dell'anno, muovendosi con eguale
disinvoltura attraverso elettronica d'atmosfera (Capture the
Flag), soluzioni psichedeliche (Cause = Time), ronzii
ambient (Capture the Flag), quadretti impressionistici
(Shampoo Suicide, I'm Still Your Fag, Pitter
Patter Goes My Heart), rock'n'roll rumorista (KC
Accidental, Almost Crimes) e folk-rock sereno (Stars
and Sons, Looks Just Like the Sun). L'impeto lirico
dell'album culmina nella commovente ballata folk Lover's Spit
e con l'assorta ninna nanna semi-indiana Anthems for a
Seventeen Year-old Girl, scritta dalla cantante Emily Haines.
Bee Hives (Arts and Crafts, 2004) è
una raccolta di B-side, versioni alternative e demo di studio.
Broken Social Scene (Arts & Crafts, 2005) recupera
l'ambizione di You Forgot It in People ma non la sua
freschezza. Di fatto questo fumante calderone di idee
contradditorie possiede un suono assolutamente travolgente
proprio perché non viene lasciato molto da “sentire”.
In un certo senso, c'è troppo materiale in tracce come Ibi
Dreams of Pavement, Handjobs for the Holidays e
Windsurfing Nation: troppi suoni da riordinare, troppe
combinazioni da smontare. Anche se a tratti vivace (7/4
Shoreline) e atmosferico (Hotel, Major Label
Debut), è chiaro che gli sforzi della band si sono
indirizzati verso i pezzi più cerebrali. Sfortunatamente
questi, in particolare i dieci minuti di It's All Gonna Break,
sono proprio i meno impegnativi
Il cantautore di Toronto e chitarrista dei Broken Social Scene, Jason Collett,
ha inciso You Forgot It In People (2002), uno dei migliori album
country-pop per quell'anno, Motor Motel Love Songs (2003), una raccolta
di materiale dei primi tempi e Idols Of Exile (Arts & Crafts, 2006), una
raccolta più vivace perfino della prima.
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