Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
"I find a lot of new folk music to be insincere," says Edward Droste of Grizzly Bear, a Brooklyn duo that produces dreamy vocals and pillowy, guitar-driven effects that evoke Neil Young on cough syrup. Their debut album, Horn of Plenty (Kanine Records) isn't short on emotion, but it's more pleasingly direct than the whimsy-laden work of nu-folkies Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom: "Shift" is about a relationship moving in a bad directionwithout either party's knowledge; "Deep Sea Diver" likens a crush tounderwater suffocation. Droste, 25, and bandmate Christopher Bear, 21, are a gay-straight duo; they would be Erasure if Erasure were obsessed with ancient pianos and forestry manuals instead of ABBA. The album is the product of Droste's 15-month diddlings in his home studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he hid from the rise and fall of electroclash and its attendant style infractions, capturing found sounds on a Radio Shack tape recorder and running them through his computer. "Some might think it's a conscious return to lo-fi," says Droste. "But it's not; it was just me using the resources I had to work with." The album's low-key vibe matches the low-key, universal approach to romance and sexuality; Droste bristles at the idea that his album is apolitical: "What gay artists sing about gay issues?" he says, "Other than, say, their boyfriend?" - Sept. '04
"Grizzly Bear combines the whispery echoes of the forest with the hauntingly mad lyrical genius of Syd Barrett." - Press Quote
Discography
"Horn of Plenty" November 9th, 2004
1. Deep Sea Diver
2. Don't Ask
3. Alligator
4. Campfire
5. Shift
6. Disappearing Act
7. Fix It
8. Merge
9. A Good Place
10. Showcase
11. La Duchess Anne
12. Eavesdropping
13. Service Bell
14. This Song
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Raised on cashews and cocktails in Boston by an elementary school music teacher, Edward Droste grew up surrounded by music, prompting him to take up various instruments and write his own songs at an early age. After a few years hiatus (studying at Gallatin at NYU and working in documentary film) he revived his interest in music after learning the fundamentals of pro-tools at his day job and investing in an Mbox. After blowing most of his cash on electronics, he proceeded to use whatever he could get his hands on to make new sounds, capturing it all on a small hand held tape recorder.
During a long nine-month hibernation in his cozy Greenpoint, Brooklyn bedroom, Droste laid the groundwork for Grizzly Bear’s first album. Upon completion of this “demo,” Droste enlisted the help of a real bear, Christopher Bear, who breathed new life and sounds to the work. Hailing from Chicago, Bear has worked in various musical projects ranging from laptop shenanigans to free jazz. He has provided a vast technical knowledge, a certain sonic polishing, as well as additional instruments and vocals to the initially primitive recordings.
The result, Grizzly Bear’s debut album titled “Horn of Plenty.” is a nostalgic amalgamation of found sounds and layered vocals bound to thrill followers of Animal Collective, Sufjan Stevens and Nick Drake. It represents the combined influences of Bear’s affinity for older classics such as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Arthur Russell mixed with Droste’s more contemporary tastes.
While the album pushes the boundaries of mellow into undiscovered territory, Grizzly Bear is not sure if they fall under the newly coined “freak-folk” category or the new-folk genre, offering up their own suggestions instead: wood-tempo or cave-core. They also say that the band's name reflects both boy’s inner forest ranger and penchant for slumbering, while the sounds reveals the struggle between urban and rural, in what could be described as electro-organic.
Grizzly Bear music started out as a pet project of Droste’s meant only for friends, but it has taken on a life of its own, circulating widely. The band knew it was time to awake when Droste’s mother played the album for a cocktail party of castrating Boston harpies- bringing the guests to a standstill – followed by erupting applause- and the rest is just grizzly.
Signed to Kanine Records this past spring, this gay-straight duo has now finished tweaking their recordings and is readying the album for a November 9th release, just in time for your winter hibernation.
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