Grizzly Bear | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Growing from humble roots into one of the most acclaimed indie rock acts of the 2000s and 2010s, Grizzly Bear began as the home recording project of Boston-bred singer Edward Droste. Holed up in his Brooklyn apartment, he laid the groundwork for the bands otherworldly debut album on a small hand-held tape recorder. His homespun effort took on new life with the help of multi-instrumentalist Christopher Bear, a Chicago native who had worked in musical projects ranging from laptop electronica to free jazz. Bear added instrumentation and vocals to Drostes sonic blueprints, resulting in 2004s Horn of Plenty. To build a live show for the project, Bear recruited multi-instrumentalist/producer Chris Taylor and guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Daniel Rossen. The bands first tours featured improvisations of Drostes early songs; later, they developed new material together, and Rossen began contributing songs of his own. In 2005, Grizzly Bear retreated to Cape Cod to record their first album as a quartet, Yellow House -- a tapestry of multi-layered harmonies, guitars, woodwinds, and electronics set to Drostes and Rossens songs. Warp released the album in September of 2006. The Friend EP, which featured outtakes and alternate versions of songs as well as covers by Beirut, CSS, and Band of Horses, arrived in 2007. After touring with Radiohead in 2008, Grizzly Bear recorded their elaborate 2009 album Veckatimest at upstate New Yorks Allaire Studios. Named for an uninhabited island on Cape Cod, it featured collaborations with contemporary classical composer/conductor Nico Muhly, Beach House vocalist Victoria Legrand, the Acme String Quartet, and the Brooklyn Youth Choir. The album was a resounding success, debuting at number eight on the Billboard 200 and making the band a ubiquitous entry on year-end lists. Later that year, the band reunited with Legrand for "Slow Life," which appeared on the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: New Moon. They also contributed a pair of tracks -- "Deep Blue Sea" and the Feist collaboration "Service Bell" -- to the 2009 AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night. Following this flurry of activity, Grizzly Bear went on hiatus. They reconvened in 2011 to begin work on their fourth album, but most of the tracks they recorded in Marfa, Texas were discarded. During this time, Taylor released Dreams Come True, his 2011 debut album as CANT, while Rossen issued the 2012 solo EP Silent Hour/Golden Mile. The group started fresh in 2012, returning to where they recorded Yellow House and taking a more collaborative songwriting approach. They released Shields that September and followed it a year later with a deluxe edition that included B-sides, remixes, and previously unreleased songs. After finishing the Shields tour, the members of Grizzly Bear once again went their separate ways. Rossen moved to upstate New York and worked on his own music; Droste, Bear, and Taylor landed in Los Angeles. Bears projects included scoring work for the HBO TV series High Maintenance, while Taylor did production work for other artists and wrote the 2015 cookbook Twenty Dinners with his friend Ithai Schori. That year, Grizzly Bear began collaborating again, trading demos remotely and slowly working toward a set of new songs. Recorded at Allaire Studios and Hollywoods Vox Studios, as well as Taylor and Rossens recording spaces, 2017s Painted Ruins paired wide-ranging lyrics with expansive arrangements in playful, rhythmically driven songs. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 10 Title: Horn of Plenty Released: 2004-11-09 Tracks: 31 Duration: 1:59:27 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Deep Sea Diver (04:47) 2 Don’t Ask (03:28) 3 Alligator (01:23) 4 Campfire (04:13) 5 Shift (02:19) 6 Disappearing Act (04:24) 7 Fix It (03:47) 8 Merge (02:24) 9 A Good Place (03:18) 10 Showcase (04:50) 11 La Duchess Anne (04:20) 12 Eavesdropping (03:51) 13 Service Bell (02:00) 14 This Song (03:39) 1 Campfire (Efterklang remix) (04:04) 2 Merge (Dntel remix) (03:38) 3 A Good Place (The Soft Pink Truth’s Blow by Blow remix) (04:51) 4 Eavesdropping (Simon Bookish remix) (04:48) 5 Don’t Ask (Alpha remix) (04:41) 6 Fix It (Solex’s Foxy remix) (02:54) 7 Deep Sea Diver (The Bomarr Monk remix) (03:09) 8 Shift (Son remix) (02:48) 9 Showcase (Phiiliip’s Overflowing Trophy Case remix) (04:43) 10 La Duchess Anne (Safety Scissors remix) (05:21) 11 Service Bell (Black Moustache remix) (03:37) 12 This Song (Dr. Cuerpo of the Double remix) (04:22) 13 Disappearing Act (Ariel Pink remix) (04:21) 14 Campfire (Hisham Bharoocha & Rusty Santos remix) (03:29) 15 Don’t Ask (Final Fantasy remix) (03:30) 16 Shift (Circlesquare remix) (06:59) 17 Deep Sea Diver (Castanets remix) (03:13) |
| Horn of Plenty : Allmusic album Review : Grizzly Bears debut offers up a lysergic brand of minimalist psychedelic folk perfect for those who find Elliott Smiths early work a bit too accessible and upbeat. Largely the home recording project of singer/songwriter Ed Droste, Horn of Plenty was eventually augmented by multi-instrumentalist Christopher Bear. To these ends, the album features a mostly melancholy mix of acoustic guitars, reeds, retro organs, and samples, all drenched in enough acid-washed effects to give Devendra Banhart flashbacks. Drostes weary, somnambulistic vocals work well with the slackadaisical melodies to create an unsettling atmospheric sound full of shimmering shadows. Songs like the opening "Deep Sea Diver" and the mesmerizing "Shift" crawl along at an almost funereal pace, the latter featuring what sounds like a scratchy Gramophone recording of a piano augmented only by echoing whistles, clapping, trippy found sounds, and weirdly hypnotic multi-tracked vocals. As a whole, the album produces a murky sound that unfolds like a narcotic dream you cant quite shake upon waking. This is the kind of album youll want to listen to late at night, perhaps a few sheets to the wind, with the lights off and headphones on to allow these creepy, quiet little tunes to worm their way into your subconscious. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 10 Title: Sorry for the Delay Released: 2006-05-08 Tracks: 7 Duration: 28:11 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Sorry for the Delay (03:29) 2 Sure Thing (06:49) 3 A Leader Always Carries a Stick (04:10) 4 Particular to What? (04:38) 5 August March (03:15) 6 Owner of a Lonely Heart (03:10) 7 Fragments (02:36) |
 | Album: 3 of 10 Title: Yellow House Released: 2006-09-04 Tracks: 10 Duration: 49:58 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Easier (03:40) 2 Lullabye (05:15) 3 Knife (05:14) 4 Central and Remote (04:54) 5 Little Brother (06:24) 6 Plans (04:16) 7 Marla (04:56) 8 On a Neck, on a Spit (05:46) 9 Reprise (03:19) 10 Colorado (06:11) |
| Yellow House : Allmusic album Review : On their second album (and Warp debut), Yellow House, Grizzly Bear takes a dramatic leap forward, delivering a collection of songs that sound awe-inspiringly huge and intimate at the same time. While the album is overall more polished and focused than their debut, nowhere is this (literally) clearer than in Yellow Houses production. Though the artful lo-fi approach Grizzly Bear used on Horn of Plenty -- which sounded like it was recorded on tapes that had been moldering away in musty cupboards, or gradually dissolving underwater -- was extremely evocative in its own way, Yellow Houses warmth, clarity, and symphonic depth gives Grizzly Bears widescreen psychedelic folk-rock a timelessness that makes it seem even more dreamlike and unique. The albums structure and songwriting are much more focused, too, even though many of the tracks hover around five to six minutes long. Instead of presenting their experiments as fragments and snippets, as they did on Horn of Plenty, on Yellow House Grizzly Bear incorporates their ideas into pieces with natural, suite-like movements. "Central and Remote" moves seamlessly from fragile marimba melodies to acoustic guitar-driven verses and towering choruses. The best moments not only have a natural sound, but conjure up nature imagery as well: "Easier" opens the album with a gently exciting buildup of woodwinds, banjo, and acoustic guitar that could soundtrack the dawn of a late summer morning, while "Colorado" closes Yellow House with wide expanses of vocal harmonies and mountainous tympani. In between, theres more majestic beauty to be found, particularly on the gorgeously hazy love song "Knife," which combines lush Beach Boys harmonies with a little bit of the Velvet Undergrounds chugging cool. Elsewhere, "Plans" feels like a more brooding take on the High Llamas intricate, symphonic/electronic pop, while "On a Neck, on a Spit" recalls Jim ORourkes freewheeling deconstruction of folk-rock and soft rock. However, these similarities feel more like allegiances than tracing over the work of these artists -- Yellow House is a beautiful album in its own right, and required listening not just for fans of Horn of Plenty, but for anyone who enjoys ambitious, creative music with an emotional undercurrent. | ||
 | Album: 4 of 10 Title: Friend Released: 2007-11-05 Tracks: 11 Duration: 43:26 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Alligator (choir version) (05:13) 2 He Hit Me (04:21) 3 Little Brother (electric) (06:30) 4 Shift (alternate version) (03:31) 5 Plans (Terrible vs. Nonhorse: Sounds edit) (01:37) 6 Granny Diner (04:47) 7 Knife (03:14) 8 Plans (03:23) 9 Knife (04:55) 10 Deep Blue Sea (Daniel Rossen home recording) / Untitled (05:50) 11 [silence] (00:05) |
 | Album: 5 of 10 Title: Live From the Central Presbyterian Church, Austin TX, March 19 2009 Released: 2009 Tracks: 4 Duration: 19:41 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Little Brother (06:45) 2 He Hit Me (04:59) 3 Knife (03:57) 4 On a Neck, On a Spit (04:00) |
 | Album: 6 of 10 Title: Veckatimest Released: 2009-05-22 Tracks: 12 Duration: 52:25 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Southern Point (05:02) 2 Two Weeks (04:03) 3 All We Ask (05:21) 4 Fine for Now (05:31) 5 Cheerleader (04:54) 6 Dory (04:26) 1 Ready, Able (04:17) 2 About Face (03:21) 3 Hold Still (02:24) 4 While You Wait for the Others (04:29) 5 I Live With You (04:57) 6 Foreground (03:35) |
| Veckatimest : Allmusic album Review : Its hard to decide what the most impressive thing about Veckatimest is: Grizzly Bears ambition, which is seemingly boundless, or the fact that this boundless ambition never eclipses these songs. The band already made such an impressive leap from Horn of Plenty to Yellow House that an album to catch their breath would have been understandable. However, Grizzly Bear are most comfortable when theyre challenging themselves, and Veckatimest delivers everything that Yellow House did and more. Just as that album blew off the dust and noise that covered Horn of Plentys lo-fi sketches, this albums production clears away any remaining cobwebs, revealing these songs in all their intricate detail. That detail includes string quartet and choral arrangements by composer and conductor Nico Muhly on some tracks, but all of Veckatimest has a more rarefied air than any of Grizzly Bears previous work. The band hints at the just how big the albums scope is with its first two tracks: "Southern Point"s psychedelic folk-jazz throws listeners into its bustling acoustic guitars, piles of vocal harmonies, swishy drums, and various sparkling sounds, making it a disorienting and dazzling opening salvo. The gorgeous "Two Weeks," by contrast, is the albums most immediate moment, its "Would you always? Maybe sometimes? Make it easy? Take your time" chorus teetering elegantly between pleading and reassuring as its buoyed by backing vocals courtesy of Beach Houses Victoria LeGrand. From there, Veckatimest ranges from Yellow House-like rambles such as "Hold Still" and "Dory" -- which plays like a kissing cousin to "Little Brother" -- to elaborate, quicksilver suites like "I Live with You," which builds from the Brooklyn Youth Choirs vocals into skyward-climbing chamber pop, to "While You Wait for the Others" and "Cheerleader"s deceptively simple pop. At the heart of all these songs are negotiations with someone close, as on "All We Ask"s admission "I cant get out of what Im into with you." Though the sheer heft of songs such as "Fine for Now" could easily topple the albums balance between ambition and intimacy, Grizzly Bear knows when to come in for close-focus moments like "About Face" and the final track, "Foreground" which, with its plaintive vocals and simple piano melody, is one of the bands most beautiful ballads yet. Its clear that Veckatimest was made for a lot of listening. Nearly every song feels like the musical equivalent of a big meal: theres lots to digest, and coming back for second (and thirds, and more) is necessary. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 10 Title: Shields Released: 2012-09-17 Tracks: 10 Duration: 48:01 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Sleeping Ute (04:36) 2 Speak in Rounds (04:24) 3 Adelma (01:02) 4 Yet Again (05:18) 5 The Hunt (03:44) 6 A Simple Answer (06:00) 7 What’s Wrong? (05:44) 8 Gun‐Shy (04:30) 9 Half Gate (05:29) 10 Sun in Your Eyes (07:08) |
| Shields : Allmusic album Review : Grizzly Bear were gone for a few years after Veckatimest, but the amount of extracurricular projects they tackled during that time -- Chris Taylors work with CANT, Daniel Rossens solo EP Silent Hour/Golden Mile, and the bands reconfiguring of their own songs into the Blue Valentine soundtrack -- means they never really went away. Shields isnt exactly a dramatic return then, which is somehow fitting considering that this is some of the bands most cerebral music. Theres nothing here with quite the instant appeal of "Two Weeks" or the aching vulnerability of "Foreground"; instead, most of these songs lie between those two poles. Yet Shields is full of remarkably active music, starting with "Sleeping Ute," where acoustic guitars that sound more like theyre being scrubbed than strummed tumble into bubbling synths, which then give way to rhythms that conjure leaves twirling in the breeze. "Speak in Rounds" may be the most rocking song theyve done yet, even if it climaxes with rustling brass and flutes instead of a shredding guitar solo. As dazzling as these flourishes can be, sometimes the complexity of Shields arrangements threatens to overshadow the actual songs, and the most direct moments are among the albums best. "Yet Again" shows once again how good Grizzly Bear are at putting their abstract leanings into their version of a pop single: the guitars ring out with inevitability, the harmonies propel the song to new heights, and everything gets gloriously noisy before it fades away. The bouncy "A Simple Answer" and sleek "Gun-Shy" follow suit, but what makes them and the rest of Shields intriguing is the tension between the musics brash dynamics, and words and feelings that often turn inward. The bands lyrics are more cryptic and coded than ever, and the snippets that listeners get, such as "Cloistered from yourself/You never even try," from "Whats Wrong," are abstractions of relationships that feel like extreme close-ups or birds-eye views. These mysteries dont detract from the pure melodic beauty of songs like "Half-Gate," though, and the way that the album travels from its stormy beginnings to the serenity of "Sun in Your Eyes" means it can be called a song cycle without shame or snickering. While its not as obviously big a statement as Veckatimest was, Shields is plenty ambitious in its own right, and its complexity demands and rewards patient listening. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 10 Title: Brian Eno x Nicolas Jaar x Grizzly Bear Released: 2013-04-20 Tracks: 2 Duration: 15:28 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 LUX (Nicolas Jaar remix) (07:41) 2 Sleeping Ute (Nicolas Jaar remix) (07:47) |
 | Album: 9 of 10 Title: Shields: B-Sides Released: 2013-11-11 Tracks: 5 Duration: 24:19 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Will Calls (06:50) 2 Taken Down (Marfa demo) (05:11) 3 Listen and Wait (03:27) 4 Smothering Green (06:30) 5 Everyone I Know (02:20) |
 | Album: 10 of 10 Title: Painted Ruins Released: 2017-08-18 Tracks: 11 Duration: 48:25 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Wasted Acres (02:52) 2 Mourning Sound (04:22) 3 Four Cypresses (04:48) 4 Three Rings (04:48) 5 Losing All Sense (05:05) 1 Aquarian (04:17) 2 Cut‐Out (03:45) 3 Glass Hillside (04:53) 4 Neighbors (04:44) 5 Systole (03:16) 6 Sky Took Hold (05:32) |
| Painted Ruins : Allmusic album Review : During the five years between Shields and Painted Ruins, the lives of Grizzly Bears members changed, thanks to marriage, children, and divorce. So did the way many listeners consume music, thanks to the advent of streaming music services and other advances. So if the bands meditative fifth album feels a little out of time, its in a good way; Painted Ruins sounds timeless rather than tied to any particular moment. Even its structure suggests an old-school album, beginning with the somber prologue "Wasted Acres," which offers a welcome return to the bands postmodern chamber pop even as it mentions a Honda TRX 250 all-terrain-vehicle, and closes with the sweeping, brass-driven melancholy of "Sky Took Hold." In between, the band revisits their music from new perspectives, making slight tweaks but remaining unmistakably Grizzly Bear. "Aquarian" and "Cut-out" borrow some of Shields insularity as they ponder lifes unanswerable questions, while the gorgeous harmonies and harpsichord on "Neighbors" hark back to Yellow House. Elsewhere, the band expands on Veckatimests poignant pop with "Losing All Sense," which is cut from the same cloth as "Two Weeks," and "Mourning Sound," where the upfront rhythm section gives a deceptive bounce to lyrics like "This isnt a place where I can even try." Throughout Painted Ruins, the beautiful arrangements reflect -- and invite -- contemplation as they carry the songs ambiguous themes and lyrics, which balance cryptic introspection with flashes of clarity. Grizzly Bear channels the chaos and turbulence of the 2010s more subtly than some of their contemporaries, imbuing it with political and personal depth on songs like "Four Cypresses," which creates a tension between its fluid strings and martial beats thats all the more intriguing because it isnt obvious. And when Ed Droste tells a lover whos on the way out "Dont you be so easy" on "Three Rings," it might as well be the albums manifesto. Occasionally, Painted Ruins drifting meditations border on meandering, but its open-ended beauty is well worth the close listening it takes for the album to fully reveal itself. | ||