Band: Grizzly Bear
From: Brooklyn, NY
Sound: haunting neo-psychedelic indie folk-rock constructed with heavy doses of Spector-esque vocals and a love for stretching the boundaries of sound
Similar Artists: The Beach Boys, The High Llamas, Panda Bear, Mercury Rev, Pink Floyd
Listen Now: “Two Weeks” (live on the Late Show with David Letterman)

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves, or whether it should be ours here and now and on this Earth.” - Ayn Rand

The most magnificent projects often begin as personal labors of love, sometimes not fully taking recognizable shape until a bit of time has passed. That is, greatness isn’t always achieved immaculately right from the start, but rather tends to need a bit of patience and the time to expand and grow into itself. This is true of the (still growing) modern masterpiece that is Sagrada Família, is true of any fine garden, and was also the case with what is likely today’s greatest active band, Radiohead.

Radiohead first appeared on the musical scene as a British “Nirvana-lite”, only offering tiny hints of what they might one day become on their debut Pablo Honey. By the second album, however, the band began to know themselves and critics everywhere hailed The Bends as a modern classic that “reinvented anthemic rock”. Truly: musicians and critics everywhere took note, largely ahead of the masses who didn’t overtly bow down to the band’s version of neo-psychedelia until 1997’s OK Computer (and beyond). (If you find yourself wondering how you’ve gotten two full paragraphs into a feature about Grizzly Bear without one single mention of the highlighted band, the reasoning has already largely been implied, and further reinforced by the inclusion of our current Band of the Week as Radiohead’s opener during a portion of their 2008 tour. Do continue reading, it’s all about the Grizzly Bear from here on out…)

PAST: Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear got their start as the home recording project of singer/songwriter Edward Droste in his bedroom studio in 2003. It was then that the first seeds of the modern Grizzly Bear were planted with Ed approaching songwriting as both an exploration into sound and complex harmonies as well as a craft to be learned, constantly improved upon, and eventually mastered. A living thing, perhaps, not that far off from the garden he’s been obsessing over recently…

“My boyfriend is the real gardener – I just buy lots of plants that I get excited about and he tends to them much more than I do; I just like watching them grow… I’d say I’m most excited by our three vines that are growing like crazy. I am a tad impatient so I love the plants that grow really fast.” (source)

To the unfamiliar, it may seem as though this is a band that’s sprung up overnight like those three vines, jumping from obscurity to national TV appearances and Radiohead support, but that’s not at all the case. In fact, the sound of Grizzly Bear has been groomed and trimmed over time, the band growing into their current version through much patient cultivation. Christopher Bear (name entirely coincidental) joined Droste to play drums for what would become the band’s first album, Horn of Plenty. Though the album was mostly a framework, sketches of textures and layered sonic atmospheres (perhaps “Animal Collective-lite” to some), it caught the attention of both critics and peers alike. Perhaps most importantly, it led the duo to bring Chris Taylor (bass/woodwinds/electronics/vocals) into the mix, first for live performances and then as a full-time member of the band.

By the time Grizzly Bear set their sights upon recording a second album they’d added songwriter/guitarist Daniel Rossen and solidified themselves as a quartet. Their sophomore effort, Yellow House, was an acutely focused improvement upon Horn of Plenty and met with a good degree of critical praise upon release. In fact, the album found its way onto a variety of Best of ‘06 lists including Pitchfork, Cokemachineglow, Lost at Sea, and EAR FARM. Let’s call it their The Bends.

In constructing his year end list, Jon Pareles of the New York Times remarked:

“Edward Droste’s lo-fi songs for Grizzly Bear are reveries in metamorphosis. They drift from rustic, folky fingerpicking to apocalyptic surges of guitar distortion, stopping off along the way for orchestrated passages and gorgeous, cascading vocal harmonies.”

Metamorphosis indeed - the band’s ability was growing exponentially, likely to be followed by masses of adoring fans, it would stand to reason. Or… not so fast. It wasn’t as if they’d “arrived” at this point; but, the right kinds of listeners were taking note of Grizzly Bear and spreading the word. Critical praise begat critical praise and the shared adoration of their peers gave birth to half of the Friend EP, the band’s first release following the successes of Yellow House. On top of the cover versions and remixes by other bands, Friend also included reworkings of Grizzly Bear’s own material and an outstanding cover of “He Hit Me” by the Crystals. Thanks to Friend, and the live shows the band put on during 2007, one fact was becoming more and more abundantly obvious: the band had made “an extraordinary leap forward in conviction and virtuosity” (source) and was fast becoming a close-knit group of musical friends. A songwriting family. La Sagrada Família música, si?

PRESENT: Grizzly Bear has spent the better part of 2008 writing and recording the material that will comprise their third LP and playing a variety of live shows when possible, including a run with Paul Simon at BAM. They’ve found their way into the living rooms of America via memorable appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Late Show with David Letterman and have grown their fanbase considerably thanks to well-received performances at Lollapalooza, All Points West, and on the aforementioned tour with Radiohead.

The band decided to take a day between shows to play for a sold out hometown audience at the Music Hall of Williamsburg this past Saturday night with portions of the proceeds from the show going to benefit The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

Over on BrooklynVegan Ed Droste explained:

“We’ve been doing shows in between Radiohead shows to make a little money to pay for the bus we got (our first ever), and we haven’t played Williamsburg as a headliner since Glasslands way before Yellow House came out. Seemed like a fun thing to do. We are donating portions of the proceeds to that specific charity because our friends at Daytrotter wanted us to come out to Iowa to play for the cause, but we were busy with this tour so that’s when we decided we should do a show to help out a bit. I’m really glad we did too, I was excited to learn it sold out in a few hours as that’s never happened to us before.”

Already seemingly too excellent to be contained within a venue the size of the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Grizzly Bear took to the stage shortly after 10pm and wasted no time warming up to an immediately delighted, energetic, and appreciative hometown audience. They played four new songs heard recently at Lollapalooza - “Fine For Now”, “Two Weeks”, “While We Wait for the Others”, and an untitled song - each of which was electrifying enough to be the highlight of a normal set on its own. As well, they peppered the set with emended versions of much of their back catalog - obvious fan favorites such as “Little Brother” (the Friend version) and “Knife” contrasted nicely with the more dissonantly sparse and haunting “Colorado” and “Lullabye”. 66 N. 6th St. (btwn. Wythe & Kent) was a mighty special place to be on Saturday, August 9th, 2008.

Based solely upon an evaluation of their ability as performers, this much is clear: Grizzly Bear possesses the power to grab hold of a group of people altogether, and at the same time one-by-by, seemingly by striking at the very essence of the audience’s collective musical conscience and lifting them up to a place most often visited in the great oratorios of Handel and Haydn. A realm that’s long been the domain of aural representations of the divine here on Earth. Not that Ed, Chris, Daniel, and Christopher are holy men leading a church choir; but truly, Grizzly Bear is a band edging closer and closer to total mastery of their own sound, blistering the air with vocal harmonies so well formed you’d think them unlikely to appear at all, let alone be so perfectly recreated in a live setting.

For a band that explores quiet textures and hushed brilliance on record, Grizzly Bear explodes in concert. Each member of the band is an equally magnetic presence on stage and the radiance of their collective vocal abilities is only strengthened by the skill with which all four of the Bears fits perfectly into place on their chosen instrument. There’s a wide berth of aural space given by, and to, each performer, and this results in a refreshingly uncluttered live sound. Where some bands, even great bands, step all over one another in displaying their prowess in concert, the entirety of Grizzly Bear comfortably sits in the pocket as they ceaselessly amaze and make magic with the space between the notes. All band members stand out in unique ways that bind them together tightly to create a well-unified whole.

Daniel Rossen has a rather casual demeanor for one who wields such a blazingly soulful axe and composes songs that exude a kind of longing not often seen outside of novels. Ed Droste is clearly the center of the band and lets his instrumental work peel away into the background while his voice does all of the heavy lifting, packing a vocal punch that has the power to incite goosebumps at will. The two Christophers, on the other hand, each behave like different members of the mollusk class Cephalopoda: Chris Taylor an eight-armed mad scientist playing every instrument under the sun as if it were an extension of himself and Christopher Bear bringing a thunderously epic presence not unlike an utterly controlled one-man 88 Boadrum. Collectively, the band exhibits a burgeoning mastery of sound bordering on otherworldly but firmly rooted in their own explorations beyond the terrestrial boundaries that’ve long defined folk and rock. Up up and away they go! Or, rather, into into and within they delve! It’s a pattern of ascension similar to the path paved by Radiohead, and a growing legion of Grizzly Bear devotees anxiously await the band’s OK Computer (and beyond); BUT, this is an entirely different band bringing their own version of neo-psychedelia and self-reflective composition/reworking.

FUTURE: Many often wonder how long before the next great band emerges, or, who will be the next Radiohead? It’s utterly unfair to define this band as either of those, but the question lingers as music fans seek out perfection in, and personal connection with, the bands they listen to. Well, all of that is ours here and now and on this Earth in the music of Grizzly Bear as the dream of heaven and greatness shines dazzlingly in their most recent compositions and live reworkings. And really, they’ve only just begun.

Listen:
“Two Weeks” (live on the Late Show with David Letterman)
“While You Wait for the Others” (live on KCRW)

See Grizzly Bear Live:
11 Aug - Washington, DC @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
12 Aug - Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center w/Radiohead
13 Aug - Mansfield, MA @ Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts w/Radiohead
14 Aug - Boston, MA @ Calderwood Courtyard - The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
15 Aug - Toronto, Ontario @ Molson Amphitheatre

Visit Grizzly Bear on MySpace.
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See the list of bands recently featured as EAR FARM’s Band of the Week HERE.

*above slideshow created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR