With Tortoise's John McEntire.

After endless touring, semi-solo albums from leaders Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, and a boatload of records from friends and associates, the amorphous indie rock entity known as Broken Social Scene are getting back to the business of being Broken Social Scene. They're currently recording album number four at Soma Electronic Music Studio in Chicago with post-rock sonic mastermind John McEntire (Tortoise, the Sea and Cake), according to a message from Drew on the band's site.

I think I speak for every fan of grand instrumental swells, mumbly singing, and all things guitar-y and heart-wrenching and heart-on-sleeve when I say: It's about damn time. More info below:

After working with bombastic studio madman Dave Newfeld on 2002's You Forgot It in People and 2005's Broken Social Scene, McEntire-- a producer known for his exacting sonic tidiness-- is not the most obvious choice. Perhaps some of the collective's trademark unruliness will be reigned in a bit on the new record. But that's pure speculation. Drew: "I can't tell you what this record will sound like, who from the other great bands will be involved, but I can tell you it feels amazing to be in Chicago recording." Fair enough.


In other BSS news, there's a new book out about the band and their rise called This Book Is Broken written by Pitchfork contributor Stuart Berman and featuring a foreword from Canning. And while the crew are set to play four North American festival dates this July, their planned festival at Toronto's Olympic Island was cancelled partially because of noise issues from a local race car event. (It's been replaced by a free Broken Social Scene show that same day, July 11, at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.) It's all explained in Drew's post, where he also joins Kanye West in the anti-Twitter camp.

Well, I know I'm excited.

Good news!

I thought there was an "official" BSS thread? Couldn't find one.

So anyway, BSS did a free show in Toronto on July 11 down on the waterfront. They're shooting a movie, called This Movie Is Broken. The show featured the full lineup, including Feist AND Emily Haines. There are some fucking killer vids up on YouTube of the whole thing ...


7/4 (Shoreline)


Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl


Almost Crimes


Metric's GIMME SYMPATHY

that guy from Tortoise is a mad genius. this could turn out incredibly mindblowing.

So when they say BSS, they are inferring that Emily and Leslie are on the record?

that's what it sounds like. since emily and leslie have been playing with them (or at least, played one show with them)

Well color me excited. Those were fantastic videos.

There are more, too. What I read in the Toronto Star was that the band pulled a Beastie Boys and got members of the crowd to shoot the best angles they could with HD camcorders. It's all going to be part of the movie, which has some storyline about a boy taking his crush to a BSS show.

curley, i didn't know you a fan. when'd you hear them first?

2006. I was clerking at a law firm for the summer and one of the employees listened to a bunch of music, so he burned a few cds, one of them being their s/t LP.

anyone else of the opinion that the s/t is better than You Forgot It In People?

ha ha, I'm not. s/t doesn't get nearly as much rotation as the rest of their corpus does for me (including B. Canning, i LOVED his release)

YES!

Maybe because it was the first one I heard, but its better overall, plus it has Its All Gonna Break.

i feel like there's a lot of underwritten half-songs on YFIIP. And s/t is just this massive wall of HOLY SHIT at points, which is awesome.

lol, i thought the exact opposite, yfiip is this condense, deliberate thing and s/t is a massive amount of not-fully translated song ideas b/c there were too many people with their pots in the fire...

glad to know we can sense things the exact opposite. this is a helluva band

i used to not like s/t as much as YFIP, but its a toss up now. tell you what though, i had heard of the band but not their music when i bought their 1st album, feel good lost, thinking it was going to a be a rock album. it turned out that i loved it. there's some really cool instrumentals on there.

That's about where I'm at. It's a tie.

in the six years, i've been listening, i still haven't gotten over the Late Bedroom Rock/Shampoo Suicide 1-2.

Yeah, definite high point of YFIP. But still doesn't outdo Its All Gonna Break.