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Broken Social Scene.
Brendan Canning speaks slowly and deliberately. "You'll have to forgive me," he apologises over the phone from Toronto. "I am a little bit fried. My brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders. I'm in the middle of preparing some salmon here, trying to get some dinner happening, and we're leaving for a tour in two days. It's a little bit all-at-once right now. I can honestly say that I've never been this busy in all of my life. You can build it into your story: 'This guy, he works so hard. He's preparing salmon, sharpening knives while he's taking phone calls. And he hasn't even paid for the carpet cleaning yet.'"
Canning, along with Kevin Drew, acts as ringleader for Broken Social Scene. They're one of those collectives of musicians that seem to be getting more and more popular, especially in Canada (along with The New Pornographers and The Arcade Fire, if you want two quick examples). The group numbers into the double-digits, and they can boast of members from other prominent Toronto acts like Metric, Stars, and Fiest. Most recently Murray Lightburn of The Dears contributed to the just released self-titled album, the group's third LP.
They are right at the forefront of a wave of publicity in North America. In fact, our interview had been delayed because Canning and Drew went overtime on an interview with 'The New York Times'. "It's really great, but it's strange," admits Canning. "The past three or four days there were articles in the local paper here about our band, and it just seems like, 'Oh my God, are they running out of news items?'"
Most of the press of late seems to revolve around the emerging Canadian 'scene' - if you can call the west's second largest country a 'scene'. "It's probably because yes, there are a lot of Canadian groups," Canning theorises. "It's like what other region is happening, or where else is there a 'scene' emerging? I mean there's Bright Eyes and the Saddle Creek Records scene. That's probably the only other scene, apart from maybe New York. But I can't complain about all this too much, because it's doing our band a power of good, as far as more people knowing about us, etcetera."
The album took around two years to record and the band adopted a somewhat haphazard recording process as the group's members came in and out of the studio whenever they found the time. "It was all just rough sketches, going into the studio," says Canning. "It really got revamped and deconstructed time and time again until we actually felt like we were onto something. There were so many stumbling blocks on the way. Especially when so much has already been told as far as the music world goes. You have to be really careful of what you're laying out, and what you're trying to achieve. We just go about it, and make a lot of mistakes along the way, and hopefully eradicate those mistakes by the time we're done."
The new album is a sprawling, flowing masterpiece: a testament
to the art of writing an album as a whole. When asked what he
felt about the way music seems to be trending away from albums
and more towards individual songs, Canning rapidly starts reminiscing
about the days when he listened to AM radio and bought 45's
of Making Plans For Nigel and London Calling.
"It was almost like you had to work harder for your music back
when I was growing up," he recalls. "People don't have to work
as hard to get their music now."
Broken Social Scene is planning to finally make their way to Australia next year, with pencilled in plans to tour in March. Canning hasn't been here himself before, although he has a lot of extended family in the country. But planning tours isn't easy, especially when most of the members have their own bands and other commitments as well. "Well yeah, all the other bands are moving on and doing their thing, becoming more popular," explains Canning. "We're all still friends but we don't get to see each other as much. We can look in the paper now and find out more about what our friends are doing than from talking to them. I might have only seen some for a couple of days in the last six months, and I won't see them 'til Christmas, or even after..."
Eddie Chan
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'Broken Social Scene' is out now through Shiny Records.
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