I was pawed by Grizzly Bear for the first time at this year’s Homefires festival. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of The Conway Hall, reading through the blurb about all the bands playing, something about them intrigued me; well, intrigued and frightened me: here was another guitar band signed to Warp Records.

In the last year or two Warp, once home to any number of knob-twiddling techno lunatic types, and possessed of a very singular and exciting vision for what it should mean to be a recording artist on the label, has embarked on a curious diversification strategy.  Great-white-hope punk-funkers !!! dumped a lumpen second album on the label in 2004, Gravenhurst have delivered some diverting if inessential krautfolk, and Maximo Park, despite quite fascinating hair, fell some way short of expectations.  Such inauspicious toe-dipping caused some fretting amongst label fans.

Grizzly Bear, as discussed previously, were terrific at Homefires, and I began to hope that Warp’s A&R radar had recalibrated after those earlier troubles.  Yellow House delivers on that promise.  A record of texture and depth, a fastidious weave of multi-instrumental thread over some colourful electronic backgrounds.  A song such as “Lullaby”, “Knife” or “Plans” will start fairly conventionally with simple voice and guitar, before adding layers such as bell and flute, brass and piano, burbling analogue sound and scrabbly electric guitar.  Vocals are dreamy, multitracked and with the reverb dial turned up way past 11; sections of “Little Brother” appear to have fallen off the back of Pet Sounds.  Epic stuff, none more so than the closer “Colorado”, which seems to paint the air with an sense of sadness, the smell of which lingers long after the album has ended.

 

DANIEL ROSSEN INTERVIEW 

With all of the above in mind, I pestered the thankfully very accommodating Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear guitarist, occasional vocalist and songwriter) for insights into the Homefires experience, their new home at Warp, and current Grizzly Bear listening (which I enjoyed, hence the links).

MAP: How did you enjoy the Homefires gig? It was the first time I had seen you guys, and I thought you and Final Fantasy blew everyone else away.

DR: Homefires was a little stressful but a great time. It was the last date on a month long tour of Europe and I had almost completely lost my voice by the end, but somehow I managed to scream out “On a Neck” at the end of the show so there was a little personal triumph for me. But it was a great show to end our tour with, and the response from the audience was so warm. It was a nice surprise. And I got to see Vashti Bunyan sing in person which was exciting.

MAP: Are there any British delicacies you are looking forward to eating when you get back here on tour next month?

DR: Hmm. Soupy ale? Sausages? Mashed potatoes? Marmite? Random baked beans on toast at the gas station in Cardiff?

MAP: How does it feel being signed to Warp?

DR: It’s comforting. It’s nice to have a home with people you can trust with your music for a while, just to be done with the whole headache of where we’re going to go. We love everyone at Warp and they seem to have a clear sort of vision of what to do with us and seem to really understand what we are trying to do as well.

MAP: It has a reputation in this country for being home to experimental electronic musicians and sonic terrorists.  What do you think made them sign Grizzly Bear?

DR: Hard to say. I like to think we ended up with them just because our music appeals to them, regardless of experimental motives and being sonic terrorists and whatnot. I don’t think that’s our goal anyway. But there’s a real emphasis on production and texture in yellow house - there was a lot of playing with the form in our arrangements and all of us tend to hop around on instruments and tinker endlessly. Also, our clarinetist/bassist/generally multi-instrumental Chris Taylor engineered and produced the record with the band, and often in his work the line between instrumental texture and production texture is a little blurry. So maybe in that way there is some similarity between us and the more electronic artists on the roster like Jamie Lidell and Broadcast.

MAP: Does it put any pressure on you to do anything different?

DR: There’s certainly more pressure to be more professional and keep up with press responsibilities and all that, though I try as best I can to ignore all of it. I don’t think there’s any pressure to do things differently in our music. In that department we get bored easily anyway, and tend to always want to switch things up. But I think I’m answering a different question now…

MAP: Which artists on the label do you listen to?

DR: My personal favorites are Broadcast and Jamie Lidell. Battles and Tyondai Braxton are also favorites of the band. But I think we all love and respect the whole Warp roster and feel honored to be a part of it.

MAP: Which other bands are exciting the Bear right now?

DR: The last great record we’ve heard is by a guy called Shugo Tokumaru released by a parisian label called Active Suspension. Hard to explain his music but it’s fantastic. lo-fi but very intricate. We’ve also been in love with the new O.C.S. record - I guess they are called “Ohsees” now- anyway, it’s the project of John Dwyer from the Coachwhips. also hard to explain but so ridiculously great. And a young man named Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson.