Grizzly Bear

The future members of the coming band Grizzly Bear did not have difficulties finding each other. All the four used to go to New York University, play and listen to jazz. The group’s singer Ed Dorste come from a family with rich musical traditions. Nature gifted him with a very strong voice that he shied to demonstrate to other people, not sure of any body needed his vocal skills. Yet he decided to master guitar that he learned to play very well. Still, regular voyages from place to place making the transportation of such a big instrument rather inconvenient mad him forget the strings and come back to training his singing. Fate once brought Ed to New York where he met Chris Bear who studied the technical aspects of music record making. Chris found Ed’s ideas interesting and offered him to joint heir efforts and release his songs professionally and officially recorded. That was the way to producing the Horn of Plenty. It was issued in 2004 on a tiny label, which did not keep the critics from discovering a big talent in the beginning artist. Besides, his songs found wide recognition among many of his colleagues, and a year later, the label released the new edition of the album with an addition of remixes of its songs performed by other musicians.

All of a sudden, Droste found himself in the limelight of the New York music society, totally unready for that. By that time, the singer started receiving offers to perform at various events, which made him search for musicians to support him during concerts. That was the time when Bear and Droste decided to form the Grizzly Bear quartet and recruited Daniel Rossen and Chris Taylor. Officially, the group was assembled in 2005. To work on their new songs, the just-built outfit went to Massachusetts, Ed’s homeland. Droste wrote almost solely all of the songs for the new album and kept focus on the balance between piano and light guitars. The record was delivered to the stores in autumn 2006 under the title Yellow House. This studio work turned even more mature and many-faceted than Droste’s debut effort and became a favorite with the majority of indie-rock lovers. Shortly after the release, the band went on a tour with the splendid show makers TV On The Radio. That was a perfect piece of experience for the young Grizzly Bear and a wonderful opportunity to play in front of a truly bog crowd for the first time in their career. In the beginning, the musicians were not sure about their action in the completely new conditions and how to establish a good contact with the audience. However, gradually, this problem was solved. Another trouble was reinterpretation of the studio versions of the songs for the concerts. The musicians did not even try to render the peculiar atmosphere of their album and play the songs in a fully different manner. On the road, they had enough time to work through each composition to make it sound good and new on the stage.

For the preparation of their subsequent long player, Grizzly Bear escaped from the big city to the countryside where there were only two things for them to do: music making and cooking. To do that, Chris Bear added to the instruments a pasta-maker. Being distracted by nothing from the primary process, the musicians reached perfect understanding and collaboration. In three weeks, they were through with the material for the new album, Veckatimest. The songs featured on the record were just as emotional as those from the predecessor, but were easier to listen to and comprehend, which made this product a good seller and a critically acclaimed effort.