Listening to teeth to learn how to quit

You may forgive the immeasurable lateness of this. You Forgot It In People from the epic, double-digit-membered Canadian collective Broken Social Scene was a critically lauded (how many albums score above a 9 on Pitchfork?) success over 7 years ago when it was released. Unfortunately, I was just entering my teens and enamoured by everything the radio, MuchMusic and hip-hop had to offer, so it went wholly unnoticed by myself and most of my friends at the time.

Now that I have a much better understanding of the current indie music world, I've been trying to catch up on some "foundation" level music if you will. I'd always heard about Broken Social Scene, and have vague memories of their mention during Canada's Grammy's, the Juno Awards. My younger sister even remembers them performing, "drunk" and badly as she recalled earlier today. I'm sure it never happened, but I guess either way it didn't leave enough of an impression with her or I.

What first peaked my interest in BSS however was a quote from Kele, lead singer of Bloc Party. He said the group doesn't do covers, but if they did, it would be "Lover's Spit" by BSS. I thought that "hey, if it's good enough for Kele to consider covering, I should at least check it out." This was back in October of 2008 after I went to Bloc Party's intimate concert here in town, and I've always loved listening to that song since then.

It's muted, but the atmosphere is expansive, and the multi-instrumentation really adds to the richness of the song as a whole, as do all of Broken Social Scene's efforts. The lyrics obviously hint at sexual relations (what with "swallow words while giving head") but have an air of forlorness to them, like there's something wrong with what's going on, no matter how passionate it might be; if it's passionate at all for that matter. Loveless love is one way to put the feeling this song conveys.

Lover's Spit - Broken Social Scene

I've been listening to a lot of Japandroids right now (more on them later this month I guess), but I find myself a tad amazed that I like equally their two-man, drum-and-guitar assault just as much as the myriad of layers, instruments and voices present in BSS's work. It's a real testament to the variety of good music, in all its forms.

If you wanna check out more BSS and buy any of their albums, your local record store should be carrying copies if they know what's good for them and if not, head over here. There's even a book chronicling the history of BSS, set to be released July 1st (Canada Day!). I hear good things. But of course, when it comes to Broken Social Scene, you usually do.