Broken Social Scene have revealed details of their as yet untitled fourth album, including appearances from members of Pavement, Tortoise and Death from Above 1979. The sprawling Canadian collective has been whittled down to a core of seven musicians – plus twice as many making cameos.
Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning and Andrew Whiteman are again leading the fray, with additional appearances by alumni like Feist, Jason Collett, and members of Metric and Stars. Newcomers include former Pavement songwriter Spiral Stairs, aka Scott Kannberg, Death from Above 1979 singer/drummer Sebastien Grainger, as well as members of the Weakerthans and Sea and Cake. Tortoise's John McEntire, a Chicago post-rock icon, produced the album, and appears on the record with bandmate Doug McCombs.
McEntire's role marks a major change for the band. Both their 2002 breakout, You Forgot It in People, and 2006's self-titled album were produced by Dave Newfeld – credited as a major architect of the albums' sound. "[We] didn't know how we were going to do this record without Newfeld because he played such a massive, massive role in all our success," Kevin Drew told Pitchfork this week. "He was very involved – I mean, he used to come on the talkback and suggest lyric changes. So we were quite scared to take a lot of it on ourselves." Whereas Newfeld digs into songs hungrily, with both hands, "Johnny is very, very different," Drew said. "Very quiet."
Working in Toronto and Chicago, the group pared 42 songs into the one album. "We've always been a band that sings about exactly what's inside of us and exactly what's happening outside as well," Drew said. But in the Obama age, the "state of the planet" became a harder thing to "personalise".
"This is a crazy state of limbo right now and we tried to embrace it and bring those subjects up here and there," Drew said. "We had lots of conversations about how we could sing about our views and opinions without trying to make a poor man's REM song ... I remember when U2's single [Get On Your Boots] came out, I thought, 'All right, what's it gonna be? What's the man gonna sing about?' And Bono's opening line was like, 'I don't wanna talk about politics, I just wanna rock!' And I thought, "Uh oh - we're in trouble".
Broken Social Scene's fourth album is due 4 May. The band will also play the All Tomorrow's Parties festival on 14 May, with appearances in London on 13 and 17 May.