“Things have been pretty difficult, being in a band,” muses Brasstronaut frontman Edo Van Breeman, reached over Skype from his Vancouver home. “When you get older, it’s harder to be in a band. You have more responsibilities and you don’t look at it the same way as you did before.”
The singer/keyboardist is reflecting on the local group’s lack of careerist ambitions in relation to its third album, simply titled Brasstronaut, which arrives on Nov. 11. This marks a change from the rollout of the sextet’s prior release, 2012’s Mean Sun. “We were treating it more like a job,” Van Breeman recalls of that time. “Things happened and it was good, but I think we kind of got past that and realized that the only reason we’re doing this is to have fun and write songs.”
The combo’s approach to business isn’t the only thing that’s changed. While Brasstronaut’s past efforts were marked by piano jams and moody synth ambience, the forthcoming album contains upbeat forays into pop and dance-rock, with an added sense of fun.
The most immediately ear-grabbing track is the single “Raveshadow,” in which swirling horns and hypnotic hooks are tied together by a swaggering groove. Elsewhere, the dreamy syncopations of “Tricky” are infused with humour, thanks to lyrical references to “Buzzfeed quizzes” and “twerking,” while “Sooner or Later” cheekily name-checks a laundry list of recent pop hits, including “Blurred Lines,” “Wrecking Ball” and “Black Space.” Album centrepiece “Whitney” is a cinematic instrumental composition that’s flecked with ascendant trumpet and nimble fretboard exploration.
“There wasn’t much of a plan for the sound [of the album],” Van Breeman acknowledges. “We just thought it would be fun if we did one song that sounds like this, maybe another one that sounds like a house song, another one that sounds like a super-proggy thing.”
Part of the reason for the album’s stylistic diversity is that all six members were given a say in the songwriting process, their individual influences allowed to shine in an approach that Van Breeman describes as “egalitarian.” He and his bandmates – horn players Sam Davidson and Bryan Davies, guitarist Tariq Hussain, drummer Brennan Saul and bassist John Walsh – recorded bed tracks in Vancouver, while the frontman then added overdubs and mixed the results at his apartment in Brooklyn, where he was living at the time.
Meanwhile, the musicians kept busy with an array of other gigs — Van Breeman has scored several movies, while Walsh plays in Dan Mangan’s backing band, to name just two of the members’ side projects — and the album remained in limbo for many months. “We had a FACTOR grant, and then we had to give some money back because we took so long to finish it,” Van Breeman admits with a chuckle.
Despite this unhurried approach to recording, the band are finally beginning to pick up momentum. They inked a deal with Hybridity Music in Canada and are once again working with Tin Angel Records in the UK. To Van Breeman’s apparent surprise, the group have been offered a cushy gig opening for Stornoway on a British tour in the new year.
Despite these breakthroughs, don’t expect the outfit to pursue commercial success anytime soon. “It’s weird when we get an email from management saying, ‘Oh, it will be really good for your career if you do this tour,’” the singer reflects. “What’s the career? We’re already dads in our [thirties and] forties. That kind of thing doesn’t make sense to us. If it doesn’t come from our hearts, then it’s not going to happen.”
But even though Van Breeman doesn’t aspire to fame, he says he’ll continue to play with Brasstronaut “for the rest of my life,” primarily to preserve the friendships.
“I want to be an old band that plays Gulf Island festivals and sits there in the middle of the afternoon with a bunch of kids running around on the grass,” he says with a smile. “And if some weird thing happens in the meantime and we can play overseas or wherever, then that’s pretty cool.”
Brasstronaut performs at Fortune Sound Club on Friday, Nov. 25. Tickets $12 at bplive.ca.
