Broken Social Scene’s ringleader Kevin Drew has been talking solo albums for the band as far back as February 2006. “I’m gonna do a solo record, [Brendan and Ohad] are gonna do solo records,” Drew told MTV. “Creatively, people want a little bit of freedom, so maybe we’ll do a [solo] Social Scene series. Then afterwards I think it would be good to be a band again.”
Keeping with that plan, Drew wrote recorded a solo record that is basically in the can and just awaiting the right release date in the busy Arts & Crafts schedule (BSS’ record label). “It’s pretty much done,” he told Chart in November. “I’m just gonna decide when I feel like talking about myself again, which I don’t right now. So I might wait a long time before I put it out. But that’s gonna happen.”Broken Social has a rich history with soundtracks and it seems like they’ve quietly gone and composed the score for yet another Bruce MacDonald film (another Canuck), this one called, “The Tracey Fragments,” which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, but hasn’t been shown in North America yet (Toronto Film Festival in September maybe?). [‘Tracey Fragments’ trailer anyone know the song? Think it’s Goldfrapp, but not entirely sure.]
BSS did the score for McDonald’s not-well-seen, “The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess,” which was supposed to be a movie, but according to the (often-unreliable) IMDB, it was only ever aired on TV. Drew and co. apparently scored the film, but the only concrete info out there is that the pre-existing songs, Broken songs, “Lover’s Spit” and “Her Disappearing Theme” were used in the movie/show (plus “Essence” by Lucinda Williams). Whatever happened with this film, is any one’s guess. It appears that even in Canada it barely came out (U.S. screenings were pretty much non-existent) and in that same MTV interview, Drew was pretty reluctant to talk about it.
Then there was “Snow Cake” which again, despite having a very decent cast (Carrie-Ann Moss, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman), didn’t seem to ever get a real U.S. release. Hold the phone: it starts Friday in New York (and it’s at Cinema Village, so for the rest of the country, this means small distribution in major cities only).
The U.K. trailer has some very beautiful, and Broken-sounding ethereal music in it (I bet a million dollars the piece of music used before Stereophonics’ “Just Looking” is a Social song), but so far there’s no soundtrack album to speak of. [the U.S. trailer is a bit different]
“[Movie scores are] the direction we’re heading in. When you have kids and homes, you don’t want to make your living touring. Plus, I came into all this trying to do music for films.” – Kevin Drew from MTVThe Social Scene’s most notable score is the indie-hit “Half Nelson” which won a bunch of Spirit Awards and earned Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination. Directed and written by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (who are already doing “Sugar,” about sports in the Dominican Republic; the studios heads are already sniffing around their tails’). 16 songs were used in ‘Nelson’ (the band balked at first until they saw the film). Mostly instrumental tracks from Broken’s more-ambient first record, Feel Good Lost though a few key songs (the piano-version of “Lover’s Spit,” “Stars and Suns“) were also utilized. BSS songs were also used in Clément Virgo’s movie “Lie with Me” (’05) and “Wicker Park” (’04).
So what movies are next? None so far, but a finished Drew solo record sounds like something we anticipate. It’s also interesting to note that the “Experimental Parachute Moment” is the name under which Drew and friend George Vale direct all their music videos (and many BSS ones at that, including the quasi-political “Cause=Time”).
Download: Broken Social Scene “Da Da Dada” (from Feel Good Lost and the “Half Nelson” soundtrack)
Download: Broken Social Scene “Lover’s Spit” (original version)