Many-man band Bruce Peninsula won’t be caught ‘just jamming’
Bruce Peninsula play the Music Gallery Friday, Nov. 27 and Saturday, Nov. 28
Everything’s come full circle for Bruce Peninsula. This Friday and Saturday, barely 11 months since the release of their critically-acclaimed debut album A Mountain is a Mouth, the Toronto band will play two final shows at the Music Gallery – the very same venue where much of the album was recorded – before retreating into hibernation to work on the follow-up.
The two shows feel like special ones for the band, not just because they handpicked the supporting musicians, not just because they’ll be playing in their hometown, and not just because they’ll be playing within an art installation decked out to look like a forest. If nothing else, these will be special performances simply by virtue of their immensity.
“We’re going to have twelve or thirteen people playing with us at these shows,” says guitarist Matt Cully. “That’s about the most we’ve ever had.”
For many bands, this would seem like an inordinate number of performers, but Bruce Peninsula’s full vocal choir is one of its most distinctive musical features. As a result, it’s caused many critics to overstate its function within the band. At its heart, Bruce Peninsula is still built upon the traditional rock arrangement of guitars, bass, and drums.
“There are a lot of people in the band, but only five of us make up the core songwriting group,” Cully explains. “The choir is just one of the instruments that we use, although it’s an important one.”
Largely due to the popularity of Broken Social Scene, it’s become easy to see such a sizeable Canadian band and assume “collective.” This is simply not the case for Bruce Peninsula. In fact, peeking behind the band’s gothic folk tendencies, there’s a marked progressive rock influence. Songs unfold in multiple sections while melodies carefully build, peak, and unwind.
“There’s a lot of vocal harmony and rhythmic complexity in our songs,” says Cully.” We write all the parts carefully so we try to have them executed as carefully as we wrote them. We’re tightly organized from top to bottom. We’re never just ‘jamming.’”
Such tight organization is as much a necessity as it is an artistic choice. The choir is a mostly fluid entity, so most of the parts are written in advance and taught to the members at rehearsals.
“Since so many of the people who sing with us also have their own projects, it’s impossible to keep everyone together all the time. In the beginning we were just working around everyone’s availability, but once we started touring more that became impossible.”
As luck would have it, many of the band’s frequent vocal collaborators will be on hand for the two Music Gallery shows, giving the band a full arsenal to recreate its densely layered prog-folk opuses. It will also be an opportunity for them to road-test some of their new songs before they’re put to tape in the new year.
If ever there was a time to see Bruce Peninsula perform, this is it. – Richard Trapunski
Bruce Peninsula play Friday, November 27 with The Good Right Arm String Band and The Youngest and Saturday, November 28 with The Gertrudes and Ghost Bees.
