The extraordinary backstory to Grizzly Bear album ‘Yellow House’
Grizzly Bear’s second studio album, Yellow House, marked a first for the band. Not only was it the first of their releases to be met with widespread critical acclaim, but it was the first album completed with the actual band rather than a revolving door of contributors. Their first as a quartet, Edward Droste, Christopher Bear, Chris Taylor, and Daniel Rossen all shipped up to Droste’s childhood home to record the album.
That building not only provided the album’s name but also a crucial creative direction. During the summer of 2005, whilst on tour with Feist, the house itself almost became a fifth collaborator. Taylor told Pitchfork: “There is not really a theme with the lyrics, but the theme of the album is us figuring out how to work together and recording in that house, which is what brought it together in that weird way.”
The home-spun quality is married with Chris Taylor’s production, slick but still touched by a suburban warmth. Taylor was quick to credit the house for providing the perfect environment for the record the develop.
According to Droste, one of the chief concerns Taylor had to tackle was: “How do we do this live in a way that’s interesting and unique to the live setting and at the same time feasible because there are so many textures and layers?”
They knew they didn’t want to use samples and couldn’t stretch to have a whole backing band providing all the textual elements. While it was a challenge, using the house to their advantage gave the record an edge that often meant its live recordings sound quite different to their original versions.
‘Marla’ is a track most obviously a product of this familial environment. Droste had discovered his great aunt was once a musician and took a 103-second composition of hers and worked it into a five-minute song.
“The whole ‘Marla’ story of my great aunt being this failed musician that dies at an early age in the 1940s was, basically, I got this CD a few years ago from the last remaining sibling of hers, who had finally decided to transfer this stuff to disc,” Droste said.
He took the unrefined recording to the band, admitted he wasn’t sure of the finer details – but knew it would be “really cool if we slowed it down” and tried to give it their own Grizzly spin. “Luckily,” he said, “everyone was really into it, but it was very much a blank page for a few days.”
