Here's a work ethic that any band could be proud of: to celebrate the completion of next summer's
Appreciation Night, Bound Stems made
The Logic of Building the Body Plan. Say what you will about trying to build buzz for their full-length debut -- any band that wants to celebrate new music with even more new music is always a welcome surprise.
It helps, of course, that The Logic of Building the Body Plan is more than an EP of oddities and B-sides. It's a proper mini-album, and the band has used it to position themselves as a smaller, less chaotic version of Broken Social Scene. Tracks like "Wake Up, Ma and Pa Are Gone" and "My Kingdom for a Trundle Bed" begin with a cacophony of instruments and voices but gradually coalesce in the same sort of joyful pop that made You Forgot It In People so memorable. At the other end of the spectrum, "Up All Night (Epilogue)" may be a spur-of-the-moment studio creation, but the way the band weaves an instrumental piece around producer Tim Sandusky's audio collage gives the song surprising warmth.
More importantly, the way the band transitions so smoothly from relatively straightforward pop-rock to a more experimental sound suggests that there's plenty of reason to be excited about their full-length. It's a pity that we have to wait half a year to get it!
