BRENDAN CANNING (of Broken Social Scene)

Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning will release his second solo album, You Gots 2 Chill, on October 1, 2013 via SQE and his own Draper Street Records. Even with Broken Social Scene on indefinite hiatus, it’s been an especially busy year for Brendan Canning: he recently revived his long-dormant, pre-BSS indie-pop project Cookie Duster; he composed the soundtrack to Paul Schrader’s Lindsay Lohan spectacle, The Canyons (written by Bret Easton Ellis); and he’s currently working on an ambitious interactive video-game/film project based on a premise that involves director David Cronenberg selling his intellectual property to a biotech lab.

Amidst all this, he found time to write and record You Gots 2 Chill, providing the clearest, most personal portrait to date of an artist who’s spent much of his two-decade career making other people sound better. Though it’s technically the second release to bear Brendan’s name on the cover, You Gots 2 Chill feels more like a true solo effort than the stylistically varied, guest-list-stacked Something For All of Us.

Not only was it recorded without the assistance of Broken Social Scene (or its umbrella organization, Arts & Crafts), You Gots 2 Chill bears Brendan’s literal fingerprints: he drew the cover art himself, and has launched his own independent label to release it (in partnership with L.A.-based music company SQE). If BSS was famously born in co-founder Kevin Drew’s basement, Canning’s solo effort, You Gots 2 Chill, was birthed in Canning’s own home on Toronto’s Draper Street, a street that Canning has lived on since the mid-90’s. You Gots 2 Chill puts you right there in the living room with him, inviting you to zone out on the floor in a blissful half-conscious state, and forget about the time of day and where you need to be. The album’s title doubles as a mission statement: You Gots 2 Chill.