Broken Social Scene: Brendan Canning (acoustic & electric guitars, piano, keyboards, organ, bass, programming, samples); Kevin Drew (acoustic & electric guitar, piano, keyboards, organ, drums, samples).
Additional personnel: Leslie Feist, Mary Drew, Ed Jeanes (vocals); Anthony Seck, Bill Priddle (guitar); Charles Spearin (banjo); Robin Wait (harmonica); Jessica Moss (violin); Michael Johnson (trumpet); Evan Cranley (trombone); Justin Peroff (drums).
Originally released on Noise Factory Records in 2001.
The debut album from Toronto-based collective Broken Social Scene reveals the band's lo-fi, post-rock roots. Here layers of droning guitar lines drift under gently plucked notes, while warm ambient loopscapes build up to eruptions of real drums. From the opening track on, things circle and sprawl, almost, but not quite, building to big Godspeed You Black Emperor-esque crescendos. A standout track is "Passport Radio," which seethes with fuzzy, deconstructed ambience, as if the Broken Social Scene rocket got caught in the fuzz-textured orbit of KID A-era Radiohead.
Things get almost jazzy with the ghost footprint of a horn section on the slightly up-tempo "Alive in 85." "Mossbraker" features scraping strings occasionally finding a melody as they intertwine over a burbling sonic stream. Listeners riding in on the giddy high of the Scene's benchmark classic YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE might wonder where all the vocals and brilliant temporal shifts went, but after a few deep listens, FEEL GOOD LOST's experimental wanderings prove just as beguiling.
