Grizzly Bear

Ed Droste first shaped Grizzly Bear as a solitary home-recording endeavor, yet the group evolved into one of indie rock’s most celebrated outfits through a striking fusion of psych, folk, classical, and jazz textures. Although the 2004 debut Horn of Plenty emerged as a hazy, lo-fi creation built almost entirely by Droste, the 2006 follow-up Yellow House enlarged both the roster and the palette, introducing orchestral precision and resonance along with Daniel Rossen’s vocals and songwriting. The combined contributions of all four members secured both widespread critical regard and commercial traction, carrying Veckatimest—issued in 2009 and offering a comparatively direct iteration of the band’s approach—and its more demanding 2012 successor Shields into the upper reaches of the U.S. album charts. Returning after a prolonged absence with Painted Ruins in 2017, the group’s final album featuring Droste, the songs confronted the political turbulence of the period while preserving the ensemble’s singular character.

Confined to his Brooklyn apartment while recovering from a breakup, Droste began capturing material on a handheld recorder in 2002. He adopted a former partner’s nickname for the project; multi-instrumentalist Christopher Bear, originally from Chicago and experienced in laptop electronica as well as free jazz, soon joined the effort. Kanine issued the debut album Horn of Plenty in November 2004, an otherworldly collection built chiefly on Droste’s domestic tapes with limited assistance from Bear that earned notice for its blend of indie, folk, and psychedelic elements. To develop live performances, Bear enlisted multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Taylor. The trio played several early shows before guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Daniel Rossen—Taylor’s roommate and a jazz-camp acquaintance of Bear—completed the lineup. Initial tours centered on improvised renditions of Droste’s existing pieces; later the musicians composed collectively, with Rossen adding original material. Kanine released The Remixes in 2005, featuring reinterpretations of Horn of Plenty tracks by Owen Pallett, Simon Bookish, Soft Pink Truth, and DNTEL. The quartet then withdrew to Cape Cod to record its first Warp album. Produced by Taylor and named for the yellow house belonging to Droste’s mother, Yellow House arrived in September 2006 and enveloped the songs in layered harmonies, guitars, woodwinds, and electronics. Building on the acclaim already accorded Horn of Plenty, the record appeared on numerous year-end lists; the EP Sorry for the Delay, drawn from the earlier sessions, also surfaced that year. The band extended the Yellow House period with the 2007 Friend EP, containing unreleased tracks, alternate takes, and covers by Beirut, CSS, and Band of Horses.

Following a 2008 tour supporting Radiohead, Grizzly Bear recorded its third album at Allaire Studios in upstate New York. Titled after an uninhabited Cape Cod island, Veckatimest appeared in May 2009 and combined lucid melodies and structures with contributions from composer-conductor Nico Muhly, Beach House’s Victoria Legrand, the Acme String Quartet, and the Brooklyn Youth Choir. The release earned further critical praise and debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200, later receiving gold certification in Europe in 2010. That same year the band reunited with Legrand for “Slow Life,” featured on the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and supplied “Deep Blue Sea” plus the Feist collaboration “Service Bell” to the AIDS benefit compilation Dark Was the Night. Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers guested on a B-side version of the single “While You Wait for the Others.” Several tracks from Veckatimest appeared in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s 2010 film Jack Goes Boating, while instrumental and alternate versions accompanied Derek Cianfrance’s 2011 film Blue Valentine.

Once the Veckatimest tour concluded, Grizzly Bear entered hiatus before reconvening in 2011 for a fourth album. Sessions in Marfa, Texas, yielded largely discarded material, prompting the members to pursue separate projects: Taylor issued his CANT debut Dreams Come True in 2011, and Rossen released the solo EP Silent Hour/Golden Mile in 2012. The group began anew in 2012 at Droste’s mother’s house, adopting a more collective songwriting method. Shields, released that September, emphasized direct yet elaborate interplay among the four musicians and reached number seven on the Billboard 200 while charting inside the Top 20 in several additional territories, including the U.K. A deluxe edition containing B-sides, remixes, and previously unreleased songs followed in November 2013.

After the Shields tour ended in early 2014, the members again dispersed. Rossen relocated upstate, performed material from Silent Hour/Golden Mile and his Department of Eagles project, while Droste, Bear, and Taylor settled in Los Angeles. Bear contributed scoring to the HBO series High Maintenance; Taylor produced for other artists and co-authored the 2015 cookbook Twenty Dinners with Ithai Schori. That year the band resumed exchanging demos remotely, gradually assembling new songs. Recorded at Allaire Studios, Vox Studios in Hollywood, and the personal studios of Taylor and Rossen, Painted Ruins appeared in August 2017 on RCA and paired expansive arrangements with wide-ranging lyrics inside rhythmically playful tracks, again receiving acclaim and reaching number 27 in the U.S. and charting elsewhere.

During the subsequent hiatus, Droste announced his departure from Grizzly Bear to pursue work as a therapist. Rossen released the 2018 single “Deerslayer,” moved to New Mexico, and joined Chris Bear in contributing to Fleet Foxes’ 2020 album Shore. Bear also supplied drums for Rossen’s debut solo album You Belong There, issued in April 2022.