Jim Guthrie

Jim Guthrie has pursued simultaneous paths, beginning as a vocalist and tunesmith within the indie rock realm before shifting focus to creating soundtracks for interactive games and films. Born during 1973 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, he first explored music as a teenager by joining groups alongside peers and acquiring a four-track setup to produce homemade recordings. His initial release arrived in 1995 as the cassette-only Home Is Where the Rock Is. Over the subsequent three years he issued three additional tapes titled Victim of Lo-Fi, Documenting Perks, Pt. 1, and Some Things You Should Know About Sound and Hearing. In 1999 those recordings were assembled into A Thousand Songs, the inaugural title on the notable Canadian indie imprint Three Gut Records. That same year he assembled the Royal City All Stars alongside Guelph associate Aaron Riches; by the time their first album At Rush Hour the Cars appeared in 2000 the ensemble had adopted the shortened name Royal City. The group worked with then-unknown Leslie Feist and Sufjan Stevens, issued two further albums, and disbanded in 2004, after which Stevens compiled earlier Royal City material for a 2009 release on his Asthmatic Kitty label. Guthrie maintained a parallel solo output throughout his Royal City years, culminating in the 2003 album Now More Than Ever, whose strong reviews brought a Juno Award nomination and confirmed his standing among Canada’s leading independent artists. He contributed to the 2006 Islands debut Return to the Sea, formed by Nicholas Thorburn and Jamie Thompson formerly of the Unicorns, though his involvement proved brief. He and Thorburn later formed the Neil Young-influenced duo Human Highway, whose Moody Motorcycle surfaced in 2008. Around this period Guthrie began accepting commissioned scoring assignments, starting with the documentaries Life Is a Fairy Tale in 2006 and The Bodybuilder and I in 2007. Expansion into advertising and television work followed, and a decisive breakthrough came with his contributions to the 2011 game Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery. That score later appeared on CD and vinyl and secured him the assignment for the documentary Indie Game: The Movie. His next solo statement, Takes Time, arrived in 2013 and earned a Polaris Prize nomination. The year 2014 brought the experimental hip-hop-influenced collaboration One of These Days I’ll Get It Right, recorded with Solid Mas. Author Andrew Hood issued the biography Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What in 2015. In 2017 Guthrie and J.J. Ipsen jointly scored the game soundtrack Planet Coaster.