Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen New EP ‘Silent Hour/Golden Mile’

January 19, 2012

Multi-instrumentalist songwriter Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear and Department of Eagles will release a collection of his own personal songs as a debut solo release named Silent Hour/Golden Mile.

Upon first sitting down to write the songs, Rossen had thought they might simply be new demos for a new Grizzly Bear album. But late in 2011, these tunes started to feel for Rossen like a unified declaration – about his unease with the world around him, about indeterminacy in his own life, and the ability somehow to navigate both.

“When you spend so much time touring around, you can lose perspective on what you’re trying to do. All the sudden, I had no idea what to do or what to make or anything,” explains Rossen. “These songs were a way for me to figure that out again, getting my legs back.”

Rossen recorded almost all of ‘Silent Hour/Golden Mile’ himself in rehearsal rooms and small spaces across New York City. But he did ask for the help of Scott Hirsch’s lap steel and horn arrangements from Ian Davis and Kris Nolte; the closing track’s propulsive drums come courtesy of Dr. Dog’s Eric Slick.

The lulling piano lament of track Saint Nothing is built largely from Rossen’s first take of the song. That methodology offered a stark break with Grizzly Bear’s more meticulous and piecemeal approach to songcraft.

“Whenever possible, I like just keeping the very first impression of an idea, the first take of something. You very rarely get to do that because the recording quality is below standard,” says Rossen. “It’s very liberating to just leave it.”