Brasstronaut, who play the Slice, Feb. 22, are not a jazz band even if they do use a lot of keyboards and horns on their new CD, ‘ Mount Chimaera.’ which will be released March 2.
“It’s probably a good idea to clarify that. We’re not a jazz band. We’re making pop music but we’re making it in a very experimental way,” said bandleader, keyboardist/vocalist Edo Van Breeman, who also runs the record label Unfamiliar, which put out the band’s new CD ‘Mount Chimaera.’
“I don’t even know how to read music though some of the other guys also perform in jazz bands,” he said.
They played the Slice last September en route to the Sled Island Music festival.
“It was absolutely fantastic. It was a really wonderful experience. The people were really supportive,” he said.
The band kicks off the tour for their long awaited full length debut in Vancouver with the Bell Orchestre (which includes members of the Arcade Fire) which should draw up to 1,000 people, then goes to Kamloops the next day and Lethbridge on Monday.
They are used to playing for an average of 400 people at home town shows but got asked to play four shows in two days at a huge music festival in Rejavik Iceland called the Airwaves Music Festival in September which attracted 2,000 fans. “That was amazing because we only had our four song EP out then and it got into the hands of one of the organizers and we got chosen out of 30 bands to play,” Van Breeman enthused noting they have added two new members to the band since then — guitarist and lap steel guitarist Tariq Hussain and clarinetist/ EWI (electronic wind instrument) who will be making  their Lethbridge debut with the band.
“That adds a lot more variety to the sound,” he said adding because  the EWI  emits different sounds  depending on how  you blow into it,  it is more flexible than a keyboard.
The original four members spent nine months recording Mount Chimaera.
“We added a lot of textures to it,” he said adding the band recorded 12 songs for the CD, but chose their favourite eight for the CD  which they felt worked the best for the record including a longer track ‘Insects.’
“I’m really happy with it. I usually cringe when I  get to parts I knew I could have done  better, but I realized, when I wasn’t afraid to listen to it, that I liked it. I put so much time into it,” he said.
“We’re accessible to a lot of people, not just  indie rock nerds, but families too. We like to create music for everybody,” he said.
Brasstronaut plays the Slice at 9 p.m., Monday, Feb. 22.