BSS' Charles Spearin Releasing Solo Album

12/11/08 12:33pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene's Charles Spearin has decided to make Valentine's Day a bit more special with the release of The Happiness Project.

The Arts & Crafts album was arranged, recorded and developed at Spearin's home studio and at bandmate Ohad Benchetrit's studio, Th' Schvitz (Yiddish for "Sweat"). The project is the culmination of several interviews about happiness that Spearin did at his house with his neighbours.

Spearin listened to the interview tapes for melodic phrasing in the speaker's voice and wrote the songs on The Happiness Project based on these accidental melodies. He arranged instruments to match them.

"It has always been interesting to me how we use sounds to convey concepts," Spearin says. "Normally, we don't pay any attention to the movement of our lips and tongue, and the rising and falling of our voices as we toss our thoughts back and forth to each other. We just talk and listen. The only time we pay attention to these qualities is in song."

Spearin played guitar, bass, cornet and piano. Other musicians who donated their time and talents to The Happiness Project include Benchetrit (guitars, saxophone, flute), Do Make Say Think's Justin Small (drums) and Julie Penner (violin), Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew (keyboards), Stars' Evan Cranley (trombone), Leon Kingstone (saxophones), Michael Barth (flugelhorn, trumpet), Dave Clarke (drums), Christopher Ford (piano) and Ric Petit (cello).

You can hear "Anna" and "Mrs. Morris" on Spearin's MySpace page.

Spearin is a founding member of Do Make Say Think, who first began playing together in 1995. He's released five albums with that band, the latest of which is 2007's You, You're A History In Rust. He and Drew co-founded KC Accidental, their pre-Broken Social Scene band.

Here are the songs on The Happiness Project:

"Mrs. Morris"
"Anna"
"Vittoria"
"Vanessa"
"Marisa"
"Mr. Gowrie"
"Mrs. Morris (Reprise)"