Brothers Michael and Jon Granzow are looking forward to being back in Lethbridge for a rare Record Holders show — the official release party for their new CD “ To Sea,” Dec. 29 at the Slice.
Mary-Anne McTrowe will be opening the show with some ukulele.
Lethbridge based folky, jazz tinged indie-pop band the Record Holder shows are few and far between mainly because the members of the band scattered all over the continent.
Michael Granzow moved to Montreal, while his brother Jon is studying at Stanford in Palo Alto, California. violinist Nicole Hembroff is in Lethbridge and former drummer Sandeep Mishra has also moved away.
And while Mishra doesn’t get back to Lethbridge very often, Jon and Michael spend a lot of time together when they come home for Christmas and during the summer, when they recorded the new EP in producer Jesse Northey’s basement studio.
“ The songs are a little more melancholy than on the first, self-titled album,” Michael Granzow observed.
“They are two different things,” he said.
“Nicole plays some interesting percussion on her violin, you might not even know it is a violin. And the song that I won the South Country Fair songwriting competition ( Morning Gloom) is on it too.”
He and his brother wrote a lot of songs on their own, but also collaborated online and through Skype before getting together in the summer to collaborate.
“Jon and I spend a lot of time together,” he continued.
“And over Skype, he’d send me a chord progression or something and ask me to come up with a melody or i’d send him a chord progression and ask him to come up with a bass line for it. Then we’d get together in the summer and co-write them,” he said.
Treeline’s Ryan Dyck makes his recorded debut playing steel guitar on the Record Holder’s EP, as does new drummer Clayton Smith. Kris Hodgson also adds some cello to a couple songs as well.
“ We needed a new drummer. Sandeep doesn’t come back for Christmas and the summer like Jon and I do,” he continued adding Smith and Mishra’s drumming styles are very different.
“Sandeep plays with a little more funk. Clayton plays more straight ahead,” he continued.
The show begins at 9 p.m. at the Slice with Mary-Anne McTrowe opening, possibly with David Hoffas.
