Canadian indie rock group Hey Rosetta! began in 2005 as the brainchild of singer/guitarist Tim Baker. Their sound is diverse and difficult to categorize, but some critics have drawn comparisons to Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. Hey Rosetta! have toured relentlessly in the past few years, completing several treks across the U.S. and Europe, with visits to Australia and China. They’ve been especially well received in their native country, where their songs have often placed on the alternative rock charts. In 2011, Canada chose Hey Rosetta! as a candidate for the highly coveted Polaris Prize after the release of their most recent album, Seeds. Jonk Music spoke with a bus-confined Tim Baker by phone about Seeds and what we can expect at their show Wednesday night at The Frequency (purchase tickets here).
Critics have labeled Seeds as Hey Rosetta!’s most accomplished work to date. And Tim Baker agrees. The record is significantly more concise than previous material, which Baker says was a conscious decision. He notes that these songs were meant to be “like glimpses” in certain cases and attributes the tightness of the album to two things — having matured as a band and the involvement of producer Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian). Doogan’s meticulous attention to detail and atmosphere was a stellar complement to Hey Rosetta!’s sound. Since all songs were tracked until completion, they each ended up with a unique sonic personality. The instrumentation varies from track to track and often includes the string section that Hey Rosetta! are known for. Baker traces his interest in the cello and violin back to 2004 and expresses his love for the “human-like qualities in strings.”
Beneath the ornate arrangements is a deeply human element to Baker’s songwriting. He touches on many of life’s heavier themes, topics he naturally gravitates toward. The lack of pretention in Baker’s personality is abundantly clear in Hey Rosetta!’s music. He’s not interested in making unnecessarily difficult or abstract music, but rather music that people can connect with. This emotional accessibility has been a fundamental factor in Hey Rosetta!’s success.
Hey Rosetta! took a brief break in touring this past summer to work on some new songs, three or four of which will be played tomorrow night. Baker has a hard time labeling the sound of the new material, pointing out that nearly everything Hey Rosetta! does is different but that it’s a logical progression from Seeds.
This is surely not a show to be missed.