Friends In Bellwoods 2: The Sound of Success
By: Richard Trapunski
September 2, 2009 – Toronto, Canada
It's been a busy few years for Ohbijou. Since the release of their 2006 debut, Swift Feet For Troubling Times, the Toronto-based orchestral pop band have signed distribution deals both in Canada and Europe, played across the UK, taken up an Indie Band Residency at The Banff Centre for the Performing Arts, and released their second album, Beacons, to damn-near universal acclaim. But despite the accelerated maturation period, the group have remained intimately connected to their musical community, a community that has matured right along with them.
For the last half-decade, Casey and Jenny Mecija's Trinity Bellwoods bungalow has acted as an artistic hub for a budding group of artists, musicians and west-end bohemians, many of whom have rehearsed and played shows in the house's basement. Friends in Bellwoods, a sprawling two-disc compilation co-curated by Ohbijou lead singer Casey Mecija and drummer James Bunton in 2007, successfully captured the flurry of musical activity on record, but more than that, it crystallized an intense incubation period of a community ready to blossom. The compilation amassed nearly $11,400 for the Daily Bread Food Bank, and many of the artists involved—including Gentleman Reg, Sebastien Grainger and The Acorn—have since ballooned from little-known Toronto musicians to international critical darlings.
Two years later, Bunton and Mecija have released a sequel, Friends in Bellwoods 2. And although it brings back many of the same artists for the same charity, it presents a collection of musicians that have outgrown their humble origins. The tracklist is teeming with artists—from Timber Timbre to Final Fantasy to Great Lake Swimmers—who are almost as well known elsewhere as they are in Toronto.
"There's been a real progression for a lot of these bands in terms of both musical development and career success," says Bunton, citing The Rural Alberta Advantage as an example. "It's really exciting to see, and it's amazing how fast it can happen."
With so many people from the same circle achieving success at the same time, it's hard to call it a coincidence. "I think that whenever you establish a community and one person or one project excels, then everyone excels because of it," Bunton muses. "And I think when you have a whole bunch of individual projects excelling, then the whole community and everyone involved excels even more."
As more and more musicians have taken off, the community has grown and extended to such an extent that its boundaries have been thrown into flux—an uncertainty that before long will become painfully obvious as Casey and Jenny will soon be forced to vacate Bellwoods House, the very spot where many tracks on the album were written and recorded.
But is it really necessary for a community to have a tangible hub? "It's really nice to have that kind of anchor where everyone can gather physically, but I think it can exist without it," says Bunton. "The community is defined by the people within it, not by its physical anchor. Friends in Bellwoods is more the sound of a community of people than it is the sound of a specific location."
The situation seems similar to that of Broken Social Scene, a parallel Toronto collective that's spawned dozens of successful offshoots while maintaining a loose collective-member policy. So why does the Toronto indie scene always fall into these support systems? "Maybe we just have more friends," Bunton laughs. "It could just be that there's a lack of competitive nature here. There are so many venues in the city that the well's not going to run dry, and I think everyone knows the benefits of working together. It's just more fun that way."
It was in this spirit that the folks in Ohbijou were able to solicit tracks from so many talented musicians for a compilation whose profits go entirely to charity. But Friends in Bellwoods 2 is more than a fundraising project; it's also a testament to the benefits of forging connections with other musicians and an enticing 40-song glimpse of a music scene propelled by amity and strengthened by resolve.
Video: "New Years" by Ohbijou
