Veckatimest (2009)

Veckatimest () is the third studio album by the American rock band Grizzly Bear, released on May 26, 2009, by Warp Records. The album is named after Veckatimest Island, a small island in Dukes County, Massachusetts. Produced by bassist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor, the album entered the US Billboard 200 at #8, selling 33,000 copies in its first week of release. By September 2012, the album had sold around 220,000 copies in the US. In 2010, it was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 100,000 copies throughout Europe.

Background and recording

The recording of Veckatimest began in summer 2008 at Allaire Studios in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. Regarding the writing process, Ed Droste states: We knew it had to be done differently because Yellow House came from pre-existing songs that either Daniel Rossen or I had written, as well as a couple that we wrote together. But we were really starting with a blank slate with Veckatimest, so there was sort of this question mark of, "Do we even know how to write together and collaborate together? How will this work?" And we were pleasantly surprised when everyone presented their ideas much earlier on in the stages of development, which allowed for a lot of other people in the band to get involved in the songs. In the past, someone presented a song and [other members would be] like, "This song is done. He wrote the parts. Let's play them."

Nico Muhly collaborated with Grizzly Bear on this album. In the interim, they debuted four new songs: "Two Weeks", "While You Wait for the Others", "Fine for Now" and "Cheerleader". They also performed "While You Wait for the Others" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on April 21, 2008, and performed "Two Weeks" on Late Show with David Letterman on July 23, 2008. The band performed the track "Two Weeks" Live in the UK on Later... with Jools Holland on 5 May 2009

A deluxe edition of the album was released on November 2, 2009, in Europe. Along with the twelve original tracks, it contained an exclusive 24 page booklet and a bonus disc of Veckatimest tracks recorded in various locations. Although the release was exclusive to Europe, the bonus tracks were released digitally to the US in the iTunes Store.

Releases

An unmastered version of the album was leaked before its release. Regarding this, Ed Droste states:

We knew it was gonna leak and we were prepared for that, but really, the biggest bummer for us was that we spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into making sure that it's a really rich recording — recording it to tape and doing all these nice sonic details — and then it leaked and I remember listening to it and it sounded like an underwater YouTube stream or something. It was really, really bad. And so it's just a bummer to think of everyone's first impressions of this album being this horribly compressed, terrible-quality version of the album. But that said, the excitement behind it and everyone's reaction was really encouraging and exciting for us to see. I think people find their own way of showing support, whether it be through an album sale or coming to a concert or even just telling some friends about it. Obviously, the leak didn't hurt us because we debuted in the Top 10. You've gotta be sort of Zen about it.

Packaging

Artwork

The abstract drawing was created by William O'Brien and chosen by Droste, whom he has known since high school. Although the piece was not originally intended to be used as Veckatimest's artwork, O'Brien had been working on it at the same time as Grizzly Bear was working on the record. After contacting O'Brien requesting to use one of his pieces for the new album, Droste received a number of examples to choose from. Initially O'Brien was surprised Droste had chosen that specific piece for the artwork as he felt it had an "awkward placement" to it, but after hearing the album he reconsidered the piece, "it was like this amazing, beautiful thing that happened".

Along with Veckatimest, O'Brien also created the artwork for the accompanying singles, and the European bonus disc. Although unclarified, it is most likely that the other artwork for the singles and bonus disc was taken from the same abstract series that spawned the Veckatimest piece as they all have a similar nature.