Performer’s excited to offer a first listen to the new album “Tourist” by Jeen. Lend her your ears for a few minutes and sound off in the comments section below. More info after the jump.
ABOUT JEEN
Jeen (real name Jeen O’Brien) has been on a musical journey that has clearly informed her upcoming album Tourist (Deluxe Edition), set for a June 30th release date. While she spends a lot of her time collaborating providing vocals in Brendan Canning’s (Broken Social Scene) other band Cookie Duster, she has developed a style uniquely her own. Packed with addicting melodies and vivid lyrics, the new album calls to mind the golden age of indie rock and MTV’s 120 Minutes, where both fans of 4AD and Veruca Salt could come together to find some common ground.
Recorded in Jeen’s own attic just outside of Toronto, she ended up going DIY with her own lo fi home set up on the recording process when the attempts in finding a right match on the producer front grew tiresome. Friend Jared Kuemper assisted on the mix of the initial bunch of tracks, while Jeen’s own lo-fi leaning aesthetic creeps into the tracks she had a hand in mixing herself. Between the airy stomp of “NY Island,” the gritty pieces of “Buena Vista,” and the epic choruses of “Higher and Higher,” the scope of Tourist (Deluxe Edition) is far and wide. Jeen’s husband Stephan Szczesniak plays all the drums on the album, while friends Brendan Canning, Griffin, and Great Big Sea as well as immediate family members (brother Ben O’Brien and father in law Tom Szczesniak) helped bridge the gap on some of the tracks.
With nineties bands like Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction, and early Smashing Pumpkins laying the inspirational template for her, Jeen’s relationship with music had deeper roots than even that era. Born in Toronto, Jeen grew up in a small town an hour away called Bowmanville. Not long after picking up the guitar for the first time she quit high school and joined her first band when she was 15. Upon returning to Toronto and busking on the street for rent, Jeen and her band met a well established manager who swept them off their feet and signed with them before they really got the ball rolling.
As mentioned, Jeen provides vocals for Cookie Duster while co-writing songs as well, as heard on When Flying was Easy released a few years ago. She had always vaguely known Brendan over the years, and once he asked her to sing on a demo, they hit it off from there and the rest is history.
Tourist (Deluxe Edition) will be released in North America and EU on June 30th, taking the original Canadian version of Tourist and adds four new tracks to the mix.