Brasstronaut Win SOCAN ECHO Songwriting Prize for 'Hearts Trompet'

Make no mistake about it, Brasstronaut's Edo Van Breeman thinks winning SOCAN's fifth annual ECHO Songwriting Prize for 'Hearts Trompet' is an incredible honour, but the Vancouver musician is also celebrating the victory because it means paying off some band bills.

"It's nice to see that we had a bunch of our fans voting for us," Van Breeman tells Spinner, "but definitely the fact that it is a cash prize helps tremendously with getting ready to go on a tour to the UK."

"We were pretty much belly-up broke and in a severe amount of debt," he continues, voicing standard musician woes. "I was loosing sleep over how I would be paying for some things like van rental and food over there, so it sort of alleviates some of those problems -- I'm feeling very happy about things."

The winning number, written by band members Bryan Davies, Richard Saul and John Walsh, and featured on the outfit's Polaris Prize Long List nominated album, 'Mount Chimaera,' is what Van Breeman calls "giving someone an LOL smiley face through Gchat in the form of a song."

"The song is really about friendship, and about my friendship with Bryan, the trumpet player," he says. "It's supposed to be almost cheekily innocent, and it's just sort of saying, 'Keep going when times are bad.'"



A sprawling jazz-pop gem, 'Hearts Trompet' is carried along with luscious strings, twinkling keys and triumphant horns. Much of its magic, according to Van Breeman, is owed to the talents of 21-year-old producer Alexander Overington, a New York musician currently enrolled in the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College in Ohio.

And even after beating out Besnard Lakes ('Albatross'), Crystal Castles ('Celestica'), Caribou ('Odessa') and Young Galaxy ('Destroyer') to clinch the $5,000 award, Van Breeman insists that it will be business as usual the next time the group starts in on a songwriting session.

"We've already really been brainstorming and plotting our next move so I don't think it will affect anything, but it's really encouraging. It seems like such a legit prize to win."