There’s no group that truly lives the motto “variety is the spice of life” quite like Toronto’s Broken Social Scene.

For the follow-up to its 2005’s self-titled album, Broken Social Scene jumped at the chance to work with Tortoise multi-instrumentalist John McEntire. The new, as-of-yet untitled album, was recorded in part at McEntire’s Soma Studios in Chicago and Giant Studios in Toronto, which is owned by former Death From Above 1979 vocalist Sebastien Grainger and Metric guitarist Jimmy Shaw.

In a recent interview with Pitchfork, BSS leader Kevin Drew discussed what it was like to record with McEntire, who is now considered a member of the revolving door collective.

Johnny is very, very different. Very quiet. He lets you figure it out. Sometimes we would bust into tunes and be like, [takes deep breath] “OK, let’s see what he thinks about this one.” We didn’t really know how he was feeling about everything for a little while. Then one night a couple of us went out for drinks with him and at about the fourth drink in he started opening up and telling us what he thought about the songs. It became a trend. And then it became sort of a joke– a band member would come up to me and be like, “I’m really tired and I can’t go out tonight but would you ask John how he felt about my part in this song?” [laughs] I consider John a good friend now and I’m happy to say he’s joining the band. Obviously, he’s still got Sea and Cake and Tortoise– but when he’s free, he’s going to come out and play with us. I’m just trying to live my teenage dreams over here, and this was definitely one of them.

The Chicago connections don’t end with McEntire’s contributions. McEntire’s bandmates, Sea and Cake vocalist Sam Prekop and Tortoise bassist Doug McCombs, can also be heard on the album.

The new Broken Social Scene album is slated for a May 4 release on Arts & Crafts.