Broken Social Scene is on tour, and will be playing at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton Tuesday, Sept. 21, headlining with The Sea and Cake, a jazzy, indie rock group.

Broken Social Scene is an indie rock band from Toronto that formed in 1999. Their debut album, “Feel Good Lost,” is a compilation of the band’s main members, Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, along with several other musicians and artists primarily from the Toronto area.

Since its inception, Broken Social Scene hasn’t been a group with one sound or a definite number of band members. Rather, the band has grown throughout the years to include sets as large as nineteen members, as few as six, and has ranged in its sound both instrumentally and lyrically. In fact, most members of the band are involved with their own music projects, including Emily Haines of Metric and other well-known, Canadian based artists and indie rock groups. After producing their second album “You Forgot It in People” in 2002, the highly instrumental collective gained widespread recognition by winning a Juno for Alternative Album of the Year in the spring of 2003.

The band has gone on to produce its own B-Side album, “Bee Hives,” several EP’s and singles, as well a number of film scores (“Half Nelson,” “It’s Kind of a Funny Story”) and soundtrack appearances (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”). It’s been five years since Broken Social Scene produced an album, the last being released in 2005, aptly named “Broken Social Scene.” Core members Drew and Canning had gone on to create their own solo albums under the “Broken Social Scene Presents…” albums, which helped to launch their careers, but still included Broken Social Scene’s musical collective methodology.

On May 4, 2010, the band finally released its fourth album, “Forgiveness Rock Record,” reaching number 34 on the U.S. Billboard 200, and it has been nominated for the Polaris Music Prize for best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit. This fourteen-track album features Feist and Emily Haines, among other artists.

The show begins at 8 p.m., and tickets are $25. Broken Social Scene will have some other U.S. shows, but is heading back to Canada for several performances before venturing on their European tour. The band will likely be playing tracks from its latest album as well as showcasing its ever-evolving experimental orchestration of indie rock music.

Emily Felder can be reached at [email protected].