SoundSalvationArmy

The Junos are coming up this week in Regina. That probably has a lot of people wondering why they care.

When the Gemini Awards came to Regina in 2007 I covered them for the radio station I work at. I was on the red carpet talking to our Canadian movie and TV stars (Brent Butt! Mark McKinney! The cast of Little Mosque On The Prairie!), a role for which I was (and would remain to this day) woefully miscast. I was in the media room as part of the press corps interviewing winners backstage, Google-ing information about the programs that took home awards as fast as my fingers could carry me. It wasn’t just because I was too poor to afford cable for my television at the time, either; I hadn’t yet heard of shows like Slings & Arrows, even though it was in its final season (it’s one of my favourite shows ever now, let alone Canadian programming) but I also couldn’t have cared less. The whole affair just had an air of phoniness about it; it felt less like we were actually celebrating Canadian film and television than we were trying to convince ourselves that we could hold a big, glitzy award show just like America.

I’m obviously much more plugged into Canada’s music industry these days but I’m still not sure what to expect out of the Junos. As invested as I am in our musical culture I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full broadcast of the show. I know it has a history of casting a more diverse net than its American counterpart (why aren’t the Grammys ever referred to as America’s Junos?); I can recall a few prominent “indie” acts like The Weakerthans being crowned “Best New Artist” for critically-lauded second or third albums, often five, six, seven years into their careers. Still, like the Grammys, the show seems to glom on to the huge pop tropes of the year and celebrate them a little too thoroughly. If that sounds a little cynical then I guess I’m a little cynical about it.

I get the sense that Bob Wiseman, despite having won five Junos in the past, has some cynicism about it too. Call it coincidence, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Wiseman lately thanks to his new album Gulieta Masina At The Oscars Crying coming out in late January. In his previous life Wiseman collected five Junos for his work as keyboardist for Blue Rodeo. Yeah, that Blue Rodeo. Before and since leaving the group in 1992 he’s meandered through a solo career that has seen him release some curious records, be they a collection of piano-based improvisational numbers sarcastically titled Hits Of The 60s And 70s or his debut full-length, a critically-lauded record that saw its first pressing of 1,000 copies destroyed over his record label’s fears that one song in particular could be libelous because of its implications about American government and corporate involvement in what he believes was the assassination of Chilean president Salvador Allende (officially ruled a suicide). He’s also the guy who tried to change his name to Prince when Prince changed his name to a symbol, leading to what was, I’m sure, a doozy of a legal filing. He sings about what’s on his mind, regardless of whether or not it’s a political or cultural powder keg.

Those kind of moments are all over Gulieta Masina At The Oscars Crying. In song Wiseman not only openly blames the RCMP for murdering Robert Dziekanski but also for what he insists is a conflict of interest in being allowed to investigate and exonerate its own officers for tasering the Polish immigrant to death at Vancouver’s airport. He excoriates the Canadian lobbyist sector using Bo Diddley and Little Richard as straw men representing those who put their financial interests before their country’s. He fetes Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president of Haiti, its first to be democratically-elected, who Wiseman incredulously contends was edged out of power because his efforts at reform upset the American, French, and Canadian political and business interests getting rich exploiting that country and its people. His outrage over his own government muzzling scientists whose work runs counter to its agenda warrants a number here. He sings about the Toronto G20 protests and police being paid to brutalize peaceful protestors. One particularly jarring number, perhaps the album’s most beautiful musical arrangement, contrasts starkly with the lyrical reminder of the inherent racism and desperation of the Dirty Thirties in the USA, the ease with which white girls could falsely accuse a group of black men of rape and watch them head off to the gallows.

Obviously it’s no mistake that Wiseman has placed one of these songs squarely in the midst of the 2011 Juno Awards (at which Winnipeg-born Neil Young was awarded Artist Of The Year and The Allan Waters Humanitarian Award). “Neil Young At The Junos” displays Wiseman’s clear, albeit conflicted, adoration for the titular musical legend. Young is an inspiration to Wiseman, who lauds his better qualities: how his lyrics flowed from a “ballpoint on fire,” how he was “unafraid to point your finger in song” even if it made him enemies, and how he spent the money he made selling his music for charitable efforts like the Bridge School. Wiseman’s characterization speaks volumes about his analytical nature and his lens as a songwriter; for all the positives he doesn’t gloss over the negatives about Young’s career. He seems to view Young’s decision to leave Canada and sell his songs “for the highest bid” derisively, despite the good that came from it. “Tonight when you lay down your head,” he closes, “in some overpriced, fancy hotel bed remember if you die you leave behind more than a legacy of rhyme.” Why Wiseman feels compelled to plead with Young to stay humble after some 45 years in the music business on a song that is mostly laudatory only he knows for sure.

But he does paint a fairly cynical picture of Canada’s music awards. “Tonight they will honour your fame,” he tells Young, “They’ll engrave on a little plaque your name and then you’ll give an acceptance speech and everyone in this room will stand on their feet.” The suggestion seems to be that CARAS presented him with the awards he won that year (Best Alternative Album for Le Noise, Artist of the Year, the Allan Waters) not on the merit of his most recent release but because of his legacy; not a shining endorsement of how the awards are doled out. Wiseman characterizes the ceremony as hollow and weird, an incongruous place for an artist with the kind of depth and imperfect history as Young, as evidenced by his opening salvo: “People want their picture taken with you, secretly afraid that their hairdo will be wrong.” He recognizes that the youngsters riding the latest wave of what’s cool are the driver behind the program, with haircuts and pomp and vacuous, director-prompted standing ovations doing little to move the art form forward.

But again, perhaps that’s a cynic’s interpretation. I suppose I’ll find out this Sunday.

 

 Bob Wiseman - Neil Young At The Junos [5:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You might wear out your Google machine trying to plumb the depths of it’s references, but Bob Wiseman’s new album is really a thing of remarkable beauty. It seems to be a digital-only release, so go buy it at:
~ Zunior
~ Bandcamp, which also offers his other solo albums for only $5 each

Blocks Recording Club seems to have issued a vinyl LP but . If anyone finds a copy let me have it, okay?

You can find a few of his other records on iTunes as well.

Pat entries acoustic, Bob Wiseman, Juno Awards, Junos, rock, singer songwriter

It’s a long road that leads to Bengough, Saskatchewan. Especially if you’re Steve Earle.

As good as the line-up for the Regina Folk Festival is this year, The Gateway Festival in Bengough is giving it a run for its money. The little festival, located in the community about an hour and a half south of Regina, started out in 2005 with just 500 attendees and a handful of performers. Last year the previously country and folk-heavy line-up further diversified with headliners like Library Voices, Old Man Leudecke, George Canyon, and Big Wreck drawing a diverse crowd of well over 3,000.

This year’s line-up kicks the previous iterations squarely in the dick. Headliners include Corb Lund and The Hurtin’ Albertans, Vancouver indie rock rising stars Yukon Blonde, Toronto alt-folk heroes The Wooden Sky (coming off several jaw-dropping shows in Regina last year), country singer Blake Berglund, pop rocker Shotgun Jimmie, Saskatoon trubadour Zachary Lucky, Winnipeg country crooner Del Barber, Saskatoon buzz-band Close Talker, and a slew of other Saskatchewan acts like The Karpinka Brothers, The Lazy Mks, Indigo Joseph, The Lonesome Weekends, Def3, Factor, Riva, Coldest Night Of The Year, Jeans Boots, and Fly Points, among others.

But the big draw in this already incredibly-diverse cast of characters is none other than undisputed legend Steve Earle. Heralded as the point man of the “New Country” movement with his album Guitar Town in 1986 (but arguably best known for the edgier rock of Copperhead Road a couple years later), he’s been on a hot streak the last several years; his last three albums were nominated for best contemporary folk album Grammy awards, two of them winning.

Earle’s legacy is widely crammed into a country/folk music paradigm, but he’s really a guy who has written songs of pretty much every kind. He’s had numerous genre dalliances in the past, proving that he can not only write but pull off pretty much any kind of song he wants to. He’s also a starkly confessional, autobiographical writer when he wants to be, as evidenced in a post by one of our past contributors that chronicles some of Earle’s drugged, damaged past tracks (which includes some songs that have haunted me ever since).

While I haven’t delved into his last few records I was more than happy when his upcoming release The Low Highway landed in my inbox. As you might expect it sees the self-assured songwriter wandering through a myriad of styles as he sees fit, backed ably by his former companions The Dukes (in a very politically correct move he parenthetically adds “And The Duchesses” to the album credits) for the first time since 1987.

The first two tracks are prime examples of that “anything goes” feel. The title track begins the album with a back-porch country feel, Earle strumming out an acoustic guitar riff interspersed with some gentle raps on the body of his guitar for accompaniment. He makes it clear that this album is inspired by, and largely about, life on the road and his years spent as a, “Traveling man on a low highway, 3,000 miles to the ‘Frisco Bay crossing rivers wild and the lonesome plains, up the coast and down and back again.” The visual of abandoned cars and decimated ghost towns and solitary white doves flying through the prairie horizon matches perfectly with the lonesome slide guitar and some mournful fiddle that enter the mix in the song’s second half. His singing seems to be affected by a sense of either resignation or malaise, as though Earle’s getting tired of waiting for things to change or improve. “Calico County” flips the script, opening with a rocking electric guitar riff torn out of Taj Mahal’s playbook. Less a blues number than a prime slice of syncopated outlaw country-rock, Earle’s lyrics depict a meth-addled, trailer home-riddled region of the US populated by criminal members of broken homes. It might bring to mind some of the character studies of Earle’s past, like “Copperhead Road,” upgraded for the Breaking Bad fans of 2013 who watched Cops while they were growing up.

The energy and tempo of that song doesn’t really exist anywhere else on this record, aside from “21st Century Blues,” another rock-based track that’s reminiscent of some of Guitar Town’s pluckier moments. It’s Earle at his most curmudgeonly, complaining about the lack of innovation promised by past contemplations of the future. “Where the hell is my flying car?” he wonders, before grumping about not having transporters a la Star Trek and lamenting the lack of a Mayan apocalypse.

The brief “Warren Hellman’s Banjo” is a song written to fete a man who, on the surface, you might expect the notoriously left-wing Earle to hate. Warren Hellman was a private equity investor who was once a divisional president for Lehmen Brothers. But the man who Earle described last year as his “favourite capitalist” was about more than accumulating wealth; in addition to a long list of philanthropic endeavors he held a free, three-day music festival in San Fransisco for the last dozen years. Earle was a favourite of his, playing 11 of those 12 shows. The song is an expectedly banjo-laden tune that sees Earle affecting an old-timey bluegrass tone, reminiscent of every song on the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack. The tribute to Hellman’s love of banjo is a touching one, to say the least.

The remainder of The Low Highway is comprised of genuinely beautiful numbers like the beautifully-meandering acoustic ballad “Burnin’ It Down” and lonesome closer “Remember Me.” You can almost reverse-engineer Earle’s legacy in the eyes of other musicians; it’s easy to hear some of my favourite bands in arrangements that Earle puts forward here. “Remember Me” could, for instance, be a dead ringer for a Drag The River song, at least until it builds to a full-band, minor key country-fried outro reminiscent of much of Calexico’s catalogue. The difference, of course, is that Earle has been doing this stuff for 40 years.

My favourite song here, however, might be the super-vulnerable heartbreak tale “After Mardi Gras.” Set against acoustic guitar and palm-muted Tennessee Three-style electric guitar backed by a bouncy rhythm section, Earle strikes a terrific balance between the morose misgivings of the song’s subject and his incongruous surroundings. He plays a rejected lover stifling his tears in the midst of New Orleans’ most rambunctious festivities. “Right now I ain’t got the time to sit at home and cry when outside it’s Carnival…maybe after Mardi Gras,” he sings, finding a temporary, though one might expect hollow, moment of reprieve in the festivities outside his window.

Earle has definitely mellowed out significantly since releasing albums like Jerusalem and The Revolution Starts now. While he may come across as softer here his aim remains the same: to shine a light on America, its heroes and villians grappling for power, and the people stuck in between. His power as a storyteller doesn’t seem to be diminishing at all and Saskatchewan, let alone Bengough, is lucky he’s coming back.

 

 Steve Earle and the Dukes (And Duchesses) - Calico County [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Earle’s web site offers up his new album for pre-order through Amazon. There’s also this here iTunes link. Older stuff is also linked through his store page.

You can purchase passes to The Gateway Festival through the Ticket Edge web site or at these fine locations:
Bengough Drugs Ltd: 100 Main St, Bengough, SK
Weyburn Pharmasave: 416 3rd St. NE, Weyburn, SK
Coronach Triangle News: 188 Centre St. Coronach, SK
Assiniboia Thrifty Food: 100 1st Ave. W. Assiniboia, SK
Radville Star: 230 Main Street, Radville, SK
The Artful Dodger 1651 11th Ave., Regina, SK
Regina Vintage Vinyl: 2335 11th Ave. Regina, SK
Willow Bunch RM Office: 16 Edouard Beaupre St., Willow Bunch, SK
Learn more about Gateway through its web site.

Pat entries acoustic, country, fesitvals, folk, live music, new country, New West Records, rock, Steve Earle, Steve Earle And The Dukes, Steve Earle and The Dukes (And Duchesses), The Gateway Festival

Hey dudes.

It’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is, friends. You’ll recall not long ago I declared that Regina’s Andy Shauf has created the finest Canadian album released in all of 2012. You remember that, right?

Well to prove I walk the walk I recently bought the super-limited edition LP version of The Bearer Of Bad News. That’s how much I love this record, you nerds. And I want you to love it too.

So I’m going to give away a free download of the album to one lucky reader just to make sure there are more people listening to this record. I am completely convinced that anyone who hears it will be more than happy not only to buy a copy themselves but to convince others to do the same.

All you have to do is leave a comment here or tweet at us at @soundsalvation. I’ll pick a winner at random and send you all the information you’ll need to taste the sweet, sweet misery that is Shauf’s musical genius.

 

 Andy Shauf - I'm Not Falling Asleep [2:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you can’t wait to find out if you won go right ahead to Andy’s bandcamp page and listen/buy the shit out of his brilliant music. Do it right now, you heathen fools.

Pat entries acoustic, Andy Shauf, contests, folk, local heroes, singer songwriter

I suppose it’s natural that you’d start thinking about your death when someone tells the world you’ve passed away.

The death of Canadian musical mainstay Hayden is one of two polar extremes considered on the venerable Toronto musician’s latest album, Us Alone, which is hands down the best album released so far this year. See, when we last left him in 2009 he had issued a terrific new record but for a variety of reasons he neither toured nor did any media interviews about it. Sales must not have been too great, since the diminished public profile led some fool to edit his Wikipedia page to say that Hayden had actually died.

No doubt that one-in-a-million scenario got him thinking and it was evidently part of the motivation for Hayden to start recording again, it seems. He hadn’t really come up with any new music in the last several years but these eight songs (with the requisite “hidden track” tacked on; Hayden is so 90s) constitute a highly-focused affair that strips away any unnecessary flourishes, pushing simplicity to the forefront. One of the most striking examples is the remarkably lush and beautiful closing track, “Instructions,” a song no doubt inspired by the rumours of his demise. The nearly seven-minute track focuses on a rolling piano figure for the first 45 seconds as Desser literally tells his family what they should do when he dies.

“Here’s how I’d like things to go down,” he sings quietly, his usual vaguely-mumbly delivery all subdued and soft. “Please don’t leave me in the ground. Put all my ashes in a can and drive up north in the van, roll the windows down and play The Band.” He then requests his ashes to be thrown into the wind over a lake he used to swim at. “That’s where I’d love to begin,” he ends the first verse, repeating the line with the kind of solemnity that is impossible to fabricate. He later requests his notebooks be burned, resignedly admitting, “There’s nothing left that’s worthwhile.”

That kind of quietly-devastating lyricism has always been a hallmark of Hayden’s work and Us Alone is no different. “Instructions” sees electric guitar and organ, a spare hi-hat and snare drum part, and even some harmonica notes coming in and out of the mix in an almost-sporadic fashion over the last three minutes, those elements weaving together in a gorgeous, atmospheric fashion. Still, you get the sense that happens only to give the listener several more minutes to ponder the words they’ve just heard.

As unusual and impactful as that song is, however, the real theme of the record is life, specifically life as he’s living it right now. The album is very much a reflection on life as a father, husband, and musician and how those elements work (or don’t work) together.

Us Alone opens with a lyrical bait-and-switch, the song “Motel” starting off with some delayed guitar and a shuffling drum beat that stays more or less consistent for it’s entire six minutes. The song at first purports to be about a pair of young lovers setting up a secret affair at a little motel along the coast. After a few minutes he relents, admitting it’s a story he came up with while driving their inconsolable infant daughter around in the hopes that the car ride will finally put her to sleep and stop her wailing. “It’s pretty awful,” he reluctantly admits, “but one time we just might stay there and sleep through the night.”

Several songs here illustrate that fatherhood has become the central aspect of Hayden’s life, including the autobiographical retrospective “Almost Everything,” a nod to the title and content of his first record, Everything I Long For. His breakthrough first single “Bad As They Seem” was a laundry list of things he thought he wanted at that point in his life; “Almost Everything” begins by recounting those early days where “the music was everything” in his life. He recounts his pursuit of musical fame, the heights he reached, and how he eventually all but stopped making music after his child was born (and diagnosed with a rare chromosomal deletion syndrome which apparently monopolized his time and energy). He eventually achieves balance, as he apparently did in real life, conceding, “But I’m recording once again while my kid is upstairs in bed and I’ll admit that now and then that some nights when I’m strumming or maybe just drumming the music is still everything…well, almost everything.”

(Incidentally, Hayden deserves sincere kudos for his recording prowess. He taped everything on this album himself, in his own home, playing every instrument himself. His technique has all but been perfected by now; his snare has a very unique sound, his piano is deep and resonant, and he achieves a wide-open, atmospheric sound on several songs that’s unlike anything he’s ever put to tape; the album seems to reflect the character of the space it was recorded in. He also creates a uniformity throughout the record by keeping the tone of all the instruments consistent from one track to the next. That seems to be his stated objective as he’s claimed in interviews that songs on his previous records varied almost too wildly, some too jam-packed with different instruments and sounds.)

“Old Dreams” is also a picture of a man firmly ensconced in familial bliss. Over a dreamy piano figure and melody-matching electric guitar leads he talks about the least rock and roll emotion ever: domestic bliss. “Now my dreams are your dreams,” he sings on one of the mumbliest numbers here. “All I want is you to be happy. What did I waste all my time worrying about before this moment in my life?” The spare song is one of the loveliest here, all drifting sound scapes and fragile melodicism.

Even when he ventures from that kind of familial tranquility his ability to create an engaging story shines through. “Blurry Nights” may be a holdover from his pre-married days, a recounting of a drunken evening that went quite right. “Out of my blurry nights ours was the one I liked most of all,” he remembers. “It’s okay that we had nothing to say; that didn’t get in the way, if I recall.” Telling the tale from both sides, Lou Canon takes over the female perspective, recounting how the female character went out searching for him after their tryst and how they eventually came together and had a deep discussion over drinks. “I don’t know how to do this,” they harmonize in the chorus, “but will you leave with me right now? Nothing good can ever come of this in the long run but let’s not dismiss all the fun we could have tonight if we forget how we might feel in the morning light.” The backing track pulses almost like a Spoon song and Hayden’s guitar has one of its most rock tones but that propulsive beat swirls and swells in the background, cutting through the obfuscation like a morning-after headache.

That sense of clarity might be Us Alone’s biggest achievement. For a guy who has been notoriously cagey about the inspiration and meaning behind his songs these numbers are straight-forward, both lyrically and musically. But even when he’s not messing around his songs have a pervasive beauty that other musicians could chase for a lifetime without achieving. It’s a crowning achievement that not only continues the progression and evolution of his career but also helps change the conversation in terms of what indie music in Canada talks about.

 

 Hayden - Blurry Nights [4:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pat entries Arts & Crafts Records, Canadian content, comebacks, folk, Hayden, indie rock, singer songwriter

So this took forever!

I swear, I’m not entirely a procrastinator. Just mostly. I started working on this list back in November, before my daughter was born. Obviously it’s taken some time to put the pieces together.

Long-time readers will notice that we’ve tweaked the year-end list thing just about annually. Call it restlessness, call it a general loathing for the arbitrary nature of lists and rankings in general. My aim this year was to provide our usual in-depth reviews for each record before the final list was posted so that this post could be a summation, giving the reader the ability to delve further into each work if they so choose.

While the format may have been altered the inspiration is the same: this is NOT an absolute dictate on the relative level of quality of these records or a judgement on those you don’t see on this list. The mandate of this site is to shed light on lesser-known work with an emphasis on local and unsigned artists. What follows is a summation of the albums I enjoyed most this year that fit that mold. That means you won’t necessarily see albums that were lauded elsewhere on the net, in print, or otherwise. Everyone knows Japandroids, for example, had a pretty-much perfect album, but 2012 saw them anointed rock gods everywhere from Pitchfork to late night TV. Cat Power, Ariel Pink, Dirty Projectors, Killer Mike, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Grizzly Bear, Fiona Apple…these are all artists that released great records in 2012. They just don’t need our help (and yes, I understand that a band like The Mountain Goats could be considered analogous in stature, but fuck you, they’re my favourite).

So we’re talking lower/medium-profile records that I felt didn’t get the due they deserve. The ranking is arbitrary and of-the-moment, but these 20 albums are the ones that stand out most significantly for me. Each is more than worthy of your time and attention.

Thanks for reading and for sticking with our sporadic updates for another year.

01. Foreign Fields - Anywhere But Where I Am

An intriguing listen that values mood above conciseness, melody over structure, and patience over simplicity. This quietly audacious album unfolds so slowly that it’s likely to lose some listeners in the early offing but this is one of the most confident and assured debut albums I’ve ever heard. This record could only be better if they were Canadian.

Read more here.

02. Andy Shauf - The Bearer Of Bad News
This Reginan’s sad-sack songs have made him a local fixture for almost a decade now but The Bearer Of Bad News marks the beginning of his career’s second phase. His initial songwriting, done in secret, showed him to be a precocious teenager whose subtle delivery belied his gift for song craft. This latest album is still low-key but his bare-bones arrangements fill your speakers, his multi-tracked clarinet work creating an ethereal fugue that contrasts the bleakness, desperation, and death of his lyrics. This is a piece of work that literally left me both desperate to and afraid to hear more.

Read more here
03. White Lung - Sorry

This is just what punk is now you guys. There is any number of lesser punk bands out there but if they aren’t White Lung they aren’t terribly relevant. There are no frills here, it’s just frenzied aggression and frenetic guitar stabbings and the concise blasts of Mish Way’s vocal purging. Her caterwauling amps up the tension and drives it into the red, never relenting until the last note drops. As if that wasn’t enough, a newfound focus on melodicism only makes their sound that much more appealing.

Read more here

04. John K Samson - Provincial
If there’s a songwriter in Canada whose work is as consistently captivating as John Samson’s I’d like to see it. He’s equal parts dramatist and musician, delving even further than usual into his trademark brand of story-songs. They’re driven by characters of all stripes, from restless teenagers to depressed academics to diseased Scandinavians in medical asylums. He’s detail-oriented and his characters are remarkably human. His writing is all about nuance but lyrics aren’t the be-all and end-all; his sense of melody is as refined as his wordsmithery, colouring within the lines on every track with beautiful, gentle tonality. There’s just nothing here to dislike.

Read more here

05. The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

I didn’t do a full review of this record in 2012 (or in 2013 for that matter) but at this point I’m not sure what else I might be able to say about The Mountain Goats. We’ve written about John Darnielle more than just about anyone on this site. Transcendental Youth is just one in a long line of remarkable albums penned by this living legend. This time he focuses partially on mental illness and the victims of different kinds of abuse (both of which he’s extremely well-versed in), writing with his unique sense of empathy and eloquence. He continues to integrate his backing band deeper into his process, making the end product more collaborative. He also continues to explore new elements, namely the introduction of a horn section that beefs up several numbers, including the rollicking “Cry For Judas.” This guy is one of my favourites and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. As long as he keeps making albums there’s a very good chance you’ll see them here.

06. Cory Branan - Mutt
Years of promise came to a powerful head on Mutt, Branan’s first album in six years. He seems to have dropped all pretense of courting Nashville A&R representatives and he’s better for it; this is arguably his most diverse record in three or four attempts, conjuring everything from Steve Earle to John Mellencamp to Tom Waits and a whole bunch of folks in between. But Branan’s an original through and through; “Survivor Blues” is his songwriting in a microcosm, showing off his aptitude for engaging storytelling, his willingness to delve into gritty rock, all while maintaining the sensitive side of a born poet. This album might leave your head spinning but you won’t mind a bit.
Read more here
07. Rah Rah - The Poet’s Dead
We’ve been fans of this Regina group pretty much for as long as that has been possible, but it isn’t nepotism or favouritism of local acts that got them a place on this list. They earned it by reminding us a band of individually and uniquely talented songwriters can meld their voices into a cohesive whole that is the sum of their parts. Committing to 10 songs and working with a no-nonsense producer has honed their focus, giving us a record full of memorable tracks. If “Prairie Girl” doesn’t have you simultaneously rocking out and wiping away tears you have a heart of stone.
Read more here

08. Swearin’ - Swearin’
No frills, no nonsense, just straight-forward power chord-laden punk and pop rock. After years behind the drum kit Alison Crutchfield is letting her voice be heard and it’s LOUD. She proves herself to be at least as sophisticated a lyricist as her sister (herself occupying a space on this list under the name Waxahatchee), who was the primary songwriter in their best-known band PS Eliot. She waxes eloquently on aging, music as (and not as) art, and the overwhelming indifference of romance gone sour and she does it with a muscular pop punk sound that is damn near timeless.
Read more here

09. Jennah Barry - Young Men
The elaborately-rendered cover art of Barry’s solo debut is a terrific visual metaphor for her music. She collates a laundry list of different musical styles and quirks and creates a remarkably harmonious (in every sense of the word) final product. She’s got pop hooks, rock tone, acoustic country and folk earnestness, and a wicked sense of humour and panache to spare. She’s put together an album that feels like it’s sophisticated beyond her years and an absolute pleasure to listen to.
Read more here

10. Erin Passmore - Downtown
Solo artists rarely manage to feel this accomplished when stepping outside the boundaries of a group they’ve been associated with for years. But Passmore, diverting eight songs around her beloved Regina band Rah Rah, manages to show she’s a lot more than a cog in that band’s collective machine. The songs boast a huge sound, intricate webs of sound woven from a dizzying array of acoustic, electric, and electronic elements. The songs are shot through with a current of heartbreak, something that rarely sounds so well-realized.

Read more here

11. The Wooden Sky - Every Child A Daughter, Every Moon A Sun
This remarkable Toronto band continues to wander further away from the rootsy sound that used to be more of a touchstone in describing them. Instead we’re left with a captivatingly-spare album that focuses on quietness and solitude of sound as much as it does intensely-focused melody. Touches of waltz, breezy acoustic tones reminiscent of more tropical climes, and bursts of rock energy see them colouring gleefully outside the lines.
Read here or here for more

12. Murder By Death - Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon

Another case where we didn’t get around to putting together a formal review but by now you should have an idea of what you’re in for. This Indiana band has been following it’s own muse, a ghastly, devilish spectre, for over ten years. Their hybrid of cinematic storytelling and rockabilly, folk, country, and symphonic dramatics gets kicked up a notch on this record thanks to the occasional sense of menace and the addition of a capable horn section. The level of consistency Murder By Death offers is next-level bonkers.

13. Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
A legend in our own time. You never want to wish hardship on another person but in a way I’m almost glad that Cohen had to go through some serious trouble (an embezzling former manager, the ensuing legal battle over his entire retirement savings, a return to touring and recording just to keep an income) to make this stunningly-good record. You can’t necessarily call it a return to form for someone as consistently remarkable as Cohen but Old Ideas is a slate of minimalist numbers that showcase his mastery of tone as well as his lyrical prowess.
Read more here

14. Waxahatchee - American Weekend
Talk about minimal. Waxahatchee’s first LP is Katie Crutchfield’s return to songwriting and its as personal and devastating as records get. Hell, the tape hiss of this home recording alone has more depth than most overproduced rock records these days. Less a break-up record than a harsh self-assessment of Crutchfield’s inability to exist in a relationship without blowing the whole damn thing to pieces, American Weekend is one of those rare solitary records that speaks almost universally. Lo-fi trappings be damned, this album is one long raw nerve and you can’t look away.
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15. Hostage Calm - Please Remain Calm
Walking even further from their hardcore roots, this Philadelphia band continues to craft a sound that’s miles away from their punk rock ethos. Acoustic guitar, pop melodies, and cooing Beach Boys-style harmonies make their hybrid pop rock a creature all its own (with some obvious nods to Bracket’s landmark Requiem album). Their politics become more personal than ever as they present a lyrical analysis of the state of America in 2013, the all-too-common tales of broken homes and desperation that underline the state of a nation they see as closer to crumbling than ever. But like all great tales they find redemption in the rubble and hope in despair, all while leaving you wanting more.
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16. Belle Plaine - Notes From A Waitress
Another of Regina’s most promising acts, Melanie Hankewich takes a seemingly-uncommon amount of joy in her work. She went full-time a couple of years ago in an attempt to make a career out of music, leading to this full-length record that focuses more on her formal education in jazz than the roots-based acoustic folk work of her previous EP. Pianist and co-writer Jeremy Sauer is the secret weapon here, helping pen evocative explorations of locations (”Waikiki,” “Port Angeles,” “Vegas”), experiences (”Notes From A Waitress,” “Old Love”), and emotion (”Legendary,” “To The Best Of Our Memories”). There aren’t a lot of young people embracing the style but Hankewich and her collaborators do it better than the rest.
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17. Corb Lund - Cabin Fever
The honky-tonkin’ Albertan who once shredded as a member of The Smalls turns in probably his best solo recording yet. Cabin Fever is a tour de force of Lund’s unique sense of humour, his incredible melodies, and an endless willingness to tweak the expectations listeners might have of his work and country music in general. He touches on apocalyptic themes, light-hearted criminality, and despair, all the while finding a new vitality in rock guitar and genuine heartache.
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18. Zachary Lucky - Saskatchewan
Brief though it may be this Saskatoon folk troubadour has created an EP that stands up to most full-lengths. Lucky’s Neil Young-inspired acoustic guitar work is dextrous and lovely, underscoring his road-weary tales of travel and the longing that comes with it. Coming to a head with two different songs about his home province (one is an original ode, the other his version of a song his grandmother Eleanor wrote decades ago), it’s an album that expresses the genuine relief and love he has for his native land without being overly sentimental.
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19. Ruth Minnikin - Minnikin Family Photo Album
Like Lucky’s album (and running a similar length) this east coast singer-songwriter has also crafted a set of songs inspired (and performed) by her family. A creative process triggered by the death of her father has yielded a varied and intimate record that is striking in both its simplicity and its sincerity. Perhaps the most human, touching, and relatable album of the year.
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20. Moonface with Sinaii - Heartbreaking Bravery

This is the complete opposite of Ruth Minnikin’s record, a record that sounds as if it was created by robot dragons by dropping ancient gold coins onto medieval synthesizers. Or something. Either way, the demented vision of Spencer Krug, well-known for his quirky take on indie rock in bands like Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, and Swan Lake, is surprisingly well-complemented by Finnish Krautrock band Sinaii. Compared to the rest of his Moonface discography, this album is more focused and structured, conjuring up some delightful tweaks on the rock music form. It’s a genuinely exciting listen that takes you down a winding path to sonic confusion and back.

Read more here

Buy music for each of these groups at the following sites:
Foreign Fields: Bandcamp and iTunes
Andy Shauf: Bandcamp and iTunes
White Lung: Deranged Records and iTunes
John K Samson: Anti- Records web store and iTunes
Mountain Goats: Merge Records web store or iTunes
Cory Branan: Bloodshot Records web store and iTunes
Rah Rah: Rah Rah’s web site and iTunes
Swearin’: Bandcamp and Salinas Records and iTunes
Jennah Barry: Bandcamp
Erin Passmore: Erin’s web site or iTunes
The Wooden Sky: The Wooden Sky web site or iTunes
Murder By Death: Murder By Death web store or iTunes
Leonard Cohen: Cohen’s web store or iTunes
Waxahatchee: Don Giovanni Records web store or iTunes
Hostage Calm: Run For Cover records web store or Bandcamp or iTunes
Belle Plaine: Bandcamp or Belle Plaine’s web site or iTunes
Corb Lund: Lund’s web store or iTunes
Zachary Lucky: Bandcamp or iTunes
Ruth Minnikin: Zunior or iTunes
Moonface: Jagjaguwar web site or iTunes

Pat entries acoustic, Andy Shauf, Belle Plaine, best of 2012, Canadian content, Corb Lund, Cory Branan, Erin Passmore, folk, Foreign Fields, Hostage Calm, indie rock, Jennah Barry, John K. Samson, legends, Leonard Cohen, Moonface, Murder By Death, pop, punk rock, Rah Rah, rock, Ruth Minnikin, Sinaii, singer songwriter, Swearin', the Mountain Goats, the Wooden Sky, Waxahatchee, White Lung, year in review, Zachary Lucky

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this album for more than six months. In that time Foreign Fields have undergone a name change (they were perviously known as Flights, which was a name that roughly nine other bands have used; it was a good call), they’ve opened a bunch of shows for Counting Crows (still a band!), and have gotten some pretty extensive critical acclaim. And it’s all because of this record. This remarkably sophisticated, quietly audacious record.

I’m glad I listened to the record before I read any description of what it is. Frankly, any description that could be provided proves woefully inaccurate; the idea that this, or any, band performs “electronic folk” seems immediately contradictory, if not laughable. I’m not really sure what that means, but I know that there is a melange of ideas at work here that not every musician would be able to bring together in a way that makes sense or is at all palatable.

Perhaps the most prominent element on this album is the remarkable patience and restraint that this young two-piece shows throughout. First track “From The Lake To The Land” sets the tone and pace, a gradual number that is as much about the space around the sounds you hear as those sounds. By the time Eric Hillman and Brian Holl’s voices come in the guitars, soaked in reverb, have come up to an audible level. They’ll spend the rest of the song there, picking out notes and strumming chords in a vacuum while distant harmonica provides some eery, vaguely familiar tones. Cooing backing vocals come in and out of the mix for effect, themselves more echoing than reverberating. Hillman and Holl sing about a lakeside as pastoral as that on the record’s cover art, their singing as soft and wispy as they might be if they were trying to perform across a body of water for each other. As subtly as it emerged the song falls out from under itself and dissipates into the ether.

Follow-up “Taller” incorporates simply-programmed electronic percussion and acoustic guitar as its main elements until deep, synthesized strings wash over the track like a river spilling its banks. As on the previous song the vocals are used less as a focal point and more as another textural element; while their intonations about power lines and emptiness are relatively clear at the beginning of the track when run alongside only acoustic guitar but become part of the band’s tapestry as the mix becomes fuller.

The group uses repetition here and elsewhere on the album in a meditative fashion and that seems to fit with their overall aesthetic. Acoustic guitar parts are cyclical to the point of hypnotism; lengthy piano tracks feel like inspired classical compositions dropped into the middle of folk experimentation; the electronic programming that is featured throughout is rudimentary but effective, turning over the same ideas for five or six minutes at a time while other elements ebb and flow around them.

Some of the best tracks leave the electronics packed away. The title track is a stately piano-only composition that seems timeless. “Where The Willow Tree Died” is a full-band number that seems to be pushed along by the wind itself, very much of the elements, a gentle breeze of glock to open the track, a circuitous finger-picked acoustic guitar complementing it as the first verse comes in. Cello gives one of the albums’ best songs a backbone in the early segments, carrying ethereal, distant backing vocals in and out of the mix with it. When the rhythm section comes in the vocals drop an octave or so, turning into more of a raspy hush than the angelic tone that preceded it. The song continues for well over a full minute longer before glockenspiel, cello (and vocals that reflect the string melody) return for a brief coda. It’s a masterpiece of composition but it’s just a microcosm of the album as a whole.

I could go on and on about the remarkable moments happening on Anywhere But Where I Am. The transcendent electric guitar parts on the stomping “Keep Us In Mind,” the cascading melodic tones and passionate singing of “The River Kings,” the minimalist beauty of “Perfect Home,” and the straightforward sincerity of closer “Fake Arms.” There’s nothing happening here that isn’t absolutely captivating.

That’s really what makes this record so incredible. You can read more about the genesis of Foreign Fields and Anywhere But Where I Am via this AV Club interview but the fact that this is a debut record that manages to be more thematically cohesive and straight-up accomplished than most by established artists is simply astounding to me. The slow pace and long running time will ensure that people who don’t have adequate patience to absorb the disc will never get a sense of its promise and pleasure. And that’s a shame because I’ve never heard anything like this out there.

 

 Foreign Fields - From The Lake To The Land: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Foreign Fields - Anywhere But Where I Am: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

CD and digital can be found through their Bandcamp page. The band has gone through a pretty rough winter so far after having their van broken into and some pretty vital instruments/equipment stolen. Check their page for more on that.

Pat entries acoustic, Americans, electronic, electronic folk, folk, Foreign Fields, indie folk

I am so glad to see that, in this age of the Facebook status update and Kardashian world domination, an intensely personal work of art can still have a more jarring impact than a thousand Snookies.

Smarter people than I have opined without end on the world’s apparent propensity — if not compulsion — to share the collected minutiae of their day-to-day lives with anyone with a high-speed modem and some time to kill. Facebook is equal parts indispensable and disgusting for most people, a barf bag collecting unfiltered word vomit spewed forth by too many people whose thoughts are at best unnecessary and at worst damaging to our collective psyche (but you guys — follow me on Twitter!!!). In a way Katie Crutchfield isn’t doing anything different on American Weekend, her debut album as Waxahatchee. But the introspection laid bare on these markedly spare recordings goes so much deeper than a status update.
Primarily an acoustic guitar record, this album is the perfect middle-ground between early-era Mountain Goats and first record Iron & Wine. It sounds as though it was recorded on one of John Darnielle’s boomboxes, the low level of noise and distortion pervasive throughout every second. But the beauty of Crutchfield’s wounded melodies shines through, her fragile vocals soaring over fractured melodies while softly-strummed, rudimentary guitar chords shift through tender changes.

Like all great albums informed by heartbreak these songs were created in a frenzy of sadness and isolation. It was recorded at Crutchfields’ parents’ home in the span of a week during a blizzard that kept her shut in for days. At the time her band, PS Eliot, was breaking up, but Crutchfield had been putting her own material together for some time.

From the first song it’s apparent this album is an open wound, with Crutchfield talking about desolation in the opening line. Intoxication plays a big part in the early going, as does the notion that youth and romance simply don’t mix. On opener “Catfish” and the following “Grass Stain,” alcohol and drug use seem to be used either as ways to make a forced relationship easier or a salve to relieve the pain of loss; Crutchfield almost seems proud when proclaiming that she’ll embrace all of her vices and “drink until I’m happy.” The imagery of a heat wave permeates “Catfish” and the listener is left unsure of whether it’s the heat or the memory of a lost love that’s making it hard for her to breathe. She later seems to be defying herself to be happy, relying on whiskey and Sam Cooke songs to make a lover seem like something he’ll never be. On “Grass Stain” she accepts her own apparent fear of commitment: “I don’t care if I’m too young to be unhappy or I recklessly impair this newfangled proclivity. And I won’t answer my phone and I’ll never leave my bedroom and I’ll avoid you like the plague because I can’t give you what you want.”

The fantastic “Be Good” is a high note, as Crutchfield’s most up-beat strumming and bright chords reflect the much more optimistic lyrics (though that optimism is couched in a strong sense of resignation). She describes a relationship that seriously encroaches on the “friend zone,” two friends finding solace in each others arms after bouts of heartbreak. “You don’t wanna be my boyfriend and that’s probably for the best because that gets messy and you will hurt me or I’ll disappear. So we will drink beer all day
and our guards will give way and we’ll be good.” It takes either a certain kind of emotional maturity or immaturity to lapse into that kind of relationship; not having to make a commitment to someone probably makes it easier to live with a slight lapse in one’s morals. But to Crutchfield it isn’t a mistake. It’s a necessity, a way to address some kind of emotional need in the safest, most practical way.

One of the most heartbreaking tracks here comes early with the stunning “Rose, 1956.” It’s essentially a letter to her own dying grandmother. A hungover Crutchfield seems to be admitting she’s staying away from the phone to avoid hearing some bad news, recalling the shallow breaths and receding musculature of her frail forebear. She seems incredulous as she looks back on her grandmother’s life, marveling that she was not only married at the age of 15 but that her union was a success, or “no miscalculation.” Crutchfield’s singing hits its most powerful moment in the bridge of the song, the strength of her notes in direct contrast to her description of her loved one’s body giving out. It’s a dramatic push that fills the mix, her voice threatening to disappear into the tape hiss that surrounds it.

Album closer “Noccalula” sees Crutchfield shift to the piano and features one of her best melodies. Her vocal rhythm is great on this song as well, which sees her admitting to some hard truths: maybe it’s good to be alone for a while until I learn how to be vulnerable with someone else, she concedes. Even while she imagines she can still taste her ex’s breath she starts to become okay with never seeing them again. She may obsess about them on paper and in song but never speaking to them again will be a good thing. Every great story comes full-circle in the end and that’s what this song does; it shows Crutchfield has grown from the miserable, self-punishing relationships that dot the landscape of this album.

The central truth at the heart of this record is that human beings are defined by our flawed nature. Crutchfield dedicated American Weekend “to anyone who had woke up and realized their identity is blurry, has had to clumsily get to know themselves, has hit a bottom, has felt self-deprecating and vagrant, and to anyone who has ridden out a shitstorm.” For most people that means making mistakes, like the ones chronicled throughout her record: drink, drugs, sex/relationships with the wrong people, failure. The most personally punishing, vulnerable moments are the ones in which we learn the most about ourselves. Sometimes doing something we know we probably shouldn’t is the only way to grow and to feel better, either about ourselves or our situation. This record stitches together all of Crutchfield’s bruises into a brutal tapestry of truth and humanity, creating a work of art that is universal in its specificity. The only question now is what comes next; Waxahatchee has a new album out this spring and it will be interesting to see where she goes from here.

 

 Waxahatcee - Rose 1956 [2:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Waxahatchee - Be Good: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Buyers can find American Weekend in all of its possible forms through the Don Giovanni web store. They are one of the finest labels there is right now. You can also find a split record on what appears to be a seldom-used Bandcamp page.

Pat entries acoustic, American Weekend, best of 2012, Don Giovanni Records, lo-fi, Waxahatchee

It isn’t just The Beatles that get by with a little help from their friends. The concept of a “solo” artist is usually a misnomer; unless they’re Hayden Desser most musicians obviously don’t play every note on their records and record them in their own studio. As we saw with Erin Passmore and Belle Plaine’s latest an artist sometimes reaches their highest potential by bringing others into the fold. Such is the case with Halifax singer/songwriter Jennah Barry. Back in 2006 she arrived in Toronto, going to school while performing as part of the orchestral pop band The O’Darling. Homesickness and heartache inspired her to return to Nova Scotia. Her brash sensibilities and her sense of humour returned to her songwriting and five days at the delightful Old Confidence Lodge with her new friends and former bandmates (and famed banjo hero Old Man Luedecke) resulted in a varied set of pop songs that keep the listener on their toes.

A few reviews I’ve read of the record compare songs like the up-tempo “Dead Give Away” to Hannah Georgas; the softer, more alt-country shades on other songs bring to mind Kathleen Edwards. The more power-pop numbers could be analogous to Tegan & Sara tunes. But even without those similarities, as fleeting as some may seem, Barry has put together a record that covers a lot of ground.

The star of the show is her voice: her euphonic, versatile, occasionally ebullient singing is right where it should be at the front and center of the mix. As a solo artist should, she uses her deft vocals to lead her band through the varied styles and arrangements that swirl together everything from sugary pop to contemplative country to feedback-drenched rock. The hooks are where she shines the brightest, imbuing every song with the exact right emphasis, be it earnestness in one song or pathos in the next.

“The Coast” is an evocative opener, perhaps reflective of the wash of relief Barry must have felt returning to Nova Scotia. You can see her sitting on a beach writing the lyrics, watching the waves roll and crash before her. “We know the way our bodies handle in the water,” she sings. “We know the way the water opens like a mouth caught in the rush and buried, begging for an answer. Who are we now to question, watching from the coast?” She’s painting a picture of the lost, the wandering, persons blowing in the dust and trying to find somewhere to land that will provide solid footing. The chorus is as repetitive as the ocean, repeating like the waves and building up strength each time until a series of thundering crescendos. It’s downright majestic.

Barry’s anti-love song love songs are the closest she gets to muscle-bound rockers. “Dead Give Away” is the first and best example. Striking a quick tempo Barry talks about sticking to her guns while she fights with her beau. Shot through with liquid courage she comes out of the gates swinging, only to relent in the end and admit, “I can’t say I don’t want you in my arms.”

The polar opposite is the patient, gorgeous “Sheriff,” a deliberate number that lets Barry stretch out her voice and really show it off. Still, it’s a subtle performance, not a showcase for over-singing so much as proof that less can be more. Using a bear attack as a winking metaphor for a break-up she follows a sparse drum beat and weeping pedal steel guitar with a soft, almost resigned vocal. She’s not even trying to convince herself when she insists in the chorus, “I’ve got hundreds of reasons in my head for why we need each other.” It comes across like a statement she knows is futile but has to be said anyway, something that won’t change the mind of the “sheriff” on the white horse she’s singing to.

Her slower numbers are where Barry is really at her most captivating. “4×4″ paints a clear picture of two people isolated, off in the woods, living an agrarian life that — for some unstated reason — won’t last forever. The shuffling drum beat gives the song an unsteady, impatient feeling and the ominous imagery and wording of a smoking rifle, of fighting off cabin fever in the throes of winter, of “screaming bloody murder” and sparking up in the morning just to blow away at night give the song a visceral unsteadiness. “Slow Dance” is essentially that song’s polar opposite, lyrically. The bright, loving song is as warm as a song primarily rendered on an acoustic guitar can be thanks to Barry’s central conceit of a happy housewife overjoyed to have her man home after a long day’s work. All she wants after providing a meal, some whiskey, and a laugh or two is to be held and enjoy the intimacy of a dance or two. She concedes that she’s not perfect but, “There’s a few things I do get right: I’m tough as nails and I swing some nice,” she insists. It’s easy to believe her.

The album ends with a paean to the men in those songs and all the songs Barry hasn’t written. “Raise a glass for all young men,” Barry asks in the title track. “They fight until they fall apart.” It’s a seemingly-laudatory notion if you consider it outside the context of the rest of the song where Barry describes being thrown around by an enraged man, having her arms broken, and possibly even being shot. The song is heavy on her vocals, a gentle number (with subtle banjo picking by Old Man Luedecke) that belies the violence in her words. It’s a bit of a lyrical tightrope but the song itself is lovely enough.

Really, every track here showcases Barry’s eye for detail and contrast and that really helps elevate the proceedings. Those qualities are there in “Dead Give Away” when the quick pace of the song drops out in the bridge, replaced with a slow-picked acoustic and some dreamy slide guitar. They’re in the subtle build-up of opener “The Coast,” as the song’s last third elevates in intensity with every cymbal crash. It’s in the subtle tweaks to the arrangement of “Sherrif”’s final chorus and the instrumental drop-outs that run counter to the listener’s expectations. It’s in the lyrical nod to country music outlaw David Allan Coe during the powerful romanticism of “Slow Dance.”

These songs aren’t wildly unfamiliar; Barry and crew are not necessarily reinventing the wheel. But they do inject enough quirkiness and unexpected flourishes to set their work apart. Whatever partial sense of familiarity that comes from genre expectations help to enhance those unique elements.

“The best parts are fleeting,” Barry concedes at the beginning of Young Men. That’s one of the loveliest elements of this record: each song has several moments of sheer melodic bliss, each one different than the next, each one over so much quicker than you want it to be. This is one album that begs to be put on repeat, again and again and again.

 

 Jennah Barry - Dead Give Away [4:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Jennah Barry - Sherrif [4:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You can find Barry’s album available on Bandcamp.

Pat entries acoustic, best of 2012, Canadian content, indie rock, Jennah Barry, pop, rock, singer songwriter

A couple of years ago I walked out on Bob Dylan.

I never imagined it would be possible. Some legends are legends for a reason and I’ve always been enamoured of Dylan. Admittedly I mostly get down with his earlier work, before he turned into a bullfrog with a lymphatic disease. I had high hopes when I finally saw him live four or five years ago but my tickets were almost as far away from the stage as possible and the performance happening upon it wasn’t quite compelling enough to convince me to continue paying attention. Guys, it was BAD.

Which is ironic, right? Because there’s a weird parallel between Dylan and Canada’s perennial (unofficial) poet laureate Leonard Cohen. Both started out as young poets; while they came to music in different ways for different reasons they both rose to the top of the game; both have seen their voices ravaged by time, though (in my opinion) only one of them remains listenable. Like I said, legends are legends for a reason. Cohen is the very definition and Old Ideas is all the evidence the world needs to see that hasn’t changed.

Cohen here is the same old Cohen, but this record seems amplified in a way. He’s released several albums since spending five years during the 90s in seclusion in a Buddhist monastery but, like his last few efforts, the songs on Old Ideas unsurprisingly strike a generally non-monastic tone. His career-long obsessions are present in the themes of sex, death, desperation, religion, and redemption have remained intact.

The terrific “Home Again” opens the record, setting the tone for what’s to come. In it Cohen seems to be referring to himself in the third person, perhaps seeing the Leonard Cohen that once existed as a person he no longer is and doesn’t particularly like. Or maybe he’s come to associate making music with his less-enlightened past. “I love to speak with Leonard,” he says. “He’s a sportsman and a shepherd. He’s a lazy bastard living in a suit. But he does say what I tell him even though it isn’t welcome; he just doesn’t have the freedom to refuse. He will speak these words of wisdom like a sage, a man of vision, though he knows he’s really nothing.” In this context “going home” could be his return to music, something he evidently had no choice in; his former manager pilfered some $5 million from Cohen’s retirement bank account (in addition to stealing from other accounts), leaving him with only $150,000. He returned to the touring circuit, leading up to the release of this album and his current, recently-extended world tour. Those developments are foremost in his mind, as evidenced in “The Darkness” when he laments, “I’ve got no future, I know my days are few…I thought the past would last me but the darkness got that too.”

Cohen’s aural palette on this latest platter lies somewhere in between his earliest work and his overly-keyboardy 80s material. Acoustic guitars, occasionally even nylon-stringed ones, are plucked here and there throughout; keyboards are present but they’re never overpowering and they don’t fill the mix; string arrangements are layered throughout to rapturous effect. But the overall feeling is sparseness, as Cohen’s voice and those that sing behind and alongside him take up the most space in each song, leaving the instruments that do appear in a minor role to serve the melody. That shouldn’t be surprising; his songs always have the words up front, and for good reason.

Mortality might be on Cohen’s mind these days, as redemption, maybe even retribution, of a biblical nature is contemplated on songs like “Amen,” “Show Me The Place,” and “Come Healing.” The first is a languid string ballad, a contemplation of the kind of stark imagery presented in the more literal interpretations of bible stories. Cohen talks about the kingdom coming, pleading, “Tell me again when the filth of the butcher is washed in the blood of the lamb.” His mantra here is one of personal debauchery: “Tell me again when I’m clean and I’m sober. Tell me again when I’ve seen through the horror.” It’s a seven and a half minute meditation that sees Cohen’s desiccated vocals living in the middle ground between sanguine and sabulous. It’s a trick only the aged Cohen can pull off. “Show Me The Place” seems to have some more direct biblical references; “Show me the place, help me roll away the stone. Show me the place, I can’t move this thing alone. Show me the place where the word became a man. Show me the place where the suffering began.”

“Come Healing” is hands-down my favourite song here, even while it makes some of the most overt references to Christ. “The splinters that you carry,” he mumbles, “the cross you left behind. Come healing of the body, come healing of the mind. And let the heavens hear it: the penitential hymn. Come healing of the spirit, come healing of the limb.” Now I am far less of a spiritual person than Cohen but the themes of penitence and regret and misery that run through this record like a river are universal, regardless of where you stand when it comes to salvation. But “Come Healing” relies on Cohen’s sometimes-surprising sense of melody to make the song appealing. The tender melody soars, thanks to Cohen’s cadre of back-up singers. They harmonize effortlessly throughout the song, lightening the quiet intensity of Cohen’s barely-audible mutterings and creating a rapturous, sumptuous tapestry of sound that is among the loveliest thing I’ve ever heard.

The apparent focus on all things spiritual isn’t shocking for someone who has spent roughly forty years analyzing the weightiest parts of the human condition. I don’t expect that Cohen is looking for his own absolution in these songs; his roll-with-the-punches demeanor suggests he’s either already come to peace with his maker or he’s decided it isn’t something he needs to worry about just yet. His obsessions can be seen as taboo subjects but the real heart of this album is what happens after the fall and how people can get themselves right in their own heads and hearts.

I’ll concede that this is not the typical album we talk about here on SSA. Major label releases are not our usual fare, let alone those by long-established industry heavyweights. I chose this record for our year-end focus because I felt like the response it generated wasn’t nearly adequate considering the overwhelming terrificness of it. When a legend puts out a new album without losing an iota of their presence, talent, or power that should be celebrated.

 

 Leonard Cohen - Come Healing: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Old Ideas and much, much more available on the interweb through this specific web store. Digital discography through iTunes.

Pat entries acoustic, Canadian content, Leonard Cohen, living legends, singer songwriter

This year’s release from Hostage Calm is one of the boldest, most audacious records of 2012, hands-down. The Philadelphia pop-rock band with a political bent not only sought to continue broadening its sound with Please Remain Calm but it also endeavoured to encapsulate what life is like for everyday Americans in the post-recession United States. It’s an album that absolutely could not have existed in any other point in time (although I suppose you could probably say that about every album ever and it would be at least somewhat true, but you know what I mean).

I’ll be the first to admit that I was overly laudatory in praising the band’s self-titled album. Steering away from the more-generic hardcore punk sound of their first album the band expanded its palette at the time to include more pop elements and oddball arrangements. On the basis of half a dozen perfect tracks I named it one of the best albums of 2010, overlooking a few others that were either just okay or missed their mark. That’s not an issue this time around, however. Hostage Calm has pushed itself even further into that melodic pop territory while honing its lyricism into a tight thematic arch.

It’s an album rife with difficult subject matter, plumbing the depths of the American psyche in the post-Bush era and the desperation that exists alongside the economic collapse and the raft of home foreclosures that left so many people all but destitute. The stage is set from the start with a hat trick of some of the most tightly-arranged pop rock released this year. “On Both Eyes” starts things off by examining the plight of Americans whose homes were foreclosed on after the market crash in 2008. “It’s a distant land, the one where we live,” they sing, “but it slipped from our hands. The grass overgrown, the broken family home. See the place where we grew up turned a circus for gamblers and gawkers and thieves. When the word got around, we spilled out on the streets as the banks decorate every house in defeat.” The tempo rises and falls throughout the song as the five-piece barrels through the passionate number with abandon, reflecting the beaten-down and broken spirit of so many Americans. However, the tenacity of the downtrodden is embodied in a single line of optimism: “We knew we didn’t have much but it was ours.”

The tenor is also much the same just minutes later on “Brokenheartland.” Lead singer Chris Martin (no, not that Chris Martin) has worked hard on his singing voice in the last few years and he’s in top shape here, going from nearly speak-singing some of the faster verses to hitting a remarkable high note at the song’s apex. “No one knows who won the wars,” he insists, reflecting on his country’s on-going armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, “but we know something died. Sleepless, workless, Stuck in line. Giving in for the first time. We just stopped waiting for someone to save us.
” Desperation is the overriding emotion here but disbelief and cynicism also can’t help but make an appearance as he ends the song wondering, “They tell me we got something to lose. Like what, to whom?”

An album written and recorded in the midst of the Occupy movement can’t help but cast a wider glance as well. “Impossible!” touches on the upheaval in the Middle East, connecting the discontent in their home country with that being seen around the world. “Can’t you feel the unease? From these ‘troubled states’ to the Middle East, the youth of the world are alive in the streets. When the bell strikes four on the trading floor will freedom ring? In the scorching streets of the Arab Spring Tarhir Square sings, ‘Will freedom ring?’” After the big-rock guitar riffing of a song like the preceding “Woke Up Next To A Body” the band pumps the brakes and focuses on adding more texture. Acoustic guitars, handclaps, a bouncy rhythm, and glockenspiel add new elements that haven’t been seen before in their catalogue.

The group also attempts to make encapsulate the personal issues people are facing in the midst of so much economic trouble. “The M Word” does it by examining the state of marriage and its devolving history. Against slight acoustic guitar parts and a tear-jerking string arrangement the song’s narrator cautions a young woman that she shouldn’t consider a proposal from her boyfriend. He outlines the suitor’s open criticisms of their relationship and his family’s legacy of broken homes and marriages, about the poison view he has of marriage and how that will lead to treatment even worse than the abuse she already suffers at his hand.

The song is a terrific musical transition into “Patriot” as well. Together they serve as further evidence that Hostage Calm is shadowing the musical transition of their pop-punk forefathers Bracket, who shifted their power chord-laden sound into an acoustic, Beach Boys-influenced, harmony-laced, glockenspiel- and accordian-flecked version of sunshine pop. “Patriot” comes as close to the Beach Boys as the group is able, consisting of multi-tracked a capella harmonies for most of the song with nothing more than some subtle percussion backing them up most of the way. The lyrics place the blame for America’s decline and the loss of a home squarely at the feet of the banking sector and government, proclaiming that, “Men of priviledge and class, they danced, they drank, they robbed the whole place blind. And drunk with pride, you hurt, you stole but I still carried you home.” The full band eventually kicks in for a stirring instrumental closing, featuring a rollicking guitar solo highlighted by ecstatically-bent strings.

To my mind that would’ve been the perfect ending for the album. It would’ve more than stood on its own as a nine-song record when the nine songs are this good. The number that follows, “Closing Remarks” would’ve also been a good way to end things. It brings the album full-circle musically, returning to the pop rock tone of the opening trio. Lyrically they return to musings on the state of the working class and the white collar types that brought them to their knees.

If there’s a stumbling point it’s the final song. “One Last Salute” feels somewhat tacked on. It attempts to be an epic but takes too long to get where it’s going. It’s down-tempo opening makes it sound like a mournful Christmas song thanks to its acoustic guitar strums and syncopated sleigh bell percussion. The band sounds almost bored before amping up into a more punk rock personage more than halfway through. But while the music proves less compelling the lyrics tie everything together in the last lines: “We been knocked around, we been kicked down. When the floor gave out we found common ground.”

The accomplishment of Please Remain Calm is that it avoids the sloganeering bent of more staunch, militantly political groups like Propagandhi; instead it focuses on the direct human impact of what the band sees as failed policy, on the malaise and suffering of the people impacted by it. Hostage Calm has distilled the desperation of a country at war with itself, creating a tapestry of empathy against the backdrop of ideology and partisanship that seems to be put above the need to improve the situation of those forced to the bottom. And it’s all set on a bed of some of the catchiest rock music assembled this year.

Please Remain Calm is more than just an album title to this band and its fans. It’s an excoriation of the panic, knee-jerk criticism, and illogical reactionary antagonism that emerges at the drop of a hat in our modern world. These songs are more than songs; they’re an attack on ennui, cynicism, desperation, and hopelessness. All the more impressive then that the songcraft is so damn good.

 

 Hostage Calm - On Both Eyes [3:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

CDs, LPs, and singles can be bought physically through their label’s web site. Digital purchases can also be made for cheap through the Run For Cover Records bandcamp page.

Pat entries best of 2012, changes, Hostage Calm, pop, pop punk, punk rock, rock, Run For Cover Records