When wallflowers collide
Manitoba is a miserable place in the winter. I should know — I’m from Saskatchewan (where it’s worse) but I lived there for a couple of years. I wouldn’t spend it shacked up in a lake-side cottage for nothin’, not even for the sake of a collaborative album with one of Canada’s most celebrated indie rock bands.
But lo, that’s what the gentleman Jim Bryson did last year. The winkingly-titled The Falcon Lake Incident (a locally-famous UFO spotting happened there decades ago) was recorded in the dead of winter with the members and recordists occupying a single cabin. A terrible idea but it yielded amazing results.
I struggled for weeks on how best to do actually discuss the content of this record. That is, until friend of the blog Emmet Matheson summed it up in the best way possible: it’s an album that is unremarkable in its greatness. “No jaw-dropping moments, just consistently well-crafted/executed. Like Law & Order in 1993,” he explained on his Twitter account.
And he’s right. See, Bryson is a pretty unassuming singer and songwriter. Like the Weakerthans’ John K. Samson his style is low-key and intimate, not often lending itself to bombast or showboating. He doesn’t grab for your attention, he slinks into your mind-grapes and works his magic from the inside out. The Weakerthans, whom Bryson has been a touring member of for a few years now, do add some rock and roll flourishes and some uptempo energy but the songs are never overpowered by their presence, only augmented. The album never strays far from Bryson’s gentle pop hooks and softly-delivered vocal tonalities, which prove to be a terrific match for Samson’s equally unique backing harmonies.
It’s something that starts with the softly-picked acoustic guitar opening of “Raised All Wrong” and continues through the electric guitar and quick pace of “Wild Folk” into the textured, atmospheric build-up and the straight-forward palm-muted power chords of “Up All Night” and the piano-led closer “Anything At All,” which culminates in the album’s single massive, clattering, noise-riddled, feedback-laden climax. It’s in every note in between, every impossibly golden, incredibly catchy melody.
I guess in the end there really isn’t much to say about The Falcon Lake Incident. In my head, this review always more or less read, “If you like either of these acts than you will get a big ol’ boner over this record.” I don’t think you can put it any simpler than that.
Maybe you’ll just have to listen to these here songs and see what I mean.
Jim Bryson & the Weakerthans - Fell Off The Dock [3:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Jim Bryson & the Weakerthans - Up All Night [4:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadOttawa’s Kelp Records is handling a vinyl release that is really terrific. MapleMusic is doing digital and CD and you can also get a few old releases while you’re at it.
