Great Lake Swimmers Come Back Up for Air
Source: By Joshua Ostroff, AOL.ca
Posted: 04/02/09 5:12PM
Filed Under: Music
Music tends to move in waves, with different styles, genres and trends rolling in and out. But in Canada, the folk-rock tide has never really receded, creating a continuum from the 60s era of Neil Young and Joni Mitchel up to modern-day practitioners Great Lake Swimmers.
Oh, and I use the word modern loosely, since the music of GLS' singer/songwriter/bandleader Tony Dekker is as timeless as, well, the great lakes themselves.
Great Lake Swimmers |
Pulling On A Line Video Shoot |
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PHOTOS |
As one might imagine from his band's name, Dekker’s music has always engaged in liquid thematics, a result of growing up in Wainfleet, a small farming community on the northeast shore of Lake Erie, which was the source of both recreation and industry for the surrounding towns.
Though he lives in Toronto now, Dekker’s rural, aquatically-influenced upbringing emerges from the hauntingly beautiful music he's been making for the past seven years: “The importance for me lies in telling the story of the place where you’re from.”
But sometimes it’s also about the story of where you’ve been. And for the group’s fourth album, Lost Channels, the atmosphere of Ontario’s Thousand Islands region—an archipelago just upstream from Lake Erie along the St Lawrence Seaway—comes through in every plaintive croon, melancholy string and jaunty banjo jangle.
Not to mention in the title—the album itself is named after a nearby river area where a British recon boat famously went missing in 1760.
“It came together in a happenstance way,” Dekker says on the phone from the road, somewhere outside of Edmonton. After playing on CBC Radio’s Vinyl Café in Gananoque, they were contacted by a local aerial photographer. “When it came time to record the album, he had given us an open invitation to spend some time in the area. I thought it would be great opportunity to brainstorm and explore some pretty unique acoustic possibilities. It ended up being a big piece of the creative process.”
The group (including Julie Fader on flute/backing vocals, drummer Greg Millson, bassist Darcy Yates, violinist Erin Aurichm cellist Mike Olsen, Paul Aucoin on vibraphone, guest vocalist Serena Ryder and former Wilco pedal steel player Bob Egan) did much of the recording in the area.
They set up their equpiment in one of Canada’s oldest theatres; a cliffside wooden church called St. Brendan the Navigator; and at Singer Castle on Dark Island across the border in upstate New York.
“It was built at the turn of the century by a guy who made his fortune with the Singer sewing machine company and decided to build this castle on one of the islands. It was a really interesting space to be in,” says Dekker who was inspired enough to write “Singer Castle Bells.”
“[These unique spaces] are important as a sonic quality but I’ve come to learn it’s not just the acoustics of it but also the type of performance it draws out of you and the musicians who play in those spaces.”
Though his Toronto hometown inspired the urban lyricism of "Concrete Heart,” most of the album's aesthetic comes from the islands dotting the St Lawrence, most perfectly in the impeccable first single "Pulling On A Line".
“As far as the new record goes, there's this hinting at themes about the river, the idea of a river as an ever-changing thing. Ultimately that’s what I take away from writing about the water. Bodies of water remain the same while despite always changing. There’s a lot to explore there.”
Indeed, there is. But as for why Canadians seem so adapt at creating pure-strain folk music that doesn't feel dated and has an international reach—Great Lake Swimmers current tour is taking them across Canada, the US and Europe before hitting the folk festival circuit—Dekker thinks that could be due to our connection to the land, which has always been folk music's greatest fuel.
“In the songs I’ve been writing you have to have that respect and that fear of the natural world, you have to understand how powerful it is when you get past those barriers,” he says. “There’s a history of being close to the environment, and needing to understand natural rhythms in order to survive.”
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