Great Lake Swimmers won me over with the beauty and simplicity of their last album, Ongiara. It was a slow moving album with Tony Dekker’s signature vocals echoing over one or two stringed instruments, usually a banjo or acoustic guitar. The music connected with me deeply and became an addiction for a few winter months. Now it’s Spring and GLS’s latest release, Lost Channels, is my latest vice.
And Spring is the perfect time to listen to Lost Channels. While Ongiara was sparse and desolate, this album is warm and lush. It’s like the sun rising on a brisk spring morning to melt the dew off the grass. And while Dekker is still the force of the band, his presence is more balanced this time around with bandmates Erik Arnesen, Colin Huebert and Julie Fader providing a textured foundation for each song. You’ll hear more electric guitar and even a bit of pedal steel to satisfy your twang craving. There are also more mid and uptempo tracks like “Palmistry,” “Pulling On A Line,” “She Comes To Me In Dreams” and the banjo-picked “The Chorus In The Underground.”
Great Lake Swimmers display more mature melody and production on Lost Channels and Tony Dekker proves that he’s one of indie music’s premier songwriters. This is one of the best albums of 2009 so far.
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Great Lake Swimmers – Pulling On A Line
Video: Great Lake Swimmers – Pulling On A Line
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Oz, good review. This album is really growing on me, in a positive way. I’ve enjoyed this band’s music, particularly their first (self-titled) album, which was literally recorded in some Ontario silo. Song #9 of that album is simply beautiful. I like Ongiara, but not quite as much as the first. Didn’t know what to expect here, but I have to say that it surprised me given the mid tempo “rockers” and the hooks, the most memorable being “Pulling On a Line”–hard to get that chorus outta my head. “Palmistry” even has a little REM feel to it. I think this record is, dare I say, going to cross over to a wider audience. Tony Dekker’s vocals are awesome.
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Amber Cleveland
Syndicate Street/Online Team
ACEntertainment Presents/Management
I agree that it has the capability to find mainstreamness. Maybe we’ll see Pulling On A Line in a Jetta commercial or something.
The album grew on me slowly over a couple weeks. Definitely needed to spend some alone time with it before it completely clicked, but damn its good.
I was kind of a late comer to Ongiara. I first put it on the headphones during a solo walk on the beach down in South Carolina last fall. About a mile into my walk, the clouds unloaded a steady pour of rain on me. With no shelter in site, I decided to keep strolling along listening to the album in the soaking rain. It was one of those perfect moments. Yeah yeah…the whole scenario sounds cheesey, but I think of that walk and rainstorm everytime I hear Great Lake Swimmers.
So when I got ahold of the new album, I put it on expecting that same thing. Nope…new flavor… more complex…I didn’t get it right away. So it sat there not getting any love in the itunes. When I saw this post this morning, I decided to give it another listen. Somehow, it made a lot more sense to me today. Something connected. I’m not sure what it is….but I started digging it. It’s funny how some albums are like that. Maybe it’s my head-space…maybe it was the shitty Chicago rainy day we had today.