CFMA's 2017 ~ Songs Hovering In A Rembrandt Room

 Individual photography by Leonard Poole ~ Click on photos to enlarge.

At high noon in Saturday's Ottawa, a semi-circle of stools was being set out so that a selection of Canadian Folk Music Award nominees could share some of their songs with a fortunate few. The dark burnished panelling, large paintings, amber lamps and shadowy draperies of the cozy third floor Elgin Street banquet room felt more like a sequestered study. The congenial hostess, CKCU programmer Trish Bolechowsky offered a comfortable welcome and detailed artist backgrounds to introduce the performances, which proceeded acoustically unhemmed, without benefit of microphone, amp or fader. A table full of CD's and a discreet waitress also presented opportunities to spend a few dollars. 


Abigail Lapell, herself a long-time curator of songsters with her monthly Early Birds sessions at the Tranzac in Toronto, began the first round with Indigo Blue from her Hide Nor Hair album, which would win her the Contemporary Album Of The Year prize on Sunday night. 

Left, she is congratulated by Sarah Jane Scouten. 

Jim Bryson, a workhorse producer and sideman for many of the nominated artists sang a meditative song about divorce that seemed to hold a plaintive echo of Gord Downie's voice at its core. Bryson was once an itinerant touring musician with the Hip. Ken Yates, (winner~English Songwriter and New Emerging Artist Of The Year), who benefitted from Bryson's production skills on his album Huntsville, sang a new song and then passed the deal to Catherine Durand. Nominated as French Songwriter Of The Year, Catherine lured the room into smoky seductions with ballads from her elegant La Pluie Entre Nous CD.





Hidden Roots Collective, who harmonized radiantly in a sometimes sunlit corner of the room, eventually got around to a re-imagining of Leonard Cohen's Suzanne that flooded the room with affection and a sweetly melancholy pride. 

The whole ensemble was given a lift by the late arrival of Lisa Muswagon, a Cree singer from Cross Lake Manitoba, who related some fondly allusive animal episodes from the legendary journey of a rabbit to retrieve a lost dance. Each one led into a drummed chant expressing the feelings of the titular rabbit, Waupoos, from her album Rabbits and Buffalo. She was nominated as Aboriginal Songwriter Of The Year. She stayed with us to continue her stories as a second wave of performers arrived. 

Sarah Jane Scouten, wearing a faux fur crown, set some country inklings loose in the room and tenderized us to the core with the heartfelt voice that won her a nomination for Traditional Singer Of The Year. Her friend Winona Wilde demonstrated her insight into some lyrically dark situations and then Newfoundland's Dave Penny raised laugh lines and eyebrows with his densely rhymed tirades on gambling, bicycle culture, and the pros and cons of the accordion, all delivered without a translator. His enthusiasm for the diversity of the slate and the ambience it created warmed the room appreciably. He was up for Traditional Singer Of The Year with his All Turned Around CD, in what proved to be a very competitive category this year. Sarah Jane voiced the opinion that adding a Traditional Country classification to the awards might help ease the congestion in some of the other categories.



 The window seat had been taken over by a symbiotic duo of perfectly attuned Whitby teens working as Moscow Apartment, who charmed and conquered the room with their honey timbres and rich arrangements. On Sunday night they would take the trophy for Young Performers Of The Year, the conferring of which is a central aspect of the C.F.M.A.'s mandate to cultivate new roots and branches.

And finally, straight from the frosty complications of the 401, and also a nominee for Aboriginal Songwriter Of The Year, Julian Taylor made it just in time to sing a few pensive songs about beauty and heritage and to deepen the bond between the audience and the high winds of song that prevailed, with banners and drums, throughout the whole wondrous afternoon.

Elate My Joviality In Late January. Go Ahead And Try...Wait A Minute. Wow!

At T.U.R.F. As It Is In Heaven.

High places opened up in our ears during a weekend musical adventure camp at the Commons of old Fort York in Toronto. On the cusp between summer and autumn, under a waxing moon and an illuminated tower, kids, denim queens, ice cream cones, artistic hair, golf carts, exquisite t-shirts and regular GO-Trains roaring by framed a vast selection of modern hypnotic rhythm and romance music.

SATE did what she does best: waking up the wildness and stirring the spirits of sex and celebration with her ferocious and immaculate band.

Cold Specks cracked the grimy Friday overcast with an over-proof vocal disambiguation of her tormented lyrics. The first cut was the deepest as a scattered audience congealed organically around her unique light-emitting hometown firmamentality..

 Jeremy came with something to say.

Julian Taylor and his band finessed the early afternoon with powerful audience engagement and strongly focused soul propulsion.

Grand Analog formed a vibro-funk hum in the sticky atmosphere and laid forth lyrics, laughs and a Kazoo throwdown. 

Fishbone's anchorman, John Norwood Fisher was around and about and all over the Friday fairground. He's seen here absorbing Grand Analog's set.

Lord Huron did the right thing for a big Saturday crowd, blending post Springsteen epic emo and pop posing.

Shakey Graves made a change from his recording output of alt folk-blues by adding a loud industrial edge. The audience made big noises back at him.

UB40, with original singers Ali Campbell and Astro and original keyboardist Mickey Virtue, stormed through all the hits, giving every song vigorous reggae intensity. Many Rivers To Cross was especially poignant and by the time Red Red Wine happened, a kind of rapture had united the crowd.

Above, the drum universe upon which UB40 makes its foundation.

Photo below from UB40 FaceBook Timeline.

The Elwins soaked up the crowd love with a breezy and absorbing set first thing Saturday afternoon. Just before things got really wet.

The Strumbellas , seen here at soundcheck, faced up to an astounding storm that swept in during their set. They continued singing through high winds and snapping tarps and resolutely held the audience safe in their protective care.

The hermeneutic consistency of Canadian rye whiskey fuelled a perfect set of intricate crossplay by the Punch Brothers. Complex narratives, fractal instrumentals and bro camaraderie gave way at the midpoint to a piece by Claude Debussy from The Phosphorescent Blues album. "...But it's the kind of Debussy you'd expect to hear under a highway overpass," explained banjoist Noam Pikelny, "where pianos are burned for warmth."

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club spent a long time dwelling on their repertoire of  blues-rock ragas as they played their last show before a long hiatus. They will be taking a wind down and coming up with a new record in the interim.

And for me, it's all over when Neko Case sings. Even Pixies couldn't hold me after hearing her keening brilliance slicing through a chilly sunset with a selection of "deep cuts" that brought the entire festival to the brink of a euphoric trance. Long time memories and new allegiances made T.U.R.F. the best way to face up to the new fall with all the sensations of a magnificent rise.