- Julie Dorion And The Wooden Stars
One of these days I'm going to write the great Canadian novel
and it's going to be called "Miserable in the Maritimes". It will be set somewhere
in rural New Brunswick and the cast of characters will include a drunken deadbeat
dad, a depressed pill popping mom, a sullen pregnant teenage daughter and her
boyfriend in a band who sells drugs on the side. There will be sudden snowstorms,
parties with fiddle music, casual infidelities and a myriad of complex relationships
which truly and honestly expose these naked troubled souls from Eastern Canada.
I think I'll throw a fishing boat accident in there somewhere. Here's the catch:
it will be a satire.
David Adams Richards is a New Brunswick based novelist whose books document
pretty much everything I mentioned above. If I were to form a judgement of the
greater NB population based on his characters, I'd conclude that this population
was a very miserable one. I'd be wrong of course. Just as I'd be wrong to assume
that all Swedes were philosophically and morally insecure based on watching
Ingmar Bergman's films. And now as most of NB prepares to send me hate mail
for stereotyping them, let me just say that your province sounds beautiful to
me and I'd love to visit it one day. Honestly.
You also have a very beautiful singer songwriter in Julie Dorion. Dorion spent
a good six years playing and singing in a space rock combo called Eric's Trip
before starting a solo career of her own. Admittedly, she was probably the most
interesting thing about that band (which borrowed more than a little from "Daydream
Nation" era Sonic Youth) with her fragile yet powerful voice. After releasing
an EP and debut LP of mostly acoustic compositions, this album finds her collaborating
with The Wooden Stars, who are an accomplished band in their own right. Dorion's
songs are spontaneous in the best way, evoking frigid snowy landscapes and lyrics
that long for conditional love. All the songs are warming in their insular introspectiveness.
She's one of those singers who sounds like she's ready to fall apart at any
moment, her voice betraying more than a little of her New Brunswick accent,
which is hard to explain on page really...but charming nonetheless. I think
this accent truly makes her voice unique; could be a little French lilt in there
perhaps? Dorion is billingual, as many are in her province, and has recently
recorded an album of French songs to add to her discography.
Her vocal delivery is plainspoken, almost like talk-singing, but not as extreme
as in a Lou Reed or Jonathan Richman way. But she's not a belter or torch singer
either. In other words, she'll coo you to sleep but won't ever break all the
glass in your house a la Celine Dion. Which is just fine with me. The Wooden
Stars compliment her songs with a nice jangly finish, with weird chords and
tuning all over the place - at least to my semi-trained ears. Half the time
during the first few spins of this album I was like "what the - how did he do
that???" I'm not really sure who plays the guitar solos on this album, as the
liner notes list three guitarists, Dorion included, and most of the time all
three of them seem to be playing jangly solos within the same song.
The guitars are electric, but not distorted, which leaves a clean sound, and
creates a collage of swirly sounds not unlike Johnny Marr's or David Gaurvin's
from the Sundays. This playing pretty much sets the stage for the production,
which has that live-off-the-floor feel to it. "The Last Time" is a drowsy opener
to the set, plodding along slowly, which leads into the gorgeous and more lively
"Gone Gone" with Dorion's plaintive voice set against the duelling bass and
chiming guitars which kind of go on noisy auto pilot near the end. "The Longest
Winter" continues the downer-fest...really, this music is the aural equivalent
of taking tranquilizers, but quite serene really. "The Best Thing For Me" has
a marching tempo to it, which leads into the countryish "In This Dark". "Drums
and Horns" and "Dance Music" are the liveliest and most melodic songs, the former
REALLY starting to sound like the Sundays, and the latter with Dorion pleading
to someone to "please turn off your dance music/please go to bed now" while
clearly the song is so easily danceable. "Au Contraire" is the album's lone
song sung in French and is very pretty.
The sombre mood of the record may turn some people off or test some listeners'
patience, but patience is exactly what this album requires. This ain't Shania
Twain territory folks. It takes some time for these songs to get under your
skin. They eventually hit me hard. I realized that Dorion is truly a "belle
chanteuse triste" (a beautiful sad singer).
Any comments or reviews to grant us with?