LOST ON THOUSAND ISLANDS Great Lake Swimmers
Apr 01, 2009
The Canadian combo explores a lost way of doing things.
BY HAL BIENSTOCK
As you might surmise from their name, Canadian folkies Great Lake Swimmers have a keen interest in diving into and exploring unusual locales. The band's fourth album, Lost Channels (Nettwerk), took shape when a fan and historian invited the band to explore Canada's Thousand Islands region, which lies halfway between Toronto and Montreal. Rather than just seeing the sights, the band recorded in them, spending time in a 28-room castle, an old church on a cliff and 100-year-old theater.
"For me, the recording process is as important as the creative process," says singer Tony Dekker. "Recording in those places draws out a different kind of performance than if you were in a regular studio. I'm trying to document a place as much as a new group of songs."
But ultimately, it is about the songs and Lost Channels is as strong a batch as Dekker has ever recorded. The album finds Dekker turning up the volume just a tiny bit-think Iron & Wine instead of Nick Drake-and tightening his songwriting.
"For this album, I think the band came together a little more and I was more focused on collaborating and capturing the sound of us playing together," Dekker says. "I also had it in my mind that I would try to encapsulate an idea in a short period of time. I was thinking about old groups like The Carter Family who only had three minutes to express themselves in a song."
Dekker sees Lost Channels as a different way of exploring the same questions he asked on his previous albums, namely how to get at the truth about spirituality and nature. The album's title refers to a passage of the St. Lawrence River near where the band recorded. The channel is famous because of a British reconnaissance boat that disappeared there in 1760.
To Dekker, the lost channel symbolizes much more. "The title isn't just about the actual lost channel, but about a lost way of doing things."
[Photo Credit: Ilia Horsburgh]
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