Tag: Canadian folk music

LISTEN: Cat Clyde & Jeremie Albino, “Hello Stranger”

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Artists: Cat Clyde & Jeremie Albino
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Song: “Hello Stranger” (The Carter Family cover)
Album: blue blue blue
Release Date: May 21, 2021
Label: Cinematic Music Group, Majesticsilk (CAN)

In Their Words: “It’s amazing to think the first recording of this old folk song was done about 80 years ago. It feels sad, but also beautiful. Playing with the perspectives brings out the vulnerability in the song. We’re all strangers really — but great connection can come from this knowing and an openness can unfurl that may not be there with someone you are already close to.” — Cat Clyde & Jeremie Albino

Photo credit: Second Prize

The Show On The Road – Celeigh Cardinal

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week host Z. Lupetin speaks with the high priestess of Canadiana soul, Celeigh Cardinal.

LISTEN: APPLE MUSIC

Growing up without having much connection to her Indigenous heritage, Celeigh recently reconnected to the vibrant native community in Edmonton and has become a role model for young singers who may never have had the courage to make a name for themselves in Canada’s rich festival and concert circuits. In 2018 she was named the Indigenous Artist of the Year in Western Canada, and she just became the first Indigenous DJ to get her own show on CKUA radio, which reaches far across the Canadian prairies.

Colter Wall Revives Western Country on ‘Songs of the Plains’

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He’s only 23 years old, but Western Canadian musician Colter Wall has created an album which echoes through time with Songs of the Plains.

A traditional Western love letter to the wide open, often-frozen prairies of his native Saskatchewan, Wall’s sophomore project once again highlights booming baritone vocals and an appreciation for historic sounds – but it’s more living artifact than relic of the past. Mixing originals in with covers of Canadian classics like “Calgary Round Up” (by Wilf Carter), “Night Herding Song” and “Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail” (both cowboy traditionals), its 11 tracks feels as fresh as the first wildflower bloom of spring.

Dave Cobb produced Songs of the Plains, with Canadian country stalwarts Corb Lund and Blake Berglund joining harmonica great Mickey Raphael and pedal steel legend Lloyd Green as guests. But it’s Wall’s youthful enthusiasm for the genre – and his timeless approach to song craft – which stands out. He spoke with The Bluegrass Situation about his love for Saskatchewan, working with his heroes and what it’s like recreating a good-old-fashioned campfire song.

You grew up in Saskatchewan, and Songs of the Plains is very much a Western album. What makes a life out West different? Why does it lend itself to inspiring its own genre?

That’s a great question. Just like any place, the people have an entirely unique culture, and we have our way of doing things, our own way of talking and our own way of telling stories. When I think of the West, because of its history and because of the way people romanticize it, it’s sort of a land of myth. It’s a land of harsh realities and a sort of mythos – one of wild, tall tales. And it’s been painted in a lot of different ways, often by people who aren’t actually from that part of the world.

Not many people are doing this kind of music anymore. How did you get turned on to traditional Western music, especially being such a young guy?

Well I’m just a huge fan of traditional music in general and have been for a long time. … I love those old tales and folk songs and how they’re so rooted in people, being passed down from year to year, changing and shifting over time. I’ve always been fascinated by that. Probably the first cowboy songs that I heard and really dug – and tried to learn – were done by Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, who was notorious for doing cowboy and Western songs, but he played folk music from all over. He would also play Blind Lemon Jefferson songs and Woody Guthrie songs, bluegrass traditionals, country traditionals, and then those old cowboy songs. So I had been listening to his catalog and stuff like Jimmie Rodgers and from there I started to dive down the rabbit hole and discovered all the greats like Marty [Robbins], Tex Ritter, and all those guys.

I really love the opening track, “Plain to See Plainsman.” It seems like autobiography, so what did getting away from home teach you about it?

The short answer is that distance makes the heart grow fonder. I had always loved Saskatchewan, but I didn’t realize how much until I moved down here [to Nashville] and started to travel around a lot. I think I became more interested in our history and culture. Before [moving] I was aware of it, but maybe not trying to actively learn about it and write about it.

“Saskatchewan in 1881” speaks right into that history, right? It’s kind of a warning to a city slicker from Toronto about what he’ll find if he comes West looking to get rich. Why did you set the story in 1881?

That’s my take on prairie humor. The 1880s are when they first started to ship people out to the Western Provinces – and they weren’t even provinces yet, they were territories. The people in the cities back East had just realized that we had all these natural resources out West, so they started surveying the areas and sending people out to settle them. That started in the early 1880s, so the premise was to tell in a humorous way about the lives of people and what life might have been like back then, having to deal with all the frustrations of frontier life. It’s kind of a regional joke.

You’ve got Mickey Raphael and Lloyd Green on this album, and they add so much Western flavor. What was it like bringing those guys on board?

I had known I wanted Mickey to play on the record long before we went into the studio. I had met him probably a year ago at a show where he was part of the house band, and I was already a huge fan. I think he’s the best harmonica player in the world. Since then he’s been really nice and supportive and kept in touch, so that was just a matter of waiting to get in the studio.

With Lloyd, I have to be honest. I wasn’t even aware he was still around. I told Dave [Cobb] I wanted some pedal steel, and he said ‘Why don’t we get Lloyd Green?’ My eyes about fell out of my head. So we called Lloyd and sure enough he came down. I helped him carry his stuff in, then I got to hear him play pedal steel on my songs for about an hour – which was pretty incredible – and then after that I got to listen to him tell stories about playing with [George] Jones and [Johnny] Paycheck, all these legends. It was surreal.

The power and depth of your vocal has always stood out. Does it still surprise people?

The most common thing I get is ‘How old are you?’ And I tell them, and then there’s always some surprise there.

When did you notice you had this deep, timeless baritone of singing voice?

I’ve been working at it for a long time. When I turned 18 I had been trying to sing, and it wasn’t really working out, but I realized I could sing low a little bit in the baritone register. It felt natural, so I kept doing it, and I’m still working at it. I feel like these three records, to me they’re like little stepping stones on my road of trying to figure out how to sing. Listen to that first EP and then the first album, there’s quite a difference in the vocal. And then if you listen to this new record, this is the first time I’ve felt comfortable and like I had control over my voice. I think it sounds better.

You let your voice stand on its own on “Night Herding Song,” and I read you left the studio to record that. How did that decision happen?

We tried to cut it in the studio, but the thing about RCA [Studio A] is that it’s a really big room, but it’s a studio so it’s kind of dead in there – there’s no natural reverb. I don’t record with headphones on, so singing a capella in a room like that, it’s kind of hard to hear. It just wasn’t working out, so we decided to go out to Dave’s house – this tucked-away little spot in the trees with a studio in the basement. But just outside the studio is this patio and fire pit, and we figured we’d cut it outside, just pull the microphone out the door. I was really trying to get a campfire vibe going on, which is a cowboy tradition, and really went with the nature of the song. So I went out there and started a little fire, and recorded it that way. It was a lot easier, and it turned out great.

Did this project satisfy your urge to make a real Western album? Where will you go from here?

Yeah, I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I had more of an idea of what I wanted going into the studio than ever before, and I’m proud of it. As for the future, I’ve got a few ideas of where I might want to go, but it’s hard to say this early. I’ve been playing a lot more shows with my new band, and we’ve been messing around with some interesting sounds, but I just hope people enjoy this one when it comes out. After that we can start worrying about the next one.

Photo credit: Little Jack Films

Finding Universals: A Conversation with Loreena McKennitt

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Loreena McKennitt is both a Romantic and a pragmatist. During a thirty-year career that began with her busking on the Toronto subway and led to composing a new work for the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Canadian singer-songwriter-producer-historian has dug deep into European musical traditions (the Celts in particular) and has found vivid inspiration in the Romantic poets (Keats and Yeats in particular). Her music strives for a dreamy kind of beauty, often described as ethereal but usually rooted deep in the soil of her native Canada and her ancestral Ireland.

And yet, she admits the impetus behind, Lost Souls, her first album of new material in more than a decade, was largely practical: “The fact that there hadn’t been anything new was becoming a bit conspicuous. We had a number of people writing to ask if I was going to come out with a soothing original ever again.” In addition to writing a handful of new songs, McKennitt pored through her own archives, finding old songs—some written in the late 1980s—that spoke to her. “There were songs I had written along the way that didn’t fit my previous recordings, so I started looking at those songs again. I thought, yes, they’re a bit like lost souls.”

The songs may have disparate origins, but Lost Souls is neither a rarities compilation nor a retrospective. Rather, the album holds together as a larger statement, as one song after another expounds on the implications of its title: loss and yearning, travel and transience both geographic and temporal, even the end of humanity on Earth.

Can you tell me about putting this album together? It doesn’t sound like a bunch of songs you had lying around.

If I look at it objectively, I suppose it makes sense. There are various composers of music who have stayed within a certain realm of their sensibilities. Even if they wrote something years ago, the material itself has the connection to the person who wrote it. Also, we recorded these songs all freshly within the last year, so I was able to bring a lot of the aesthetic and approach of recent recordings to it. And I am blessed with an incredible bank of talented musicians.

What was it like to revisit these songs and engage with them again?

It was interesting going back to previous mindsets. “Ages Past Ages Hence,” I wrote it somewhere around ’89 or ’90. I remember performing it at the Toronto Winter Garden in 1990. It was at a time when I was listening to Kate Bush. I really liked the angular approach she takes on some of her music, so I thought it might be interesting to head in that direction. “The Breaking of the Sword,” I wrote it about a year and a half ago. I was commissioned to write that piece, but I wrote the melody in 2006 or maybe even earlier than that and only put the words to it last year. Those lyrics mean a lot to me and that’s the piece I would say probably connects most to where I am today.

It’s interesting that “Ages Past Ages Hence” is so old. It seems to fulfill the theme of the song to have it waiting around for so long.

When I think of that song, I remember I was living in a rented farmhouse and my writing desk looked out a window into a wooded area. A lot of the trees were quite mature, probably 100 or 150 years old, and I remember many times reflecting on what they had seen during their lives. They were witnesses to whoever lived there and all the human folly in a more general sense over the years. That sentiment connects to my own Celtic history. The Celts had a major connection with trees. They felt that trees perhaps embodied some of their ancestors, as many indigenous people have, and they felt the trees played a special role on this planet. So the fact that I had this Celtic heritage and this connection with trees is probably not surprising. Also, I wanted to be a veterinarian at one point in my life, and if I hadn’t gone into music, I probably would have gone into wildlife conservation or forestry.

These things are all tied together, and then everything comes together in the last song, “Lost Souls,” which was based on a book I read a few years ago by an anthropologist called Ronald Wright. He studied civilizations as one might study the black boxes of aircraft that have gone down, and he observed that over the millennia we as a species have a tendency to get us into progress traps. We might very well be caught in one now. He observed that around the time of the industrial revolution, we went from being concerned about our moral progress to being more interested in our technical progress. He cites the denuding of the landscape on this planet as one of the big progress detriments, because it’s so integral to oxygen and water retention. All of these things go swimming through my mind as I’m stitching together the recording, which becomes a bit like a quilt.

These are songs about travel, which don’t just mention the places but incorporate the music of those places as well. 

I love listening to these various instruments played in their idioms, so part of it is pretty selfish. Secondly, there is the thrill of getting to share that excitement with other people. Bringing in the flamenco player from Málaga gives the music an authenticity that it perhaps wouldn’t have if someone else played that part. So it’s a combination of respect to those cultures and the gratification it gives me to share that with other people as one might share a new recipe with friends.

But it is complex territory. It’s been fresh on my mind because I was listening to an interesting BBC program about the upsides and downsides of selecting music from other cultures and putting it into your own. Some people say, “Hey, that’s our culture. You shouldn’t be taking that.” Other people say, “Wow, I’m going to visit that place and that culture and I’m going to listen to more groups that play flamenco.” I like to think that music is a timeless and international language, and there’s nothing I want to do to damage the distinctiveness of that voice or compromise what I love about, but I love to draw and weave those things into my own music in an honest and meaningful way. I think that manifests itself in “The Breaking of the Sword,” where the military band evokes a very particular feeling, and I felt that nothing but the military band would do.

You debuted that song on Remembrance Day last year. What was the response to it?

There were people who were surprised that I had created a piece like that. But other people were less surprised because they knew my connection to the Canadian military. I’m an honorary colonel of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which in itself is a surprise to people. I was commissioned to write something for the ceremony a year ago, which was at Vimy Ridge in France and commemorates a World War I battle. In the end, the producers decided they wanted me to sing something from [McKennitt’s 1997 album] The Book of Secrets. I was already writing this song, and I thought to myself, if I don’t put it on the recording, it too will become a lost soul. There was a lot of discussion and debate about whether or not it should go on Lost Souls, because it’s not the kind of piece I would have thought to create without being commissioned.

It seems to echo a theme of impossible longing, in particular with this mother wishing for the return of her dead son. It seems like a story that keeps happening and continues to have meaning across every culture.

I think that speaks to what I’m striving for: to come at the concept of lost souls from different directions. “The Breaking of the Sword” is a snapshot of an experience that I think most people who have had someone perish in a military exercise will relate to. I wanted to take great pains not to get trapped in the winning side or the losing side or the right side or the wrong side. Rather, I wanted the song to sit in the simple zone of a family losing a loved one. On one level, it’s about a mother losing a son. But there’s another layer, one that many people may not realize: The military is another kind of family, and it’s a powerful bond amongst those who serve. I’m reminded of that each year when I go down to the cenotaph each year.

I like to think that sense of loss is something that is timeless and universal, which means we shouldn’t get trapped by questions like, “Is it in support of the military? Or is it not?” All of that is another conversation, a very important one for sure, but this was just simply about losing someone who believes they are fighting for the betterment of humanity. It’s about the simplicity of losing someone who defends what they believe in.

Photo credit: Richard Haughton

LISTEN: The Small Glories, ‘Holding On’ (alternate take)

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Artist: The Small Glories
Hometown: Winnipeg, MB
Song: "Holding On” (alternate take)
Album: Wondrous Traveler
Label: TSG Music

In Their Words: "Here's an alternate take on our song 'Holding On.' The funny thing is that it's actually the original version of the song. I co-wrote it with a wonderful Alberta-based writer named Karla Anderson, and it was just banjo and voice. As JD and I were getting ready to record our debut album, we brought the song to our producer (Neil Osborne) and presented it the way it had been written, adding a second vocal part (JD's harmony). Neil absorbed the song and then said, 'Cara, are you willing to go on a journey with me?'

I had worked with Neil before and I knew he was about to take the song apart and have me re-visit it. His thinking was that the banjo version didn't serve the lyrics. He reminded me that the song is actually quite sad, that there's a depth to it that he felt was being overlooked when played up tempo with the banjo. He had us slow the tempo right down, throw in minor chords, and play it on guitar. It was an interesting experience then to have to tap into what the song was really about and to re-visit it in a different 'voice,' so to speak. And I think he was right.

As a writer, I often find myself composing something and not being completely aware of what I'm writing about, and that was the case with this song. I hadn't realized how sad I actually was, how alone I felt, how disconnected I felt. I was masking the content of the lyrics behind the happiness of the banjo sound. But we've also come to love the original version of the song, and we all agree that the original still has merit, still is beautiful, and still has power." — Cara Luft

Photo credit: Stefanie Atkinson

STREAM: Claire Lynch, ‘North by South’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Claire Lynch
Hometown: Huntsville, AL
Album: North by South
Release Date: September 16
Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: "Canada was first on my radar when I was a kid growing up in central New York state. My mother claimed 'everything from Canada' was 'better.' A few years ago, I met and developed a friendship with a fan from over the border, listened to the music of his country, and was delighted by all the songs and songwriters who subsequently became a part of this project. I’m told it's the best album I’ve done to date and, though the jury might still be out on that notion, I can say with all sincerity I'm 'powerful proud' of North by South. Oh, and with my mother's words ringing in my ears, I took such a liking to that Canadian fan I married the guy!" — Claire Lynch

Canadian Cousins Exploring Strange Countries: A Conversation with Kacy & Clayton

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Cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum may hail from Canada — specifically the isolated Wood Mountain Uplands in Saskatchewan — but their music is by no means limited to that geographical region. Fans of older sounds than what they heard playing on the radio growing up, they sought out British folk and American roots music that broadened their horizons and went on to influence their own take on these classic traditions.

Their new album, Strange Country, contains darker subject matter that belies the pair’s young age: Kacy at 19 and Clayton at 21 write music far beyond their years. With Clayton’s clear, articulate guitar guiding the songs along and Kacy’s woeful, emotionally laden vocals — sliding from soprano to a weighted alto and back again — the pair have penned an album that feels woozy at times for the heights it soars and the depths it reaches, all dealing with tragedies in one way or another. Strange Country feels solemn and especially grave, both figuratively and literally. The album’s last song, “Dyin’ Bed Maker,” is a murder ballad Kacy wrote from the point of view of a female. The sheer desire that arises from the song’s melody and lyricism feels overwhelming: “I know he loved me best. I know he loved me best,” Kacy sings, her voice edging on provocation against Clayton’s mournful guitar.

It seems like the younger generations are largely interested in the past in an ironic sense. How do you keep your engagement more genuine?

Kacy: I think you can kind of stray away from clichés. If you know about certain song topics or things that have been overdone, in different periods or over time, then you can kind of be aware of that and draw from lesser-known influences. Yeah, just go for a more uncommon influence, I guess.

Clayton: Wow, that is so true. I did not realize that. [Laughs] This is educational for me, too. Keep ‘em coming, Kacy. That was genuine tone and it came off as sarcastic.

How do you avoid appropriating a musical tradition?

Clayton: I think not dressing like pioneers.

Kacy: Yeah, I think that’s actually the main thing. And not having press photos that show us churning butter and riding on wagons with a team of horses.

Clayton: That is one thing that we’ve really been striving for, is to take influence from that older world but not try and put on a theatre production.

Kacy: It’s cool if it’s done really well, but I don’t think I’m capable of being … like there are certain people, like Frank Fairfield, he’s just — I don’t know how to say this in a non-cheesy way because everything that’s come to mind is a total mom phrase — so authentic and he doesn’t try, but that’s where all of his interests are. He has no regards for the current world. There are certain people like that who can do it real well. Personally, I don’t think I can, so I’m not going to wear suspenders and little old timey shoes. That does not make sense for me, because I don’t want to spend all my time trying to find woven pants and stuff. That’s a whole new level of hard work.

Clayton: And hard work to wear them.

Especially in the Summer.

Clayton: Oh, yeah.

Kacy: I do also love pioneer clothes and acting in pioneer dramas that my Aunt Thelma writes.

Obviously, you’re both very young, but there’s a weighted solemnity about your music that suggests someone much older and experienced. Where does that sensibility come from?

Kacy: I think that it mostly just comes from listening to traditional music from certain areas where it’s so dark, and you are consumed by tragedy and death and music relating to hard parts of life, experiences you haven’t really had. I don’t know anyone that’s been murdered or anything. But you can listen to a murder ballad and get a sense for it and relate to it and try and make your own stories or work off of things that you heard. I think just talking about kind of heavy subject matter makes the music seem a little more mature.

Do you find that since you’re singing about characters that you almost inhabit characters?

Kacy: Yeah, I think when there’s a strong character in a song or a good story or something, you feel attached to it. You put yourself in the situation. I guess that’s the fun thing about singing songs: It’s getting to sing from other people’s perspective. With folk music, for sure. It’s not as fun to sing your own songs, because you know yourself. It’s boring.

You hail from the prairie provinces, but some of your songs, especially “Down at the Dance Hall,” have an Acadiana feel. What interests you about that sound?

Clayton: Well, if you’re wondering about where that influence came from, we were both listening to a lot to the Balfa Brothers around the time we recorded the album. Kacy had been playing around with the fiddle and I thought, "Who do we know that could play button accordion?" And the answer was not really anyone, so then I tried to learn the accordion and learned about two songs, and played it briefly on that song. That’s about all the progress I’ve made. It happened in about a month and then stopped.

Are you going to pick up the accordion again?

Clayton: You know, I think I will. I would like to take some lessons. I had a couple homespun Dirk Powell DVDs, which are great. I just need to motivate myself a little more. And someone gave us a negative review. They called it "unnecessary accordion," so that was a bit of a blow.

Kacy: Yeah, that’s a major blow.

I can see how that’s a set back, but don’t let it derail any future accordion plans.

Clayton: I won’t. I was just fishing for some pity. I think I was successful in that, so thank you.

Take me through your recording process. How did the frozen wilderness surrounding the recording studio eke its way into the record?

Kacy: It definitely made everything a little bit more urgent. When I was singing, I felt kind of tense and the studio furnace kicked out at a certain point. We had to wear mittens and coats when we could. When I heard the album, I was surprised by how fast all the songs were. I think it was just because it was cold. I would like to make a record in the Summer. I feel like you get a definitely laidback sound.

Yeah, it would languish a bit.

Clayton: We’ve made all of our albums in the Winter.

Kacy: Yeah, or even just record in a warmer climate during the Winter.

Are there any modern artists you admire?

Clayton: We definitely like Jason Molina. Is that what you were going to say Kacy? Did I steal that from you?

Kacy: No, I just said Jason Molina’s dead, so that’s not current.

Clayton: Well, I know that he’s dead but he’s …

Right, like artists in the past 20 years or so.

Clayton: I really like Ryley Walker and Daniel Bachman. I like what they did on the guitar a lot.

Clayton, do you tend to listen to instrumental songwriters or narrative songwriters?

Clayton: I tend to listen to mostly old country music these days, like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and that kind of songwriting. I think Kacy and I both are pretty influenced by that style of country imagery and country storytelling. We try to bring that into our British folk influences, as well, which is kind of what Richard Thompson was doing back in the Richard and Linda days. He was really into Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, but he’s also got the traditional British stuff.

That’s the interesting thing about watching artists develop. Once they introduce listeners to their own sound, they can begin stretching themselves by incorporating influences more heavily.

Clayton: It takes a while to get comfortable enough to try and mimic a style that you’re not really known for or what people expect. But I think that it’s kind of good for a longer career, if you’re able to do that.

And also for your own personal growth. I want to turn to murder ballads. I noticed that you composed “Dyin’ Bed Maker” from the perspective of a female. What provoked you to explore that subject matter in that way?

Kacy: I took influence from “Henry Lee,” where it’s just a lady and she’s very rancid. She does some dirty deeds. Basically, that one lacks a lot of detail — the storyline — I think, but I kind of liked that about it. There are no real characters introduced or anything.

Speaking of writing, how does the composition process work?

Kacy: We write back and forth, and then work together — try and come up with something good.

Clayton: It’s kind of a filtering process, you know? We both trust each other’s opinions and sometimes it’s kind of frustrating if something is rejected by the other person, but in the end, it’s kind of rewarding because you feel that much better about the songs if they pass through two minds. I think that’s something unique that you don’t get just working on songs by yourself.

Kacy: Yeah, having a person that you trust as much or more than yourself that can give just an opinion or change something or tell you what they think. Like things that I might be unsure about and then Clayton might think is really great, or maybe I’m really confident in it and Clayton thinks it’s awful and tries to cover it up by saying, "It’s fine, but …"

Is that how conversations usually go? There’s no nitty gritty critique?

Clayton: I say Kacy usually gives me the nitty gritty, and I have to dance around my point a lot.

Kacy: Well, your songs are really annoying.

Clayton: My songs are really annoying? Sheesh, I didn’t expect to get that on this interview call. I think what Kacy was saying is that she doesn’t really hold back with me, and I think what I’m saying is that’s just the way it is.

Photo credit: Dane Roy

Kacy & Clayton, ‘Brunswick Stew’

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There's something happening north of the border these days. From Corb Lund's dreary Albertan cowboy to the serene melodies of Toronto's Doug Paisley, Canadians are currently pumping out some of our strongest, most mood-evocative roots music — which is rather humorous, being that the genre we're really talking about here is "Americana." Turns out, you don't have to be American at all to have a master grasp on the folk tradition. Actually, if you look at Lund, Paisley, Lindi Ortega, Whitehorse, Daniel Romano, and now, Kacy & Clayton, it's almost better if you're not.

A duo of second cousins from a remote region in Saskatchewan, Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum grew up five hours away from the nearest record store — but that didn't stop them from becoming students of the great blues and country storytellers like the Carter Family and Lead Belly, even if it required prying copies from their neighbors or enduring numerous long drives. Strange Country, their first release for New West, is a set of murder ballads, eerie exploits, and haunting snippets in time, driven by Kacy's high, pristine quiver and Clayton's fast and fertile plucks which render the need for bigger orchestration utterly useless. Like Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence," their folk songs always hover on the line of beauty and unease, a lullaby to the dawn of one day but a precursor to an uncertain future lingering right on the horizon.

One of their most compelling tracks is "Brunswick Stew," a jauntier version of their melodic palate, which is not the least bit jaunty in subject matter: It's about a girl who hid her pregnancy from her parents and dumps the resulting newborn in the river. Cautionary tales of small-town scandal have made a bit of a comeback lately, thanks to the likes of Kacey Musgraves or Brandy Clark's brilliant "Big Day in a Small Town" (a song which, coincidentally, also tells of a growing belly that turned out not to be a bunch of donuts, but a baby). Many new interpreters of folk get caught up in the urge to confess — the intimacy of voice and guitar bends well to that, and it's a tempting place to land. But Kacy & Clayton aren’t interested in making a musical diary; they prefer to dig deep into their imaginations, not their memories, for material. The result is Americana magic, regardless of their passport.

LISTEN: David Myles, ‘When It Comes My Turn’

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Nova Scotian singer/songwriter David Myles has an interesting palette of musical colors from which he paints. On one cut, he brings the folky finesse of James Taylor. On the next, he'll turn to the cool jazz of Chet Baker. On still another, he might inject the raucous rock of Chuck Berry. Add on a political science degree and some fluency in Chinese, and the combination is what has turned Myles into an award-winning artist in his homeland.

Down here in the States, Myles makes his debut on September 25 with So Far. It's a collection of songs culled from his catalog, deconstructed and built anew. That sort of shape-shifting is what makes Myles so popular. In fact, his 2013 "Inner Ninja" collaboration with hip-hop artist Classified is the best-selling rap single in Canadian music history. So Far doesn't go quite, well, that far. One track, “When It Comes My Turn,” is about as far away from rap as you can get.

"I often say that 'When It Comes My Turn' was written during my quarter-life crisis,” Myles says. “I was on a really slow bus through Alberta. I was feeling old — feeling like I was turning the corner into adulthood, settling into the next stage of life. So I was thinking, if I'm gonna be an adult, I want to do it right. I don't want to go down a path of cynicism and unhappiness that can so easily happen as life wears on. So I wrote myself this little memo. And it became the song. Now I sing it at shows every night. It reminds me to stay focused on the important stuff. Now I can't become that old cynical grump I may have one day become.”

Myles continues, “The other interesting part of the song is that, though I thought it would be mainly 20-somethings going through quarter-life crises in mind that would feel a connection with the song, it's resonated most significantly with my parent's generation. Those who are transitioning into retirement or the later stages of life have really grabbed on to this song, and I'm so happy about that. Shows you that the word 'old' is such a perfectly relative term. It's all in how you think of it."

Photo by Riley Smith