''Lost Channels'' is the fourth studio album by
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
folk rock
Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers suc ...
band
Great Lake Swimmers
Great Lake Swimmers is a Canadian folk rock band from Wainfleet, Ontario, and currently based in Toronto.
The current touring line-up includes Tony Dekker on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica, Erik Arnesen on banjo, electric guitar and ...
, released on March 31, 2009.
It was recorded in the
Thousand Islands
The Thousand Islands (french: Mille-Îles) constitute a North American archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada–US border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. They stretch for abo ...
area near the
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
–
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
border and features several guest appearances by other artists, including
Serena Ryder
Serena most commonly refers to:
* Serena Williams (born 1981), professional tennis player
Serena may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Serena (genre), 13th-century Occitan poetic genre
* ''Serena'' (1962 film), a British crime th ...
, Bob Egan (of
Blue Rodeo
Blue Rodeo is a Canadian country rock band formed in 1984 in Toronto, Ontario. They have released 16 full-length studio albums, four live recordings, one greatest hits album, and two video/DVDs, along with multiple solo albums, side projects, a ...
), Erin Aurich (of
A Northern Chorus
A Northern Chorus was a Canadian band from Hamilton, Ontario. They released four records on the Sonic Unyon label.
History
The band was formed in 1999 by singers/guitarists Stu Livingstone and Pete Hall after their previous group, Datura Dream De ...
) and Paul Aucoin (of
The Hylozoists
The Hylozoists are a Canadian instrumental rock supergroup formed in 2001 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The band's name is derived from hylozoism and was started as a side project of record producer and multi-instrumentalist Paul Aucoin.
H ...
).
Background and recording
Great Lake Swimmers, who are "notorious" for their unconventional recording locations, recorded ''Lost Channels'' in a variety of locations in and around the
Thousand Islands
The Thousand Islands (french: Mille-Îles) constitute a North American archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada–US border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. They stretch for abo ...
, including
Singer Castle
Dark Island, a prominent feature of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, is located in the lower (eastern) Thousand Islands region, near Chippewa Bay. It is a part of the Town of Hammond, in St. Lawrence County, New York.
A historic landmark on the is ...
near
Hammond, New York Hammond is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 1,191 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from early land owner Abijah Hammond.
The Town of Hammond is in the northwestern corner of St. Lawrence County. The ...
. The band was originally invited to the Thousand Islands area by Ian Coristine, a historian and
aerial photographer from the area, after he heard the band on
Stuart McLean
Andrew Stuart McLean, (April 19, 1948 – February 15, 2017) was a Canadian radio broadcaster, humorist, monologist, and author, best known as the host of the CBC Radio program ''The Vinyl Cafe''.[The Vinyl Cafe
The Vinyl Cafe is an hour-long radio variety show hosted by Stuart McLean that was broadcast on CBC Radio and was syndicated to approximately 80 U.S. public radio stations through Public Radio International. It aired on Sunday at noon EST and ...]
''.
When
Tony Dekker
Tony Dekker is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Most noted as leader of the indie folk band Great Lake Swimmers, he has also released two solo albums.
Early life and education
Born and raised in Wainfleet, Ontario,"Tony Dekker's rural roots". ...
and the band were prepared to record a new album, they accepted Coristine's invitation and asked him if there were any "interesting spaces in the area"; one of these suggested locations was Singer Castle.
Despite a tight schedule and what Dekker called a "very limited amount of time and limited resources",
part of the band managed to travel to the castle by boat and record the vocals and acoustic instruments for several tracks.
Though most of the songs were already written by then, Dekker tried to "incorporate the mood and the imagery of the surroundings"
and "capture a little bit of the energy of the place"
into his songs; the track "Singer Castle Bells" actually consists entirely of the castle's hourly chimes. This incorporation was noted by Sarah Liss of the CBC, who wrote that "
e delicately layered banjo plucking and resonant Hammond organs that surge on the jubilant chorus of 'Pulling on a Line' draw you right into the room where the song was recorded."
The album itself is named for the Lost Channel, a spot in the Thousand Islands photographed by Coristine where a British naval boat with a crew of fourteen mysteriously vanished on August 14, 1760, because the band had "spent so much time
n the area and made such an effort to record there".
In addition to Singer Castle, the band also recorded in several locations in Ontario: the Brockville Arts Centre in
Brockville
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It i ...
, St. Brendan's Church in
Rockport, the House of Miracles in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, Halla in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, and the Lincoln County Social Club in Toronto.
Dekker has explained in concert that "Concrete Heart" was written for a project in which various Canadian musicians were asked to write songs about Toronto architecture, and "The Chorus in the Underground" was written about a concert by Canadian indie rock band
A Northern Chorus
A Northern Chorus was a Canadian band from Hamilton, Ontario. They released four records on the Sonic Unyon label.
History
The band was formed in 1999 by singers/guitarists Stu Livingstone and Pete Hall after their previous group, Datura Dream De ...
.
Reception
''Lost Channels'' was called a "beautiful" album by both ''
Uptown'' and ''
The Georgia Straight
''The Georgia Straight'' is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Overstory Media Group. Often known simply as ''The Straight'', it is delivered to newsboxes, post-secondary schools, ...
''
and "pleasantly inoffensive and well-constructed" by ''
Toro''. The band's sound was compared to "the jangly folk-pop of
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes is an American indie folk band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 2006. The band consists of Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar), Skyler Skjelset (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Casey Wescott (keyboards, mandolin, backing vocals), Ch ...
ndhushed intimacy of
Iron & Wine
Samuel "Sam" Ervin Beam (born July 26, 1974), better known by his stage name Iron & Wine, is an American singer-songwriter. He has released six studio albums, several EPs and singles, as well as a few download-only releases, which include a ...
".
A reviewer at the CBC praised the album as being the group's best, saying:
The album was a shortlist nominee for the
2009 Polaris Music Prize
The 2009 edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize was presented on September 21, 2009 in Toronto .
Track listing
# "Palmistry" – 2:34
# "Everything Is Moving So Fast" – 4:19
# "Pulling on a Line" – 3:19
# "Concrete Heart" – 3:31
# "She Comes to Me in Dreams" – 4:03
# "The Chorus in the Underground" – 3:21
# "Singer Castle Bells" – 0:48
# "Stealing Tomorrow" – 3:47
# "Still" – 2:51
# "New Light" – 3:20
# "River's Edge" – 4:21
# "Unison Falling Into Harmony" – 3:25
;
iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
-only bonus tracks
#
"It's Too Late" – 3:49
# "The Storms Are on the Ocean" – 4:05
Personnel
*Erik Arnesen – twelve-string guitar
A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...
, electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...
, tenor banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
*Paul Aucoin – vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
*Erin Aurich – violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
, backing vocals
*Tony Dekker – vocals, guitar, Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
, piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
*Bob Egan – mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
, pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...
* Julie Fader – flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
, backing vocals
*Andy Magoffin
Joel Andrew Magoffin, best known as Andy Magoffin, is a Canadian musician and record producer. He is the songwriter, vocalist and guitarist for the indie rock band Two-Minute Miracles and the touring bass guitarist for Raised by Swans.
His extensi ...
– Hammond organ
*Greg Millson
Great Lake Swimmers is a Canadian folk rock band from Wainfleet, Ontario, and currently based in Toronto.
The current touring line-up includes Tony Dekker on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica, Erik Arnesen on banjo, electric guitar and ...
– drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...
s
*Justin Nace
Sidewalk Prophets is an American contemporary Christian music band from Nashville. Their album ''These Simple Truths'' contained the single "The Words I Would Say" which is also featured on ''WOW Hits 2010'' and ''WOW Hits 2011''. The group won ...
– dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
The Dobro was originally ...
* Mike Olsen – cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
*Serena Ryder
Serena most commonly refers to:
* Serena Williams (born 1981), professional tennis player
Serena may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Serena (genre), 13th-century Occitan poetic genre
* ''Serena'' (1962 film), a British crime th ...
– vocals
*Darcy Yates – bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range:
** Bass (instrument), including:
** Acoustic bass gui ...
, backing vocals
References
{{Authority control
2009 albums
Great Lake Swimmers albums
Nettwerk Records albums