Nat's Most Anticipated Albums of 2018

Nat's Most Anticipated Albums of 2018

The Essex Green- Untitled 4th studio album- TBD 2018
The Sasha Bell Band- Untitled solo album- TBD 2018
Sweet Talk Radio- Horology- April 6th, 2018
Laura Veirs- The Lookout- April 13th, 2018
Chris Hickey- Lost Dogs in the Courtyard- April 17th, 2018
Michael Feuerstack- Natural Weather- May 25th, 2018
 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks- Sparkle Hard- May 18th, 2018
Snow Patrol-Wildness- May 25th, 2018
Neko Case- Hell-On- June 1st, 2018
Dar Williams- TBD- 2018 
Amy Annelle- High Country- TBD 2018
The Cowboy Junkies- 16th studio album- TBD 2018
Elk City- Everybody's Insecure- already released
The Decemberists- I'll Be Your Girl- already released
Jann Arden- These are the Days- already released
Yo La Tengo- There's a Riot Going On- already released
Brigid Mae Power- The Two Worlds- already released
Belle and Sebastian- How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt 2 EP- already released
Belle and Sebastian- How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt 3 EP- already releasedJohanna Warren- Gemini II-already released
Heather McEntire- Lionheart- already released
Beth Nielsen Chapman- Hearts of Glass- already released
Katell Keineg- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2018
Elysian Fields- Untitled 9th studio album- TBD 2018
Jill Sobule- Nostalgia Kills- TBD 2018
Mirah- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2018 
Steven Page- Heal Thyself, Pt 2, Discipline- TBD 2018
Fond Farewells (includes Megan Reilly)- Untitled debut album- TBD 2018
Samara Lubelski- Untitled 8th solo album- TBD 2018
Same Waves- Algorithm of Desire- TBD 2018
Sophie B. Hawkins- Free Myself- TBD 2018
My Brightest Diamond- Untitled 5th studio album- TBD 2018
Jenny Lewis- Untitled 4th solo album- TBD 2018
Tracy Shedd- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2018
Guster- Untitled 8th studio album- TBD 2018/2019
Mates of State- Untitled 7th studio album- TBD 2018
Nicole Campbell- Untitled 4th solo album- TBD 2018
The Starfolk- Untitled 2nd studio album- TBD 2018
Dido- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2018
Corrina Repp- Untitled 7th solo album- TBD 2018
Noe Venable- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2018
Jenn Champion- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2018
Tiger Saw- Untitled 7th studio album- TBD 2018 


Hannah Marcus- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 
Versus- Untitled 6th studio album- TBD 
Nina Nastasia- Untitled 7th solo album- TBD
Lucy Kaplansky- Untitled 8th solo album- TBD

Nat's Top Albums of 2017

Nat's Top Albums of 2017

1) Tara Jane O'Neil- self-titled
2) cynthia nelson band- out of the cave
3) Shelley Short- Pacific City
4) Kris Delmhorst- The Wild
5) The Weather Station- self-titled
6) Devon Sproule- The Gold String
7) Jennifer Kimball- Avocet
8) o+s- You Were Once the Sun, Now You're the Moon
9) Amelia Curran- Watershed
10) Destroyer- ken
11) Belle and Sebastian- How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt. 1 (EP)
12) Sam Amidon- The Following Mountain
13) Lotte Kestner- Off White
14) Sarah White- High Flyer
15) Mary Lorson- Themes from Whatever
16) The Clientele- Music for the Age of Miracles
17) Paula Frazer and Tarnation- What Is and Was
18) Stars- There is No Love in Fluorescent Light
19) Rose Cousins- Natural Conclusion
20) Grandaddy- Last Place
21) David Rawlings- Poor David's Almanack
22) Tori Amos- Native Invader
23) Kathryn Williams- Songs from the Novel Greatest Hits
24) Shannon Wright- Division
25) Juliana Hatfield- Pussycat
26) Aimee Mann- Mental Illness

Cynthia Nelson- "out of the cave" pre-listening write-up

Cynthia Nelson- "out of the cave" pre-listening write-up
Written by Nat Bourgon
Autumn 2017

During my university days, I met a friend who shared a very similar way at looking at the world as me. We both spoke the same soul language. We generated positive vibes through our determination to take the basic and unpronounced happenings we experienced, and look relentlessly for the pizzazz, exquisiteness and loudness in these unassuming, seemingly quiet occurrences. It was about taking any occupancy of time, in and out of our day planners, even the minutes that could be perceived as just filler-like moments of transition, and viewing them as occasions of opportunity, memorable events worth indulging in fully and learning from. We viewed outings such as hour-long coffee hangouts just to yap about our days, and walks across campus from one class to the next as life adventures.

From my ongoing journey with this friend, I have learned that the subtle moments in our lives have a lot to say, if we carve out space to truly listen attentively to their faint but enlightened soundtrack. Now, seven years on from graduating university, adulthood’s responsibilities have tried to encroach upon these beliefs about seeking beauty and magnificence in the everyday. But luckily for me, immersing myself in the realm of creativity has helped keep the burden and encumbrance of life’s more taxing demands at bay, or at least in equilibrium with freedom, awakening and exploration. On the days when I am feeling flat, when the voices of an imaginative lifestyle are barely audible, I am lucky to have the songs of Cynthia Nelson to turn to, for a pint or two of passion, refills on the house.

Cynthia Nelson is my favourite lyricist and poet because she takes words that nobody would think of putting together and places them in the same room, informing them something to the effect of “you might be gems on your own, but together you can be more”. Invigorated by Nelson’s spunky charm and her encouraging push, the words then pool their formidable individual talents together to become harmonious housemates in a communal living scenario that all parties would deem not only functional, but life enriching. It’s Nelson that makes this word bonding happen.

Nelson’s gift is helping words be their best through collaboration with other words. Nelson instructs words that it is through joining forces with other words, especially the words not on each other’s radar, which allows them to offer the supplest quality of feeling possible. Nelson’s choices of word combinations are curious and unexpected. And she has a way of patiently revealing pieces of her message, before her overarching principle lands strikingly, with the transparency of a gut feeling just dawning on you. Her lyrical concerns often start off seeming quite self-reliant and distinct from one another, before the connection between them gradually becomes more and more apparent. Her songs’ thesis statements are first teased, and then strike like a surprise appearance by an adamant gust of wind that snaps you out of your plans, and into a state of attentive absorption with nature’s assertiveness. The realizations in the climax of Nelson’s songs hit you like hunger, and leave you ruminating on what else you have to learn from her.

“I was taken to the ocean

Several times a week

Walked right into the ocean

Every week

Flew right over the ocean

Over the sea

I knew my heart was an ocean

How could this be?

For weeks you drew a question mark

And I answered with a question

For years I was a question mark

And I answered with an answer

How could this be?

Alas

Alas

Alas

For weeks we went to the sea

And I had shovels and sand

Shovels and sand

And a little boy holding my hand

How could this be?

Alas

Developed the pictures so many months after

Believe in a name so much, it’s disaster, disaster, disaster

She knows what I’m after

She knows what I’m after

She knows what I’m after

She knows what I’m after”

(Cynthia Nelson- Ocean Question) (The Sophie Drinker Record- 2004).

It is not just her lyrics that allows for Cynthia Nelson’s music to stand out. Her guitar playing is keen, agile and heated, even during the most instrumentally minimal segments. Her voice is filled with longing and intensity, utilizing a delivery that flip-flops between playful and profound.

One of Cynthia’s contributions to 1998 Retsin album “Sweet Luck of Amaryllis” entitled “We Are the Rings” showcases her songwriting craft. She particularly thrives at these conversational, heartfelt musical and lyrical sketches of the human heart and its intricacies. “Rings” is one of my favourite love songs of all time, and is a great starting point for Nelson newbies.  2001 poetry book “The Kentucky Rules” changed my life. She makes words come to life in such an animated way that stretches the limits of what words can and should do. Her 2006 solo album “Homemade Map” helped me get through a devastating breakup in the autumn of 2012, with its ability to honestly greet a romantic relationship’s shine and its shortcomings with acceptance and appreciation, instead of with denial and resistance.

Cynthia Nelson translates a crinkled emotion to a chance. She finds a new era of satisfaction in an erosion of supposed wrong turns.  Nelson’s music is a light bulb changer for our minds, helping us find optimism in our outliers, and courage in our conditions. Cynthia Nelson’s songs provide close-up, unimpeded “selfies” on life’s smaller-scale moments, zooming in on their textures, arrangements and complexion, revealing to us that these moments are worth making close friends with, instead of merely acquaintances, worth getting to know intimately instead of half-heartedly.

Five years ago, I wrote a review of “Homemade Map” and emailed it to Cynthia Nelson. Cynthia and I have been trading emails ever since, me repeatedly inquiring with her about progress on a new album, her graciously sharing tidbits and progress notes over the years.  

On October 11^th, 2017, Cynthia Nelson releases her new album “Out of the Cave.” Teaming up with new bandmates, the release will don the moniker "Cynthia Nelson Band.” The title seems fitting, as it marks her first full-length album in seven years, since 2010’s “In a Lab.”

The concept of “blue” as a metaphor or motif for love is a thread that has run through Nelson’s work since her career beginnings in the 90’s. Cynthia Nelson’s storytelling has indeed been tinged in blue since her music’s inception. From 1994 track “Pink River” (“I can’t feel blue in my blue room”) through 1998 standout “The Story of One Party” (“my blue eyes were there”) to the 2001 tune “Tangerine Moon” with its implied mention of blue through “catching fish” (whom live in water, which is blue), along to 2004’s  “Ocean Question” (detailing love’s complications) and “Drink the River” (love undone, wishing that washing herself clean of love would be as easy as gulping water), onto 2006’s “Blue Receiver” (about passing the love torch and moving onto a new partner, love’s receiver), all the way to newer EP song “Sand Dollars/Paper Dollars” mentioning being “broken by dreams and seaweed streams”, Nelson has long been reporting on love’s specifications and impact.

I haven’t heard her new album yet, but I know it will be a game-changer as the cover art has the colour blue all over it, in both font and illustration. Life is good! A new Cynthia Nelson album awaits, and with it comes another opportunity to reflect on her deep meditations on love, to gasp at new layers in her wordsmith proficiency, to immerse ourselves in her singular voice of strength and clarity, and to groove to her propulsive, pliable guitar lines.

“Out of the Cave”, Cynthia Nelson’s new album, confidently comes out of the cave and into our speakers on October 11^th, via her Non Stop Co-Op label. It is available via bandcamp at https://cynthianelson.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-the-cave-2

Tara Jane O'Neil- self-titled album review

 Tara Jane O'Neil- self-titled album review

Written by Nat Bourgon

August 6th 2017

Tara Jane O’Neil has an unforgettable, special presence about her that draws listeners into her love-lit, luminous space of sincerity and openness. O’Neil is a free spirit, and her songs depict her nomadic lifestyle of curiosity and exploration. Her sounds emit a patience and repose, while endorsing a striving, active, playful, experiential approach that envisions life as a string of adventures worth taking part in.

Listening to Tara Jane’s music is a spiritual experience. Her music has a cleansing, therapeutic virtue; it filters out the blame and bemoaning, and invites you to try to become friends with your own self. When I hear Tara’s celestial, remedying vocal chord vibrations correspond with her wavy, uninhibited passages of sound, I feel as though I am consorting with angels, soaking up their sage discernments on freedom, balance and alignment.

On her new 2017 self-titled album, O’Neil consciously lets her voice make the leap from supporting instrument rafting in a pond of talkative guitar parts to headlining act with a vibrant soundboard and a higher microphone volume level, providing her tunes with assurance and decisiveness. Partially recorded at the renowned studio “The Loft” (Wilco’s studio) in Chicago, Tara Jane’s songs feel bolder and more amplified this time around, like the sound of a cliffhanger being untangled, the suspense resolving into clarity, the question marks discovering their answers.

Tara Jane’s songs recalibrate my agenda to consent to change’s alterations while putting up less resistance to the resulting incongruent tilts. O’Neil’s work sustains my quests, cements my bond with truth, energizes my means to pursue longstanding dreams, and simplifies my feelings.

O’Neil is a leader worth marching behind in unequivocal support of. To me, her songs stand for the art of seeking, the fascination and euphoria that dwells in passionate pursuits, and the ripples that possibility makes. O’Neil’s music has taught me about how love is a constant seesaw between acceptance and invention; of embracing reality’s structuring caveats and utilizing imagination’s inexhaustible enthusiasm for transformation. In O’Neil’s music, there can be harmony in precarious postures, and there can be heavenly hugs in the midst of testing hurdles.  

Sharing a kinship of directness with her 2000 debut “Peregrine”, Tara Jane O’Neil’s self-titled album models how to push the envelope forward and evolve with the ambitious hankering and aspiring gusto of a flower immersed in the sprouting stage of a coming-of-age flick, the bloom season now and ongoing. That she is able to be such a proponent of assortment and range, while being faithful to her musical wardrobe of coherence that she has been stylishly sporting since the early 90s is an indicator of O’Neil’s uniqueness and importance in the contemporary scene, in both music and in life. O’Neil’s songs make hope more feasible; they make love more conceivable. These are songs worth believing in; songs about what it takes to believe.

Devon Sproule- The Gold String

Devon Sproule- The Gold String

a review by Nat Bourgon

March 27th 2017

"The Gold String" is what I call "spunky poetics." It is Devon Sproule's most fully realized culmination to date of her playful, spunky musical and lyrical persona, and her deep, poetic intensity. Her music and singing emits this committed, persistent flare. Vocally, she takes turns between utilizing a whimsical and frolicsome bounce in her singing step, and a graceful, earnest mist of tenderness. She has a way with words that leave me in awe. Sproule has this singular ability to take unrelated concepts and ideas and place them under the same roof so they end up as chummy and compatible as random roommates turned friends. "Trees at Your Mom's" is a career highlight, for how it tries to wrap life's quivers in a consoling bandage of light. The tune makes climbing over obstacles more feasible, by viewing her obstructions as an adventure to set out on, to rise to. The title track "The Gold String" is intimate, and dazzling like an all encompassing daydream, worth letting yourself partake fully in. The track is filled with a childlike wonder, and shows us the path to maintain a non cynical, faithful tone into adulthood's sometimes restrictive mural. "Jana" is a hard nosed, athletic tale that plays like a coming of age story for a late bloomer. Musically it is more rugged and unshaven than most of the album, offering contrast and balance. It gives the untamed some tough love, yet is also accepting and supportive. "More Together" is a bubbling ode to a longstanding relationship that is sparkling through time, honouring the relationship's ability to change and evolve to reflect the growth of the couple's members. When I listen to Devon’s music, I feel motivated to get out there proactively as an initiator in life, to make things happen. Her tunes leave me with a "go get er" mentality. Devon's music has tenacity and boldness, yet also patience and poise. "The Gold String" is the finest Devon Sproule album to date.

Shannon Wright- Division

Shannon Wright- Division

a review by Nat Bourgon

February 5th 2017

Shannon Wright's music usually conjures up the feeling of being stuck in a creaky, unfamiliar science lab late at night, right as it dawns on you that the experiment you are in the midst of has gone wrong, off course. Even in Wright's most harmonious passages, there is always an underlying tension in play; an alarming, anxious feeling that frenzy is inevitable, just biding its time, awaiting its impulsive moment of infliction.

On her 1999 debut album "Flightsafety",  there is a thread of instrumental minimalism, and a lonely, broken tone that runs through her voice, which helps soothe the snaky, unrestrained nature of her songs. Her debut features an outpouring of emotion, yet the overarching temperament of the album is disheartened more than enraged.

Wright's sophomore album 2000's 'Maps of Tacit" begins with a lovelorn, introspective song called "Absentee", which continues to build upon the hushed, acoustic intensity that "Flightsafety" offered in large supply. However, as "Maps of Tacit" unravels, Wright's melancholic, reflective whisper turns to a hardened, ballsier, fiercer yelp. Emotional release evolves to ferocious outburst. It's as if she lets loose her inner mad scientist within, and asks the guitars to pipe up, and match the more piercing, harsher climate of her venting. While sometimes albums with a changed approach can get bogged down by the transition phase, the delight of "Maps of Tacit" is actually in gawking at the progression itself, as it's unfolding. "Maps of Tacit" is my favourite Shannon Wright album because it highlights the evolution of her crushing, dejected whisper increasingly morphing into a confident, dominant, commanding wail, with the instrumentation following suit, becoming more and more thorny and restless. On "Maps of Tacit", then, in the process of evolution happening before our very ears, we get both blue Shannon and blustery Shannon, without either completely succumbing to the other. To eat a scrumptious musical meal, you need to cook the ingredients together first. During the cooking, the ingredients which start out as distinct entities, slowly combine and conjoin. "Maps of Tacit" is so special because it is a real-time voyage into not the eating, but the actual musical and vocal cooking process. Wright's ingredients circle around one another, at odds, before becoming coupled, and then finally ingrained, albeit reluctantly.

Over the last seventeen years since "Maps of Tacit", Wright has covered a lot of ground. She has made abrasive, edgy sounding records that focus on her electric guitar, such as  2004's blistering "Over the Sun" and 2013's "In Film Sound", spiked with rawness and power, and she has made more melodic, and spacious albums such as 2007's piano driven, direct, cleaner "Let in the Light" and 2009's stylistically varied, and dreamier "Honeybee Girls".

I always appreciate an artist's willingness to challenge themselves to try on new musical hats; to push themselves in directions that feel uncharted, exciting, and enticing to their own selves. I have enjoyed witnessing the shifts, and variables that Wright's career has ventured through. However, I have longed for many years for Wright to make an album balanced between serenity and disruption, without masquerading the importance of either to her art. With her new album "Division", Shannon Wright has finally again tapped into the double vision, and compounded synergy that "Maps of Tacit" was birthed from, while scoring the most operative seam yet between her dissension, repose, dread, and conviction.

"Division" zeroes in on that stripped down, intimate vibe that I've always gravitated towards in Shannon Wright's past albums. Wright achieves that personal, introverted chord here, while incorporating her signature unexpected quakes of blare and discord into her work. She withdraws some of the exasperation and indignation from her voice, while maintaining her strength and verve, leading to the most proportionate, counterbalanced record of her career. She lets traces of her wistful, heartfelt head voice that I loved from "Flightsafety" back into the mix, without letting us forget about the thunderous roar that she has amassed. These songs show the most progress to date on her mission to reconcile the stillness and the storm of life through sound and lyrics. "Division" excels in its ability to harness vulnerability and backbone in tandem, and thus constitutes her most malleable, finest collection since 2000's skyscraping, pioneering "Maps of Tacit." How fitting that for an album in "Division" which seems dead set on claiming that the mad scientist is in and open for business, after prolonged renovations, a song titled "Iodine" is the penultimate chapter. "Maps of Tacit" may have revealed the path of least resistance to Wright's new office, teasing the blueprints, but it is here in "Division" where Wright seizes the keys, and decorates her new digs with both mementos and movement.