Bright Like Gold (2013)
20 tracks, 62 minutes
Spotify ∙ iTunes
For a long time, I’ve known that I want to write about an album by April Verch on this blog, but I've been unsure about which to choose, as there are two that I really like that are in rather different styles. I figured I'd make my choice when it came to it. And now The Algorithm has decided that today’s the day I write about her…and I still can’t decide. So I’m going to cheat…
Once a Day (2019)
15 tracks, 40 minutes
Bandcamp ∙ Spotify ∙ iTunes
That’s right, I’m writing about two today! And I’m counting them as one so the whole 365/every day of the year thing doesn’t get messed up. My blog, my rules. But we both have lives, you and I, so I’ll try to keep it brief…ish.
April Verch is a fiddle player, step-dancer and singer from the Ottawa Valley in Canada. She has many styles in her repertoire, and that’s why I decided to pick two. The first, Bright Like Gold, was just released when I first saw her perform live, at WOMEX in Cardiff. I’d never really considered the Canadian folk tradition before, and her show was a real eye-opener and completely spellbinding. Like Canadian culture in general, her music is reminiscent of so many other cultures that have come together into something unique. In any given piece, her fiddling can sound like zydeco one moment and Irish folk the next, her singing making like a country song but the guitar sounding Scottish. There’s a lot of bluegrass in there, even elements of Western swing and Manouche jazz.
Although there are lots of songs on this 20-track epic of an album, I feel like the focus is definitely on Verch’s fiddle playing, which is extraordinary. Not only does she bring in all of these styles in a very subtle way into her own sound and make them feel that they have always belonged in the folk tradition, but she does it with such panache, with so many extravagant slides and impressive little twiddles or slight ornamentations that give her playing a real richness. It’s a style that’s both flamboyant and flashy, but still somehow understated in what is perhaps an insensitive Canadian stereotype. I just get the feeling that it’s less ‘look how amazing and skilful and virtuosic I am’ and more like ‘hey, check out this neat thing I can do!’
But where Bright Like Gold is still grounded in the Ottawa Valley sound (even if it does go to many other places besides), this year’s Once a Day goes all the way to Nashville and stays there. This is real, high-grade country cheese. Each of the fifteen songs here are county classics from the 1950s and 1960s, rendered with a beautifully authentic sound and with an obvious joy in the performance unhindered by the lyrics of heartbreak, jealousy and betrayal. Verch still plays some fiddle here and there, injecting elements of folk into the country style (as opposed to her usual vice versa), but this album focuses much more on her singing. Her voice is distinctive – high-pitched and girlish – but it works so well within this country music setting, and when she’s joined with those delicious close harmonies, it will throw you all the way back to that classic era. This wasn’t at all what I expected from a new April Verch album, but it makes total sense in terms of her own sound, and it’s difficult not to love those schmaltzy, funny, sometimes painful and always cheesy songs and their expert arrangements.
Something that isn’t brought to the fore on either album (although there are short sections in Bright Like Gold) that definitely deserves a mention is Verch’s step-dancing. That makes sense, as it’s as much visual as it is musical, but she is a master of it. To see her graceful, playful movements somehow translated into an incredibly complex rhythmic pattern with a whole range of sounds just coming from her shoes and the floor is absolutely mesmerising. You can see a good clip of her both fiddling and step-dancing in this YouTube video, but I urge you to seek her out for a live show – her party trick of playing her virtuosic folk fiddle and creating her similarly virtuosic step-dancing at the same time is just gobsmacking. I can’t even watch telly and brush my teeth at the same time. It’s ridiculous behaviour from Verch and I heartily approve.
So that’s two albums by April Verch. They’re both so different but so great, and both worthy of your valuable time and attention. And for the purposes of this blog but absolutely nowhere else, they just happen to be classed as one single album. How weird is that?
No comments:
Post a Comment