Ongiara

About

Tony Dekker understands the value of place. The Great Lake Swimmers’s debut was recorded an abandoned grain silo, their second in a lakeside church; for <i>Ongiara</i>, Dekker turned to the historic Aeolian Hall of London, Ontario, its warm acoustics and natural reverb the perfect foil for the music’s rustic textures and hushed, intimate mood. That love of place comes through in another way, too. Not quite a cycle, these songs nonetheless find their emotional center in the landscapes of Dekker’s Canadian home. In the album’s highlight, the strangely erotic “Your Rocky Spine,” the personal and the environmental are sewn so neatly together you’re never quite sure whether he’s singing about mountains or a girl: “I was lost in the lakes / And the shapes your body makes … Floating over your rocky spine / The glaciers made you / And now you’re mine.” Musically, there’s not much new here for fans of GLS’s past work, through <i>Ongiara</i> is just slightly more uptempo and higher-fi than albums past, with the odd slash of electric guitar and some nicely arranged strings lending contrast to the mournful banjo and whispery brushed snare. In this case, though, more of the same is a lovely thing: simple and stark neo-folk, like the Red House Painters or Iron and Wine mixed with a little <i>After the Gold Rush</i>-era Neil Young, the whole bound together on the strength of Dekker’s ethereal voice.

via Apple Music