Customer Reviews

Great Lake Swimmers

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After having massively warped my copy of "Bodies & Minds," their newest release, from overuse in my car stereo, I recently caught a GLS show at a small local music café, where tragically there were less than 20 people in attendance, and where I was first introduced to the 10 ethereal, overpowering songs from this album, their first. Tony Dekker, finger-picking a very cello-sounding Seagull guitar, laid waste to the place. His vocals alone were enough to make you put off that bathroom break for painfully long stretches of time, striking a balance between the hushed intimacy of Sam Beam's whispered lullabies and the impressive range of Tim Buckley's operatic tenor. "Moving Pictures, Silent Films," a song in which the chord progression tumbles down the pentatonic scale in 3 sorrowful little movements, put more than a few lumps in the throats of those listening. And if "Merge, A Vessel" didn't leave the entire audience grief-stricken, "This is Not Like Home" left most digging in their pockets and purses for Kleenex, or choking down beer to regain composure. While I might be making their music sound like a trip to the funeral home, consider the monumental difficulty in creating something that has both the emotional and personal resonance as such a deathly event. Then consider whether or not it is time to stop ingesting sugar-coated, sunny pop numbers that deny a dismal reality for songs that look it square in the eye and embrace it.

Or have I just been living in a bubble?

Great Lake Swimmers is one of the better bands I've heard in a long while. A refreshing deviation from the overhyped, mainstream offerings currently playing over the airwaves.

I agree with some that the songs are definitely not going to make you feel like all is sunny and sparkling in the world. They are, however, extremely beautiful and Tony Dekker's voice has a soothing quality about it that is very appealing.

I definitely hear some Neil Young influence. They also remind me a bit of South San Gabriel (specifically, Will Johnson).

If you like Iron & Wine (Sam Beam)or the artists referenced above, you'll likely enjoy this album.

Drenched in reverb, like My Morning Jacket, but much softer and with kick-ass melodies. Definitely worth listening to, especially if you are a fan of After the Gold Rush-era Neil Young.

With the execption of a few songs, Tony Dekker is the soul musician behind this very melodic and beautiful CD. Knowing that the songs were recorded in an abandoned farm silo in rural Ontario gives it a truly haunting feel. If you listen carefully you can hear a chorus of crickets in the background through out.

I am originally from Southern Ontario. I put on this CD to remember my hometown, to feel that world again. Great Lake Swimmer's music is pure Canadiana. I can hear the crickets, I recall the humid summer nights, the smell of the grass and maple trees at dusk. When I hear the first track, "Moving Pictures, Silent Films" I think of my first love, the unrequited, mysterious pangs I felt in her presence.

There is desolation in this CD ("This is not like home"), melancholy ("The Man With No Skin") but also mysticism. "Faithful night, listening" ranks with the best of the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke in terms of beauty and depth and "Merge, a vessel, a harbour" with the writings of Walt Whitman (I think of the poem "I sing the body electric") and Pablo Neruda's love poetry.

If you enjoy Iron & Wine, and Canadian musicians like Hayden and Neil Young (acoustic Young), then you'll enjoy this. This CD is indispensible. I feel in some small way it has had a great, silent impact on my life.

A great album for days spent endlessly wondering if she'll ever come back to you - if things will ever be. But be careful, it must be followed by the likes of James Brown, Sugarman 3, disco or heartfelt rock cause only real funk can break the funk you may find yourself in after listening to this beautiful overlooked best album I've discovered this year.

Imagine if you will, a young, mellow Neil Young. He has by the campfire with him: Nick Drake,Gram Nash and hopefully Emmy lou Harris and Hope Sandival. Neil, with these other superb musicians and vocalists creates this melancholy atmosphere. You can almost hear Tony Dekkers heart breaking in his voice. I don't know man, not a musical trip you want to take if you're really down,but there is beauty in sadness,and sadness in beauty. To me, this music epitomizes just that. 5 stars for that alone. Peace.

If beautiful and haunting is your thing, this self-titled debut is right up your alley. 'Great Lake Swimmers' wallows in brooding introspection, sparse acoustic guitars with smokey mellow vocals, falling somewhere in between Chris Martin and Gomez's Ben Ottwell. The songs lope and swirl along at post-rock-like Mazzy Star pace, with a twinge of My Morning Jacket/Grandaddy country twang. From the first track on, the Great Lake Swimmers overwhelms you soothing, reflective, meditative balladry.

Songs Include : Moving Pictures Silent Films / The Man With No Skin / Moving Shaking / Merge A Vessel A Harbour / I Will Never See The Sun / This Is Not Like Home / The Animals Of The World / Faithful Night Listening / Three Days At Sea - Three Lost Years / Great Lake Swimmers

The sun had already set on the Summer of Love when the apocryphally named,'America' wormed their anthemic mantra,'Horse With No Name' into popular consciousness. As banal as,'American Pie' but lacking pretentious obtuseness, we hummed along, similarily unfazed by its absurdities. This was surrealism without the joke. Which is what? An adolescent nursey rhyme looped in limbo. Which brings me to,Great Lake Swimmer's,'Bodies & Minds'. Dekker and his dudes look to be serious youg guys and they sound gorgeous. It's recorded in the suitable surrounds of an Ontarian Church. In fact the simplistic ambience of latterday Christianity is where the Decemberist's pitch is. For all the alleged Neil Young ancestry, their grittless lyrics bear about the same resemblance to their fellow Canadian as Kahil Gibran's spirituality does to the rhapsodic love poetry of Rumi. A matter of taste? What isn't. There will be plenty of advocates for these singalong pleasantries, just as several generations on, surrealist grunt and bite has devolved into prolific advertising kitsch. Singalongs are terrifically comforting and this is music for the comfort zone, at best a pale aphrodisiac. If only the Great Lake swimmers were joking.