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Album reviews Music

Tony Dekker

Rating: NNN


Joni Mitchell once said that without having reached a moment of clarity about a challenging situation, a musician is often just using his or her lyrics to complain. It’s a keen observation most musicians would do well to note.

Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers is an especially vivid lyricist. On the opening track of the Toronto singer/songwriter’s solo album, he notes “the smell of gasoline from the handle of the cab.” A line like that instantly transports, and the loneliness of the song hits at gut level.

But add in the album’s weary, somewhat frail vocals and spare acoustic arrangements and a sense of self-pity begins to seep in.

Still, delicate guitar-picking and emotional melodies abound, the production is nicely unfussy and there is some cozy comfort to be taken in the 10 songs, including covers of Gordon Lightfoot’s Carefree Highway and Human Sexual Response’s Land Of The Glass Pinecones that Dekker makes his own.

Top track: Hearing Voices

Tony Dekker plays the Heliconian Hall on January 24.

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