The Deep Dark Woods
date: August 2, 2011
label: Six Shooter
downloads: (right click and "save link as")
photos (high res)
photo credit: Francis A Willey
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tracklist:
1. West Side Street
2. The Place I Left Behind
3. Mary's Gone
4. Virginia
5. Sugar Mama
6. The Banks of the Leopold Canal
7. Big City Lights
8. Back Alley Blues
9. I Just Can't Lose
10. Never Prove False
11. Dear John
12. The Ballad of Frank Dupree
13. Oh, What A Life
release: Winter Hours
date: February 17, 2009
label: Black Hen
downloads: (right click and "save link as")
mp3 - All The Money I Had Is Gone
tracklist:
1. Farewell
2. Nancy
3. How Can I Try
4. All The Money I Had Is Gone
5. Polly
6. The Birds On The Bridge
7. Two Time Loser
8. As I Roved Out
9. The Gallows
10. When First Into This Country
11. The Winter Hours
12. The Sun Never Shines
Release: Hang Me Oh Hang Me
Date: Sept. 11, 2007
Label: Black Hen
Downloads: (right click and "save link as")
mp3 - Hang Me, Oh Hang Me
1. Five-Hundred Meters
2. Hang Me, Oh Hang Me
3. Redwood Forest
4. River In The Pines
5. The Won't Last Long
6. Shores Of Alabama
7. By The Light Of The Moon
8. Journey Home
9. Rumble In The Sky
10. Glory Halleluajah
11. Big City Blues
Chills climb spines when sound is given room to unfurl. The Deep Dark Woods’ unflinching pursuit of steadiness between decadence and minimalism is guided at every turn by their intuitive ability to balance grit, clarity, drive and restraint with a sure focus on experimentation.
Winter Hours (2009), caught critics’ ears across the country. The album, a solemn ode to darker themes of seclusion and detachment, could yet warm even the bottomless, frozen nights of hometown Saskatoon, SK. With Winter Hours, The Deep Dark Woods won Best Roots Group at the 2009 Western Canadian Music Awards, and Ensemble of the Year at the 2009 Canadian Folk Music Awards. The band also had the runaway winner in CBC’s Great Canadian Songquest with “Charlie’s (Is Coming Down)”, a song about Good Time Charlie’s in Regina.
The Deep Dark Woods frame their music with subtle orchestration; songs are trimmed with minimal embellishments of banjo, piano, with subtle mellotron flutters. Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Lucas Goetz’s layers heartbreaking arches of pedal steel under the clarity and warmth of Ryan Boldt’s voice. Newest member, organ-player Geoff Hilhorst furnishes the songs’ edges with slurred polyphonies, while surefooted, danceable basslines and rich second vocals belong to Chris Mason. Burke Barlow’s clarion guitar tone and lead lines are focused and impeccable.
Their new album, The Place I Left Behind, finds continuity in themes of temporal and geographic alienation, neglected inward trails, and the scars of abandoned intimacies. The album opens with a song about Saskatoon’s rougher edges. “West Side Street” is a study in contrasts – finespun vocals and a gently rolling melody cushion the gloomy story. “The Place I Left Behind” is loosely based on an old folk standard. Gorgeously morose, the title track confirms that The Deep Dark Woods capture lonesome yearning at its loveliest. “Sugar Mama” is a sweet and lively invitation to tap toes and shake off the blues; a seeming coming-of-age story is treated with playful banjo and an airy gait.
A rainstorm over the desert of modern music, The Place I Left Behind offers murder ballads alongside scrappy rockers, lovesick hymnals and slow-dance waltzes. The album illuminates folk traditions without stripping the shadows of roots music history - The Deep Dark Woods wake the ghosts of Appalachia with their prairie gothic pyre-side tales. The Place I Left Behind echoes with traces of time and space that are never fully abandoned or forgotten.
The Place I Left Behind will be released on Six Shooter Records in Canada and Sugar Hill Records in the US, Europe and Australia.
August 04-07 - Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Folk Music Festival www.edmontonfolkfest.org
August 12-14 - Ear Falls, ON @ Trout Forest Music Festival www.troutfest.com
August 20 – Regina, SK @ The Exchange
August 21 - Kelwood, MB @ Harvest Sun Music Festival www.theharvestsun.com
August 27 - Wood Mountain, SK @ Wood Mountain Folk Festival Festival Website
Sept 11 - Banff, AB @ The Banff Amphitheater w/ Blue Rodeo
Sept 15 - Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Center
Sept 18 - London, ON @ Oh! Fest
Sept 19 – Stratford, ON @ The Loft
Sept 21 – Hamilton, ON @ Casbah
Sept 22 – Wakefield, QC @ The Black Sheep
Sept 23 – Montreal, QC @ Pop Montreal
Sept 24 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
Sept 25 – Guelph, ON at Van Gogh’s
Oct 01 - Calgary, AB @ Dickens
Oct 02 - Lloydminster, SK @ Lloydminster Theatre