vintage

I’ve been meaning to post about this album for a little while now, and so I’m combining an album review with a Tunesday post in an effort to promote a very talented musician. That musician’s name is Dwight Schenk, most recently known as a member of the Basement Arms and his own Slipper Orchestra, although he’s been involved in countless projects over the years. He’s finally released his first official solo record, titled Natural Disasters, and it is terrific.

The album is incredibly varied, all at once loud and heavy (“Ruckus”), campfire-folk (“A Hiccup on the Mountain”) and circusy instrumental (“Squirmy Wormy”). Dwight’s fantastic Tom Waits voice brings out the grit and gristle in the record, and his command of a whole lot of styles makes for a great listening experience. As with any album with such variety, some songs will likely please your ears more than others, but it is still tied together with a reasonable amount of cohesion and the package comes out sounding terrific.

I guess I haven’t got much constructive commentary for the record, but I can tell you that it gets better every time I listen to it — a great growl in one section, a beautiful violin line in another — and I really hope that Dwight gets the recognition he really deserves for making an album like this one. I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

This track is perhaps not the most representative of the prevailing styles on the album, but dammit, it’s my favourite, so you get to hear it. For more, check out MySpace. You can hear my flute make a cameo appearance (and if you’re really sharp, some vocals too) on “Squirmy Wormy”!

Tunesday 9: A Hiccup on the Mountain