OLDSEED
when you laugh the world laughs with you when you cry you cry alone
Sisyphus Records
· Sharp as crows’ tongues, haunting as a Greyhound tour through the Prairies.
Canada has an often unacknowledged talent for turning out strange, heartbreaking, wild-eyed poets. The recently deceased Irving Layton, the iconic Leonard Cohen, the come-latelies like Hayden and Buck 65 and Bob Wiseman. And now Craig Bjerring, better known as Oldseed.
I’m serious. Holy crap, is this album good. Too bad I didn’t get to it in time to put it on my Top 10 of 2005 list. You’ll find banjos, guitars, distortion, yearning harmonies and busted-up, matter-of-fact notes of revelation and redemption on every track. Just listening to this made me wish I was sitting on the floor in a smoky room, straining to hear over the shitty acoustics and clicking pool balls in the back of the room. Or lying on a hillside, soaking in sunshine and deep beauty.
Every line is so good it makes me crazy not to have written it. Here’s one: "You don’t just throw something away cause it’s banged up a little/Love your bruises, hold your scars cuz at least failure’s not the middle." Damn straight.
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