DETAILS

Great Lake Swimmers with Kate Maki
Grace Presbyterian Church
Thursday, March 26 - Thursday, March 26

More in: Rock / Pop

Five years ago, a tall Canadian violinist walked 1,000 kilometres on an ancient pilgrimage route between France and Spain. As he walked the Camino de Santiago, Oliver Schroer carried a portable recording studio in his backpack. He also carried a violin wrapped in socks and underwear — like a wooden chalice, he said — and when he’d come to an old cathedral, he’d step in and play, filling the space with song. He’d also record sounds while walking along the trail, capturing the music of nearby birds and the crunch of gravel underfoot.

The strong sense of place on the resulting album, Camino, resonated with Tony Dekker, frontman of Ontario folk rock band Great Lake Swimmers. “You could even hear animals in it and people talking and stuff like that in the background,” says Dekker. “I really felt a certain kinship with him — and, of course, his music and his compositions were amazing.” Then, last July, Schroer died of leukemia. He was 52. “I didn’t get a chance to meet him,” says Dekker. “I didn’t get a chance to see him perform, either, which is a real shame.”

While the two never met, their artistic kinship was recognizable on Great Lake Swimmers’ 2007 album Ongiara, a contemplative gem recorded in a historic London, Ontario, performance hall. That kinship is similarly evident on Lost Channels, the band’s new record. More upbeat than past Great Lake Swimmers albums, Lost Channels was mostly recorded amongst the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River. A church, a theatre and a century-old castle that demanded a one-hour boat trip were among the recording sites.

“It makes a really big difference to be able to record in those spaces outside of the studio,” says Dekker. “To me, really, it has to do with the acoustics and everything, but it’s also about the energy of a place and really being able to dig into the songs a little more.”

Lost Channels still has the meditative guitar-and-banjo ballads fans recognize and love, but mandolin, steel guitar and more drums are added to the mix for some songs. “It wasn’t really intentional, and actually, I think it’s really the first half of it that is a little more upbeat and a little bit different than what people would expect from us normally,” Dekker says.

As always, Dekker’s lyrics are laced with themes of space, nature and spirituality. (“I’m still mining for light in the dark wells,” he sings on “Still.”) He grew up in a small farming community, and is constantly conjuring images of rivers and rain, stars and skin. “You have to have a certain level of respect and fear for that [natural] world, but at the same time there’s a beauty in it and there’s a way to find spirituality in it,” says Dekker. He learned in childhood to appreciate the rhythms of the natural world. “When I go to sit down and try to write about something that I think I have some kind of particular insight into, those kinds of themes keep coming up,” he says. “I almost find songwriting to be a spiritual practice.”

Like Schroer, Great Lake Swimmers paid homage to the places they recorded by giving them album time. Lost Channels is split into two parts by a short recording of the bells that ring each hour at Singer Castle on Dark Island. “It’s like a Westminster chime, essentially,” says Dekker. “You can actually go up into the tower and be near all of the gears and everything that are in there. We had a pretty unique opportunity with all of our recording gear that we brought into the castle. I kind of felt like we were documenting it in a way.”

Fittingly, Great Lake Swimmers will be playing their Calgary show at Grace Presbyterian Church, a Gothic sandstone building built in 1913. The band, in other words, will be in its element. “I love it when it works out like that,” says Dekker.