Great Lake Swimmers
The Great Lake Swimmers are a Canadian folk rock band from Toronto around the singer-songwriter Tony Dekker.
Band name
The band name Great Lake Swimmers refers to the Great Lakes Erie , Ontario and Huron in Canada , where Tony Dekker grew up, and is intended , according to Dekker, " as a tribute to the marathon swimmers who have swum through these lakes ".
history
Initially a solo project by Tony Dekker, the Great Lake Swimmers first appeared as a band in 2003 with their debut album of the same name. The following years were marked by long tours through Canada, USA, Australia and Europe. In 2004 the band was voted the most popular folk / roots band at the Canadian Independent Music Awards, and in 2005 they received the Galaxie Rising Star Award from the Canadian television company.
In 2005 the second album followed with Bodies and Mind ; In 2007 the album Ongiara was released . The included song Your Rocky Spine was used in the third season of the television series Weeds - Little Deals Among Neighbors . In March 2009 the Great Lake Swimmers release their fourth album Lost Channels . The Great Lake Swimmers choose unusual and atmospheric locations for their recordings: historical buildings with a natural hall effect such as old churches, unused grain silos or community halls, i.e. those places whose sound aesthetics, according to Tony Dekker, the “historical and almost, ... mythological aspects of a place ”.
For their fifth album, New Wild Everywhere , released in 2012, the musicians went into a studio for the first time. Only the song "The Great Exhale" was recorded in an abandoned subway station in Toronto. The protest song "Ballad of A Fisherman's Wife" also included on the album is dedicated to the oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. The song was written for the environmental protection organization "Lake Ontario Waterkeeper".
Band members
Solid band members at the beginning were Erik Arnesen (banjo, electric guitar) and Colin Huebert (drums, percussion, glockenspiel), although the musical tour accompanist has changed over the years. The current tour line-up (as of April 2012) consists of Tony Dekker (vocals, guitar), Erik Arnesen (banjo, electric guitar), Miranda Mulholland (choral singing, violin), Greg Millson (drums) and Bret Higgins (standing bass).
style
Tony Dekker's music is deeply rooted in 1960s folk music. His thoughtful lyrics deal with the spirituality of nature and are characterized by a pictorial, metaphor-rich language. The melodic warm tenor voice and the fragile melancholy singing style of Tony Dekker induces some critics to compare them with the quieter works of Neil Young , Nick Drake , Sufjan Stevens and Red House Painters .
Discography
- Great Lake Swimmers (weewerk, 2003)
- Bodies and Minds (weewerk, 2005)
- Hands in Dirty Ground (limited edition EP, weewerk, 2006)
- Ongiara (Nettwerk, 2007)
- Lost Channels (Nettwerk, 2009)
- New Wild Everywhere (Nettwerk, 2012)
- A Forest of Arms (Nettwerk, 2015)
- The Waves, the Wake (Nettwerk, 2018)
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.magma-pop.de/index.php?id=6
- ↑ http://torontoist.com/2006/08/great_lake_swim.php
- ^ Grace Bello: The Old New Music. Talking To Tony Dekker Of Great Lake Swimmers. theawl.com, March 16, 2012, accessed July 20, 2012 .
- ^ Francois Marchand: Great Lake Swimmers sail into the great wide open. (No longer available online.) Vancouversun.com, April 3, 2012, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 20, 2012 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Heidi Eichenberg: Great Lake Swimmers - "New Wild Everywhere". mdr.de, April 10, 2012, archived from the original on October 2, 2012 ; accessed on June 1, 2016 .
- ↑ Stephen M. Deusner: Great Lake Swimmers. New Wild Everywhere. pitchfork.com, April 4, 2012, accessed June 20, 2012 .
- ↑ https://www.allmusic.com/album/mw0000454941
- ↑ http://www.intro.de/news/newsfeatures/23053023 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.journallive.co.uk/culture-newcastle/2007/04/11/indpired-by-nature-to-pen-songs-61634-18889198/
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/may/04/popandrock.folk
- ↑ http://www.cnet.de/digital-lifestyle/musik/184496/great+lake+swimmers+ongiara.htm ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
