Steven Lambke, Georgia Harmer, and Samantha Savage Smith
Steven Lambke
Volcano Volcano // You’ve Changed Records
“The world is reordered from below.” The refrain is one of the first heard on the album Volcano Volcano, the latest by poet, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and You’ve Changed Records co-founder Steven Lambke. It is a refrain that can be read many ways: a revolutionary call to action maybe, or an assertion of the natural world’s tendency towards decay, erosion, entropy. It is also the refrain of the volcano, who, through extreme pressure and duress, reorders the world in the literal, material sense, moving the underworld into the overworld, upturning and inverting the hierarchical strata of the Earth’s surface.
This is an album that is concerned with life, both in its infinitesimal and tectonic forms. The songs on this album are likewise alive— Lambke spoke in a recent interview about a love of recording artifacts, the sort of meta-sounds of the recording process, typically sterilized from the final mix: breaths, rustles, chair squeaks. He insists that, while the songs were certainly labored over with care, there was a conscious (conceptual?) effort to leave in the things that remind us that we are listening to people, in a room, making music. There is no click track. Songs shift in tempo, the intonation a little sharp here, a little flat there: the imperfect, gentle cacophony of life. In this way, it is apparent that Lambke is someone who appreciates the aesthetic experience of music in totality. From the warm thumpy bass tone on “Turn the Planet Over” to the tape hiss and crackle on “Dream With Me” and the echoey count-in on “The World Filled To The Brim”, there is a retro-rock spirit suffused in the recordings. The archetypal guitar/bass/drums arrangements are colored in with melodion and recorder, creating textures that range from demure harmonizing to reedy squeals that are almost like guitar feedback, piercing and rich in dissonance.
Lambke has said of the album that he is not very interested in exploring symbols with his lyrics, and so when he sings about a spider, he is describing a spider, signifying nothing beyond its own spidery-ness. Which may invite questions: What is a spider? When he sings “spider,” which spider comes to mind? If you were to draw a spider in ten seconds, what would you draw? Why? What traits are universal in our collective understanding of spiderhood? Beneath the signpost that is the word “spider,” a whole system of associations and concepts both concrete and abstract are expressed. This imagery is invoked to immersive effect, submerging the listener in the earthy natural world of growing things, crawling things, floating things; rocks and lichens, decomposers and fungus; the world reordered from below.
Volcano Volcano is an album that invites contemplation, excavation, imagination. It mines the sensory experience of being in the world; burying symbols, unearthing tactility, beauty. Lofty metaphors are stripped away, beingness as compared to other beingness stripped away. What is left is the world, marching on with or without us, defying simile, authorial impositions. Reflecting on this I feel humbled, and to me this is the album’s greatest accomplishment: I stand up, walk outside, I look at the sky and the dirt, and I lay in the grass. The world is reordered from below.
- Harman Burns
Georgia Harmer
Stay In Touch // Arts & Crafts
Stay In Touch is an impressive introduction to Toronto based musician Georgia Harmer. On her debut album released April 22 2022, Harmer poetically explores moments from her life and welcomes the listener into her musical world with subtly mesmerising vocals. Tying together vulnerable lyrics with catchy melodies and artful production makes for a memorable listening experience.
The album opens with Harmer’s peaceful voice ruminating over a steady soft drum beat and a close-sounding plucked acoustic guitar on “Talamanca”. The song grows with the addition of beautiful harmonies, and surprising transitions between major and minor chords are effectively scattered throughout in a style similar to Fleet Foxes’ choral-like vocals. This opening song (and much of the album) smartly plays around with the addition and subtraction of instruments from the mix to signify pivotal changes in tracks. In “Talamanca”, the drum beat is dropped to spotlight Harmer’s voice and the scratch of the acoustic-guitar strings as the closing lyrics come into full focus: “speaking without words / languages of seeing and being seen / meet my eyes again and tell me if you read me.”
Beginning the album with this type of song is a bit deceiving as one almost expects the rest of the album to follow with similar sounding folk-style songs, but Stay In Touch is full of top-knotch songwriting that explores a variety of genres and instrumentation. The album’s second song “Headrush” opens with a repetitive guitar riff that brings to mind the alt-rock soundtracks of your favourite late-90’s teen movies. The guitar and drum focused track demonstrates that Harmer can easily bring a heavier style to the mix. Her clean, higher-ranged vocal is non-confrontational, and catches the listener off guard with its lyrical bluntness. Continuing with the 90’s influences, the third track “Know You Forever” opens with a grungy Nirvana-inspired guitar melody with Harmer’s voice floating over top. The vocal choices in this song are graceful, and the steps she takes with her voice on the closing lines will leave you pressing repeat to hear her climb the delicate ladder as she sings lines like: “over the tide of this year… I hope it’s easy to feel… you know it’s hard to sit still… I want it to be real…”
Stay In Touch offers many sonic treats as the album unfolds: the smoky heat of “Austin”, the raucous rocker “All In My Mind” which could find itself sandwiched between The Beaches and Haim on your summer playlists, as well as lullabies “Be Here” and “Go Soft”. As an Arts & Crafts release, Harmer’s debut album aligns well with other releases from this label. Harmer is the niece of Canadian treasure Sarah Harmer, and Georgia Harmer’s songwriting demonstrates the influence of her aunt, plus that of other Canadian gems like Feist, Broken Social Scene, Metric, and Stars. On mid-album back-to-back highlights “Homes” and “Top Down”, Harmer sounds most at home among these influences. These two songs demonstrate the various inspirations that Harmer draws on, while still ensuring that she shares a unique musical perspective. At times, one will notice the vocal stylings of Feist and Sarah Harmer shining through as she bends words with bird-like vocal trills, or draws out long notes: “are youuuuuuu one of my homes?”. Whereas at other times, the poppier momentum of the Smashing Pumpkins/Cranberries inspired “Top Down” bounces your knee in a style similar to the catchy rhythms of Broken Social Scene. With a debut album this strong, you’d be foolish not to Stay In Touch with Georgia Harmer.
- Gregory Torwalt
Samantha Savage Smith
Fake Nice // Saved By Vinyl
Here I am, used to my country/rock music. I thought I had a diverse genre that I followed. I have since learned the opposite. I've become quite interested in exploring what new genre possibilities I might find for myself to enjoy.
Samantha has not disappointed, introducing me into a new world of new music, with her mysterious-dreamy-indie-pop songs .Grabbing my attention with catchy lyrics from the song "In It to Win", "why do I even do it, you suck the joy right out of it, the kids are in it to win, their all looking forward and I'm still facing in". Relating to the lyrics they remind me of one of those situations where you don't feel comfortable or fit in, but you still want to join in but can't find your place. Blissfully full of instruments leaving nothing less than a hunger for more. A meaningful reminder that being human isn't being immortal from feelings.
Which brings us to, who hasn't had to be placed in difficult situations where let's say you even had to be "Fake Nice". I have many times lol. This song is filled with catchy rhythms that keep you on your toes. Just when you think you got the song figured out, bam a new deposit of instruments, vocals, or rhythms. Samantha's diversely powerful voice proves her killer skills with the ever-moving textures of all her songs. Nothing gets more hectic in life then life itself at times. Let's face it at one point or another everyone has felt "Spun Out". Nearly every day I feel like I have been spun threw my washing machine, literally... four kids will do that to a person. "Spun Out", gifts me a whimsical drifting feeling. A twinkling radiance, all tightly wound together with a swift drumbeat. I really appreciate Samantha's unique writing style, which has inspired me to think outside the box, when writing my own songs.
Saving the best for last. Literally the last song on the album. "Siren" has an enjoyable crisp chorus. Lyrics that arouse your curiosity, "There's a universe inside you, there's a universe inside of me to". Interesting to interpret.
There was no holding back in the creation of this album. Every band member is significantly gifted in providing love for music for all to enjoy. Love it...
- Stephanie Harrold
