Suzie Ungerleider has been carrying around a beautiful secret these past two years and the surprise is all the more sweeter for its telling.
The secret, of course, is her newest studio album, “Among the Evergreens,” her eleventh, officially released today. Although a few singles have been pre-released in anticipation of the album’s release, nothing hints at the mastery, in both songwriting and musicianship, that this set of songs – filled with intimate portraits, convey upon hearing the collection in their entirety and sequentially. Like a crystal gem suspended in a prized corner window, these songs refract light and colour in every direction, transfixing attention on the resonate universal stories that Suzie spins like a bewitching, mesmerizing web.
Working closely with producer Jim Bryson, both in his Ottawa studio and Chris Woudstra’s Emerson Street Studios studio in Vancouver with a talented team of musicians, Suzie’s husband Cam Giroux (drums), Jeremy Holmes (bass), and Paul Rigby (guitar/banjo/mandolin), Suzie Ungerleider seems to have discovered a new way of sketching inwardly, intricate detail in these vulnerable, deeply personal vignettes of past loves and current struggles with intense perception.
Suzie explains the deliberate pace and processes she chased to develop these beautiful tunes over the past eighteen months, or more: “I also know that I’m kind of like, I’m a slow thinker, I’m a slow person (in terms of completing projects) and I need to embrace that. So yeah, it was bit by bit. It’s sort of like working on a puzzle, where you just put in a few pieces every day, every so often.”
What makes this album so compelling, and ultimately one to long treasure, is the delicate poetic lyrics that Suzie spills into these alluring melodies. Sung and played with an intuitive simplicity that lays the foundation for the sorcery, the alchemy, that producer Bryson wands through each. Moreover, Suzie creates the space and depth for these fine musicians to explore and propel these memories and the heart-rending questions that Ungerleider poses to herself and the listener.
“How, how many years do we have now? / So bitter and sweet, and somehow, we keep shining through, shining through / How, how many years do we have now? / ‘Til that shining sphere it comes down / And the world turns blue, the world turns blue, world turns blue,” Suzie inquires in the powerful song “Golden.” By the time this song arrives on the album, the previous songs have piled up one upon the other leaving a heart filled with mystery, sadness and reconciliation.
Divided into two parts – Then and Now, “Among the Evergreens” meanders its way through a trail of youthful encounters and adult concerns – lovers pushed and pulled in time, toward understanding, forgiveness and insightful love. But the portrayals, each building upon the last, dispense indelible footprints that the narrator has learned to follow toward an epiphany, with which the album’s ten tracks’ resolves.
Every composition is of superlative merit. Three are beyond measure.
“The Prize” opens the recording, with a long-held memory, introducing mood and characters in a soft finger picked refrain, joined by a discreet swelling synth pad, her voice, almost child-like, recounts the tender happenstance that bring two children into orbits never meant to co-exist. This is one of those songs you just want to replay endlessly. Who amongst us has not had such wonderous feelings that dwindle in the candle-lit settings of our childhood. And yet there’s something so much richer, impenetrable. “We never knew the cards in our hands, from playing it cool like a man / No longer tough we called our bluff, we lost our hearts and won the prize / No longer tough we called our bluff, we lost our hearts and won the prize.” But did they?
“Golden,” as mentioned earlier is in the Now part, recounts the struggles to keep mature love alive and find the balance, acceptance and forgiveness required to keep love – real love, growing and developing toward its final, possibly everlasting, destination.
How ever these songs inspired the collected musicians and Bryson is beyond thrilling. The drumming alone is masterclass – never competitive, never pushing or pulling and yet colouring every phrase – just the drum entrances and exits alone are breath taking. The guitars, acoustic, electric and bass seem to blend in behind the songs almost lovingly. Bryson adds his array of textures and soundscape filigrees to absolute perfection. The subtle, ethereal harmonies of Winnipeg vocalist and songwriter Keri Latimer add indescribable beauty.
The album ends with “The Wilds,” a soaring tribute to the progress of character and steadfast footsteps that songwriter Suzie Ungerleider knows is the destiny of all sensitive, watchful, humans, longing to mark their passage through the maze of our times – simply stunning! Listen carefully to the production – what a statement it makes – how the drums build and build and then are gone, but the soaring, swirling flight continues. “One day you will go / One day by and by / Little Bird, you’ll fly / One day when you go / One day when you fly / Remember, you were mine.”
Gorgeous ending to a touching and uplifting album about childhood, adulthood, motherhood and love.
Photo Credit: Trevor Cornish
Douglas McLean fell in love with music at a very early age and has worked as a musician and songwriter since his early teens. He has a deep love for the written word and has spent his life in pursuit of language as a means to convey what Van Morrison once called “the inarticulate speech of the heart”. He lives deep in the Almaguin Highlands with his wife and their dog. Douglas is active in local radio, recording, producing and writing, in and around Huntsville, Ontario.
His website is:
http://www.douglasmcleanmusic.com
