Nathan
Key Principles
© 2007 Nettwerk Productions
CD coming back in stock soon.
If you want us to email you the minute this CD arrives, enter your name and email address here. We will not give or sell your info to anyone, and will not use it for any other reason than to tell you when it arrives.
"Infectious alt-country noir, fractured folk swing and surreal songwriting" Acoustic Guitar Mag.
tracks
try this
albums you will love
genres you will love
By Location
notes
Both country and C&W are genres that blossomed around the problems of ordinary people with their emotive thematic situations invariably writ larger than life. Nathan's heart is close to this tradition, but their heads are far more nuanced, and consequently the Canadian group's subjects and lyrics bear little resemblance to their southern counterparts. No achy-breaky hearts, cheatin' beatin' husbands nor runaway wives are to be found on Key Principles. Instead Nathan's world is populated by less dramatic souls with far less well-defined complaints. An amorphous restlessness, unspoken yearning and existential angst define Key Principles whose characters long for a bit of happiness in their drab, disconnected lives. Each one is deliberately understated, their actions seemingly reduced in size, with even murder made minuscule, as if they're constantly aware their world is dwarfed by the universe itself. In that respect Key Principles is a continuation of the stories told on their previous CDs, but this time the quartet expand their sound, adding a flash of cabaret here, a touch of Stax brass tere, a bit of Tex-Mex elsewhere, all beautifully pulled together by Howard Redekopp's excellent production. A transcendental set, and Nathan's best record to date.
reviews
Please log in to review this album.
Superb
author: Edward C. GoodsteinThe notes summarize this fantastic album well. If you're thinking it's pretentious-- it's not. The characters and situations here are fascinating, somewhat offbeat, occasionally macabre but everything dealt with cool style and brilliant harmonizing & creative, but still accessible playing. In some ways they're somewhere between The McGarrigle Sisters and New Pornographers, but with certainly their own sound and ideas. Keri Latimer and Shelley Marshall's harmonies are fab too. This might well be my favorite album of '07.