Michael Feuerstack & Associates

Singer Songer

BY Matthew McKeanPublished Apr 18, 2014

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Michael Feuerstack gets by with a little help from his friends. The acclaimed Montreal-based singer-songwriter, as well-known for his collaborative work as for his many excellent Snailhouse records, has enlisted some of Canada's finest musicians for his latest album, Singer Songer, and the result is a stunning example of collective music-making brought to bear on Feuerstack's characteristically interior, under-the-radar songwriting.

Tambourine Death Bed, the musician's 2013 record and the first that he released under his own name, also included guest contributors, but this time around he's assembled an impressive lineup of "Associates," including John K. Samson (the Weakerthans), Bry Webb (the Constantines), Jim Bryson (singer-songwriter and regular Kathleen Edwards tour mate), fellow Montrealers Leif Vollebekk, Angela Desveaux, Little Scream and Jessie Stein (the Luyas), Kingston-born Devon Sproule and Mathias Kom (the Burning Hell) to lend their voices and their musical sensibilities to his songs.

To highlight one song would be unfair to the rest, and that's not a cop out; this is an album of highlights, with no signs of the slapdash songwriting or emailed vocals that allegedly made the project possible. If these songs and this group were thrown together, Feuerstack's hands-off, your-house-or-mine production clearly inspired each artist to make the song their own, while at the same time fostering the creation of a gorgeous and cohesive set of seemingly effortless, overheard-at-the-party indie-folk.
(Forward)

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