by Xristopher Bland
As an exquisitely layered tapestry of musical nuance and emotional richness, the Henrys’ newly released
album Quiet Industry is a lot like that conversation that happens after the conversation.
You know the one. It happens around bonfires when the flames flicker low and a small group of people
remains around the embers. It happens at house parties, when people begin to head home while others
settle in the kitchen. At such times and places, rare connection unfolds. Beyond the exhaustions of
surface exchange, conversations become the subtle brushwork of those ready for more. Like a
well-drawn breath, it moves with often-staggering depth, where introspection and projection entwine
with such lastingness that one awakens the next day certain of having experienced something
meaningful, and something worth experiencing again. From such a place comes Quiet Industry, the first
album by the Henrys in six years, and if band leader Don Rooke has a non-perspective about the project,
it comes from having been immersed in all angles of the conversation the longest.
“I basically don’t have any perspective on the recording,” says Rooke, who spent a year working on the
album and describes the experience as “kinda like my experience eating breakfast. It went as well as
could be expected, and the eggs were a highlight”—a metaphor of both accessibility and mystery that
easily applies to album vocalist Gregory Hoskins (formerly of The Stickpeople). From the softly
beckoning bars of “A Weaker One” to the closing, dream-tinged pulses of “The Almighty Inbox,” Hoskins
sings with a range of emotion connected to the quiet industry of everyday living, yet echoes as an
urgent whisper pointing toward the indefinable. It’s a meeting of worlds also captured in Rooke’s overall
description of the album: “old instruments—new sounds,” including kona guitar, lap steel, pump organ,
violin and a wide assortment of hard-to-define sounds.
Along with Rooke and Hoskins, Quiet Industry features most of the Henrys cast, including Hugh Marsh
(Bruce Cockburn, Jon Hassell, Don Byron), Andrew Downing (Kelly Joe Phelps, David Tronzo), John
Sheard (Stuart McLean, Rita Coolidge), David DiRenzo (Holly Cole, Jacksoul) and Jonathan Goldsmith
(Jane Siberry, Sarah Slean, Nick Buzz), along with harmony vocalist Tara Dunphy (The Rizdales).
Quiet Industry is available on CD and digital formats through the Henrys’ own imprint, hR2015. For more
information, visit www.thehenrys.ca. For more about Gregory Hoskins, visit http://gregoryhoskins.com.
________________________________
Xristopher Bland is a freelance writer and graphic artist currently living in Rockwood, Ont., with the
woman he fell in love with at age 14 and a cat named Majyn (short for “Imagine”), who likes to sprawl
across the keyboard when he’s working.
Contact abmcreativeservices@gmail.com or visit
abmpublishingandcreativeservices.wordpress.com
Twitter: twitter.com/ABM_Creative
No comments:
Post a Comment