(photo: secretcityrecords.net)

In the Golden Age of cinema, foley effects were used to create the ambient sounds that gave life and depth to the moving pictures, often coming from unlikely sources.  Patrick Watson (the band) have decided to throw away the ProTools and go with the real deal, building much of their new album, Wooden Arms, with homemade noise makers and non-traditional instruments.  “We are composing cinematic pop, as if Dolly Parton was a science fiction writer and living in Iceland,” says Patrick Watson (the man) about his band’s latest creation, “We wanted to create folk science fiction music, like in the Twilight Zone, where there’s a normal situation with a twist.”

Twist indeed.  On the track “Beijing”, drummer Robbie Kuster used a bicycle for percussion, the title track apparently features ukuleles and pot drums, and elsewhere tree branches, plungers, and drawers are added to the arrangements, giving new meaning to the phrase, “everything but the kitchen sink”.  It might all sound a bit gimmicky if the first offerings from the band (via the album’s own web site) wasn’t such a beguiling and beautiful song.  “Man Like You” really is folk science fiction, and is a perfectly executed study on how restraint and control can be so liberating.  “Tracy’s Waters” is a more obvious example of the band’s sound effects skills at work, actually sounding some what deliberate in aware of what it’s trying to accomplish, but based on these two tracks, I’m really curious to see what the Polaris Music Prize winners have in store for us on album two.  Guaranteed,  it will be another winner for the small but mighty Secret City record label.  Wooden Arms is set for release in Canada on April 28, in the USA on May 5, Australia on May 8, the UK and Europe on May 11, and Asia on June 24.

MP3: Patrick Watson “Man Like You”
MP3: Patrick Watson “Tracy’s Waters”
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