Gary's Patrick Watson Review

You know those grey, rainy Sundays you spend inside, maybe curled up with a blanket and a magazine? Perhaps you're feeling a tiny bit maudlin or a little contemplative and looking for a soundtrack that reflects your mood. This is the ideal morning for Patrick Watson's Wooden Arms. It's a haunting, comfortable and vaguely hopeful collection of songs - that satiate all the feelings you crave on those reflective and overcast days. Grab a mug of hot coffee, put your feet up and leaf through the newspaper while Wooden Arms unravels in the background.

This feels less like an album of songs and more like a fragile and beautifully crafted antique - as intricate as a ship in a bottle. You're almost afraid that listening too often could snap any one of these delicate songs in half, but that's sort of the great part about it. You're experiencing music with an old soul, and yet never once sounding like a throw-back to another time. It is wholly unique, something almost unachievable in this day and age.

Watson has the uncanny ability to instantly transport you to wherever his mind happens to be. With an amazing accuracy, he paints a musical picture that bounces from the swirling, eddying currents of Tracey's Waters, to the hurried, hustle of Beijing - capturing exactly what you would expect from the hectic city itself, weaving in and out through imagined people.

Granted the loud/soft dynamic of the album is sparse. Watson seems content with his quiet, subdued sound (something I lambasted the Great Lake Swimmers for). And while there's no question he achieves an intimacy with his songs GLS could only dream of, it would have been nice to hear a bit more range. Perhaps that would have taken away from the slightly twisted movie-soundtrack aesthetic he so deftly builds (David Lynch would be inspired).

I liked this album and I think it has a succinct quality that makes it perfect for closing out this blog. Watson is a supremely talented musician as witnessed by his 2007 Polaris win. But I think this makes him a definite underdog to repeat less than two years later. It does however say a hell of a lot about the care and passion he pours into his art, and should he produce an album like this every two years, I wouldn't begrudge the selection committee for nominating him again.