Caledonia

March 21st, 2006.  Looking into the mirror at his friend’s apartment in Calgary, singer/guitarist Steve Gates saw the signs of his crossroad from the darkness under his eyes.  Two days on a bus from the Yukon didn’t help.  To commemorate the occasion he shaved his head and wandered the streets and penned the lyrics for Restless Year, the opening track of Caledonia’s first collaborative full-length album We Are America. 

For bassist Zac Crouse, life as a kayaking bum on Uganda’s White Nile river was good, but boater talk grew tiring and losing a fellow paddler in the whirlpools and boils of the Nile drew Crouse to think more about his own cross-roads: continue in a job that tightened its fist on his freedom, or pledge allegiance to the instability of musicianship.  The end result? Scott’s House, Crouse’s ode to personal sovereignty.

Barbecuing burgers with his girlfriend, and relaxing in the late August sun of the whitewater Mecca in the Ottawa valley, drummer Steve Reble looked up as an OPP SUV made its way up the hill that lead to his cabin.  Reble’s 34 year-old brother, and musical cheerleader, had collapsed from a viral infection. The following year at Toronto General Hospital found the brothers learning to speak again by singing Ah Ha’s “Take On Me”, and Reble writing the lyrics for Friday Night Rock Song, with an anthemic “Don’t Write Me Off” chorus.                

Pianist Ian Bent never imagined himself in an indie rock outfit.  But after months of toiling as an Anglophone in The University of Montreal’s Masters of Piano Performance, Bent moved back to Halifax in the fall of 2006 and assumed the role of the Band’s Garth Hudson in this Halifax quintet.  Bent added his melodic craftsmanship to songs like Too Old and Alabama.

After playing with Halifax artists Jenn Grant & Tanya Davis, and as his new project Acres and Acres delved into Harvest era folk, guitarist Kris Pope found another avenue to express his blend of tonal creativity with melodic exploration.  Having shared the stage with Caledonia during his time with Down with the Butterfly, and with a fresh set of ears, Pope became the “missing link” for the band’s sound, as illustrated by his crafty hooks on songs like Restless Year and The Plague.

As the title suggests, the album explores the notion of blame as an expression of our own self-doubt.  It was collaboration from the members’ personal experiences of both hope and anxiety.

This union of ideas was synchronized through the atmospheric sound scapes of producer Dylan Hudecki, who borrowed from his experimental studio project Junior Blue as well as time with By Divine Right and Holy Fuck.  In addition local friends Amelia Curran, Benn Ross and Don Brownrigg laid down their musical expressions to this now epic project. Tanya Davis’ characteristic vocals support the album and her feature on Winter Drips from Trees lends a unifying culmination of four years of touring across this vast Canadian Landscape, writing and recording in the depths of Nova Scotia’s winters and faith in the notion that sometimes things need to be believed to be seen.

The Plague Video



Friday Night Rock Song Video