Busybee's Playlist

If Bob Dylan and Wesley Schultz from the Lumineers were to have a lovechild, it would amount to the trilling voice of Bluebird’s Dan Beasy.

On 31 March, the Montreal-based band, Bluebird, released via Baby Horse Records their first full-length album titled Myrtle Avenue, three years after their EP Two Birds Landed on a Line.

Prior to releasing Myrtle Avenue, they recorded The Lac Sam Session with band Townie, and Joe Abbott, released on 17 March.

Townie is a three-piece alt-country band, splitting their time between Vancouver, BC and Halifax, NS.

Joe Abbott is a singer, song-writer and multi-instrumentalist, hailing from Vancouve, BC, with a background in jazz, blues, and country.

Abbott and Bluebird have both released their work with Baby Horse Records, a community based, artist run label out of Montreal, Quebec, with a musical focus on Indie, Alt-Country, Rock, Canadiana.

Bluebird’s band members are:

• Singer and songwriter Dan Beasy
• Brothers William on bass, and Frédéric Poulin on drums.
• Matt Damron, electric guitar and multi-instrumentalist.

On Myrtle Avenue, however, the band members took on several roles, as William Poulin also wore the producer hat. The album also featured a number of artists:

• Julian Walker on the Electric Guitar, Back Vocals.
• James Healey on the Electric Guitar.
• Jon Evans manning the Pedal Steel.
• William Watley on Synths.
• Ola Kado lending her voice for Back Vocals, and as Lead Vocal on “Suzanna” alongside Beasy.
• Nicole Machin on Back Vocals.
• Sasha Cay with the Clarinet on “Call Me Nancy.”
• Matt Stoker, guitar on Suzanna.
• Patrick Kilcullen working the Piano and Organ on “My Everything” and “Something Is A Way.”
• Arielle Soucy, Vocals on “Repeatermind.
  
  

“Recorded over a nearly 4 year period, Myrtle Avenue is a profound collection of songs dealing with struggle, love, loss, friendship, death and redemption.” Such was the band’s preface on 9 March, in an Instagram joint post with Baby Horse Records, to one of the most intricately designed albums I have ever listened to.

From the upbeat, atmospheric start track “Low Life” to the slow, morose “Something a Way,” Myrtle Avenue is a full-blown journey, with a quintessential country and folk sound, making it a perfect soundtrack for a possible road-trip or a journey inwards to one’s own feelings.

While folk and country, with a delicious sprinkle of psychedelia are the most prominent genres in this album, “Suzanna” stands out as a bluesy, sad but delectable track.

From the soft starting strum of the guitar paving way to the gentle shake of a tambourine mixed with the strong pull of a bass string, it is all tied together neatly by a melancholic violin, just before Beasy begins to sing:

Drunk man told me about Valhalla
Said there they eat, drink and die

A duet between Beasy and Ola Kodo, with the soft, hypnotizing voice reminiscent of The xx’s Romy Madley Croft, “Suzanna” is a powerful song about a painful separation between two lovers still in love, but ultimately wanting different things. The all-too familiar feeling of one partner off to live a different life, while the one left behind is visibly suffering, for everyone to see.

Busybee’s favourite tunes:

• Leviathan.
• Die Young.
• Suzanna.
• Repeatermind.

On 19 August, Baby Horse Records is hosting a big night, featuring seven acts at Montreal’s Bar L’Escogriffe, with Bluebird as one of the class acts.

Make sure to not miss them!