The Sweet Lowdown
May
Bluegrass/Folk
Produced by Adrian Dolan
Released: November 2012
www.thesweetlowdown.ca
The Sweet Lowdown’s second CD, May, is a pure delight. Released in 2012, it won the 2013 Island Roots Album of the Year award for the Victoria, BC-based band. The group consists of banjo and guitar player Shanti Bremer, originally from Olympia, WA, German-born Miriam Sonstenes on fiddle, and native Victorian Amanda Blied on guitar, who trade lead and harmony vocals with a light touch reminiscent of Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Each has enough songwriting, vocal and instrumental talent to stand alone, but together they create a synergy of honest vocals, tight three-part harmonies and masterful fiddle, banjo and guitar playing. Their songs convey the soul of mountain music through the contemporary framework of new folk and bluegrass.
There are twelve tracks on this CD. The ten original songs are fresh and engaging, with writing credits divided evenly around the group. Vocals build from solo or duo to full harmony on cuts such as “Please Take Me Home,” “Let It Go,” “What Goes Up,” and “Drink It Down” (with an environmental theme inspired by a documentary on water rights). Most of the singing is clear enough to understand, but close listening does not always reveal all the words. Thankfully, the six-panel foldout includes a booklet tucked in one pocket with all of the lyrics and brief notes on the four instrumentals. Sonstenes creates a toe-tapping groove on her original fiddle tunes, trading leads with Bremer’s banjo on old-time and Celtic-flavored instrumentals such as “Big Wave” and “Inza and Liam’s Jig.” Bremer’s composition skills are no less impressive with the exotic melodic turns of her tune “Lucknow,” named for a city in India. Her beautiful title track, “May,” starts with a relaxed solo banjo motif, moves into lead and harmony traded with the fiddle, then breaks into a driving beat in a minor key before resolving with a quiet, lyrical ending. Two traditional tunes that round out the album show the band’s ability to play straight-ahead bluegrass on “Reuben’s Train,” or harmonize with a quieter folk sound in “Sail Away Ladies.”
Some of my favorite lyrics include:
“It’s a long way to the places that we used to know /
All the empty rooms and the hours waiting by the phone /
Why can’t we let it go, /
What you and I both know, /
Why can’t we let it go.” /
(from Let It Go by Miriam Sonstenes)
“Asleep at night /
While demons stay awake and sell our rights /
Before we wake, and when we do /
It’s to the store and on the shelf we see /
Their good night’s work. /
When the rain ceases to fall /
And the winter doesn’t come at all /
And the taps won’t give you a glass, /
Save us, save us.” /
(from "Drink It Down" by Shanti Bremer)
“Blue are the midnight skies /
On those the longest nights /
When up the hills we go /
Ride snow back down
Snow lit the night like day /
Day broke above blue lakes /
Glaciers they shone like gold /
Behold the sun”
(from "What Goes Up" by Amanda Blied)
Heidi Muller
December 2013
May
Bluegrass/Folk
Produced by Adrian Dolan
Released: November 2012
www.thesweetlowdown.ca
The Sweet Lowdown’s second CD, May, is a pure delight. Released in 2012, it won the 2013 Island Roots Album of the Year award for the Victoria, BC-based band. The group consists of banjo and guitar player Shanti Bremer, originally from Olympia, WA, German-born Miriam Sonstenes on fiddle, and native Victorian Amanda Blied on guitar, who trade lead and harmony vocals with a light touch reminiscent of Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Each has enough songwriting, vocal and instrumental talent to stand alone, but together they create a synergy of honest vocals, tight three-part harmonies and masterful fiddle, banjo and guitar playing. Their songs convey the soul of mountain music through the contemporary framework of new folk and bluegrass.
There are twelve tracks on this CD. The ten original songs are fresh and engaging, with writing credits divided evenly around the group. Vocals build from solo or duo to full harmony on cuts such as “Please Take Me Home,” “Let It Go,” “What Goes Up,” and “Drink It Down” (with an environmental theme inspired by a documentary on water rights). Most of the singing is clear enough to understand, but close listening does not always reveal all the words. Thankfully, the six-panel foldout includes a booklet tucked in one pocket with all of the lyrics and brief notes on the four instrumentals. Sonstenes creates a toe-tapping groove on her original fiddle tunes, trading leads with Bremer’s banjo on old-time and Celtic-flavored instrumentals such as “Big Wave” and “Inza and Liam’s Jig.” Bremer’s composition skills are no less impressive with the exotic melodic turns of her tune “Lucknow,” named for a city in India. Her beautiful title track, “May,” starts with a relaxed solo banjo motif, moves into lead and harmony traded with the fiddle, then breaks into a driving beat in a minor key before resolving with a quiet, lyrical ending. Two traditional tunes that round out the album show the band’s ability to play straight-ahead bluegrass on “Reuben’s Train,” or harmonize with a quieter folk sound in “Sail Away Ladies.”
Some of my favorite lyrics include:
“It’s a long way to the places that we used to know /
All the empty rooms and the hours waiting by the phone /
Why can’t we let it go, /
What you and I both know, /
Why can’t we let it go.” /
(from Let It Go by Miriam Sonstenes)
“Asleep at night /
While demons stay awake and sell our rights /
Before we wake, and when we do /
It’s to the store and on the shelf we see /
Their good night’s work. /
When the rain ceases to fall /
And the winter doesn’t come at all /
And the taps won’t give you a glass, /
Save us, save us.” /
(from "Drink It Down" by Shanti Bremer)
“Blue are the midnight skies /
On those the longest nights /
When up the hills we go /
Ride snow back down
Snow lit the night like day /
Day broke above blue lakes /
Glaciers they shone like gold /
Behold the sun”
(from "What Goes Up" by Amanda Blied)
Heidi Muller
December 2013
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