My personal Polaris longlist 2020 part 1

I cast my ballot for the Polaris Prize this week. Jurors only get five slots. Almost 200 albums were suggested by fellow jury members. A long list of 40 will be published next week. As always, there’s no shortage of excellent Canadian music. But this year there’s no one album—or even three—that I feel so obviously tower above the rest. Which makes the winnowing even more difficult.

I’m not going to tell you what’s on my ballot, but these are the 40 records I considered (10 in each post). Most of these have been discussed by the Polaris jury at some point, but this is a very personal list that no one should read into deeply. Many of these will likely not make the long list, and many not mentioned here most definitely will.

Final caveat: I’m a 48yo anglo white dad who lives in Toronto with all the obvious blind spots that entails, so take all this with as many grains of salt you feel are required.

Day One (of four):

Allie X – Cape God: This is a really smart, well-arranged pop record, in the realm of a more operatic Maggie Rogers. It pushes all the buttons for me that Carly Rae Jepsen should but never does. Allie X is a pop star without a radio audience of her own; she writes for BTS, Katy Perry’s a fan, and she’s been slogging it out for a while, to the point where she has more than a million streams (which is more than some Canadian acts who fill arenas). But this album is where Allie X’s classical training and craftsmanship really come to the fore. Ideally, she’d be a household name by now; in the days of Kate Bush, maybe she would have been.

Begonia – Fear: If you’ve ever seen this woman live, you know she’s a superstar. Her debut record catches most, though not all, the charisma she exudes on stage. Her voice is enormous, a powerful instrument that threatens to overshadow everything underneath it. But the production—by a team that includes her longtime collaborators in Royal Canoe—holds its own and provides some interesting twists to the modern pop/R&B universe. Bandcamp link here.

Geoff Berner – The Grand Hotel Cosmopolis: One of the greatest songwriters in Canada is a radical eco-socialist who plays accordion, sings increasingly in Yiddish, and gathers some of the finest modern klezmer players around him. So: not primarily Polaris bait, unfortunately. This timely record is largely about the plight of the displaced, though also features a scathing take on survivalists and a song that Berner had hoped to one day play at Bernie Sanders rallies: “Why Don’t We Take All the Billionaires’ Money Away?” If that’s not the song of the year, I don’t know what is. Bandcamp link here.

Bon Enfant – s/t: This is the single biggest surprise for me this Polaris season. This psych-pop band is the Quebecois equivalent of Japan’s Kikagayu Moyo or Holland’s Altin Gun, meaning they’re a peculiar regional blend of local influences with groove-heavy psychedelia. Their debut album sounds like Black Mountain joining Plants and Animals to cover the Hair soundtrack, with a McGarrigle singing en francais. This record came out in the fall of 2019, which is too bad because it is so obviously the sound of springtime and we should all be dancing in Parc Lafontaine to this. We’re not, for so many reasons, which makes this an escapist listening experience more than anything right now. I’m feeling nostalgic for joy these days, and this record helps a helluva lot. Bandcamp link here.

Boniface – s/t: Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs is 10 years old this year. Micah Visser was 13 when it came out, and one suspects it made a deep impression. Visser, who had a few years performing under his own name before rebranding himself after his Winnipeg neighbourhood and releasing the debut Boniface album on Valentine’s Day this year. He shares with Win Butler a bittersweet melancholy for a suburban youth with ’80s alternative anthems—though in Visser’s case, probably some Robyn, Killers, and Tegan and Sara in the next-gen mix. (Don’t doubt that the ’80s are present, however—check out the album cover and font). The production is big enough to vault him on to Euro festival stages, but it’s the songwriting that really shines here, and the moments (“I Will Not Return as a Tourist”) where he sounds like he’s writing a shiny pop version of “Born to Run” for a 2020 Pride celebration. Bandcamp link here.

Bruce Peninsula – No Earthly Sound: One of my greatest musical regrets of this time is that I won’t be able to witness this band and its vital chorus of voices live any time soon. This Toronto group has been away for most of the last decade; I didn’t expect them to return. They’re a record nerds’ dream, with grooves that borrow from Afrobeat and jazzy Chicago post-rock underneath what sound like modern choral field hollers. Neil Haverty and Misha Bower trade lead vocals, but it’s the chorus behind them—a choir that once included many of Toronto’s best singers, including Snowblink, Austra and the Weather Station—that really elevates the material. The rhythm section also kicks much ass. This is a much slicker production than heard on their first two records, which suits them surprisingly well, while the raw energy still shines through. Welcome back, beautiful people. Hope to see you on a stage again some day. Bandcamp link here.

Caribou – Suddenly: Dan Snaith continues to not only improve, but to remain unique in his field. I’m hard pressed to think of another electronic artist with this breadth of material in one album, from beat-less ballads to R&B pop songs to psychedelic jazz loops to early 90s house. Less rigid than his last record, this is Snaith’s most soulful and encompassing records of his long career. Suddenly is like his own greatest hits collection. He’s one of five previous winners (Lido Pimienta, Kaytranada, Patrick Watson, Owen Pallett) with new records in this year’s eligibility period; I would not be surprised if he became the first repeat winner in Polaris history. Bandcamp link here.

Leonard Cohen – Thanks for the Dance: “Who’s moving on? Who’s kidding who?” Posthumous records deserve the bad rep they have, but this is a phenomenal exception. Son Adam Cohen proved his production mettle on You Want It Darker, and here he fleshes out his father’s final recordings, which the artist had every intention of finishing before his passing. Adam invites more guests (Daniel Lanois, Feist, Patrick Watson) and fewer chintzy synths than Cohen Sr. would ever allow. None of it sounds like something the artist wouldn’t ultimately have approved; it doesn’t tread on his well-worn template. It’s hard to top You Want It Darker, and this doesn’t—but this unexpected encore is a career coda that’s not only fitting, but entirely satisfying.

Jean-Louis Cormier – Quand la nuit tombe: Cormier won a Polaris 10 years ago with his band Karkwa, which was greeted by a collective “meh” from English Canada. But he’s making much, much more interesting music now. Recorded in L.A., Berlin and Ethiopia, Cormier ditches his guitar for keys and synths, creating a fascinating melange that draws from ’60s film soundtracks, post-Radiohead rock, Gorillaz-style global pop and more, with an unusually good drummer at the core. There are lots of twists and turns on this record, and most of them work wonderfully (the brief rap interlude, not so much). Between this and Julien Sagot’s wonderfully weird records, Karkwa’s solo projects sound better to me than the original band. Bandcamp link here.

Corridor – Junior. The third album by the first franco Quebecois band signed to Sub Pop, Junior is a rollicking, rockin’ good time of a post-punk new wave record that pulls from the Jam, early R.E.M., the fuzzier side of Sloan, and the hazier side of the Stone Roses. The rhythm section is consistently propulsive, the boy harmonies are exquisite, and the guitars pop, ring and jangle and all those other ridiculous adjectives that I no longer know how to use and probably never did. Have Corridor toured with Alvvays yet? That would be dreamy. This is yet another franco record that the anglo indie kids should be snapping up. Bandcamp link here.

The Al Purdy Songbook

The Al Purdy Songbook – Various Artists (Borealis)

“Though poets die, a lullaby still whispers faintly in the room,” sings Sarah Harmer on a song she adapted from an Al Purdy poem for this project.

Those words were certainly true in 2016, when we lost both Leonard Cohen and Gord Downie to the dead poets society. But at the same time, the work of another great Canadian poet, who died in 2000, was echoing with a new resonance, thanks to the 2015 film Al Purdy Was Here, the directorial debut from former Maclean’s film critic Brian D. Johnson.

That film was a triumph on several levels: as vital Canadian cultural history, as a visually gorgeous film (shot by Nicholas de Pencier, who collaborates with Jennifer Baichwal on films like Long Time Running, Watermark and the new Anthropocene), as a documentary with a surprising twist, and, finally, as a catalyst for some of this country’s greatest musicians to engage with Purdy’s work. Johnson had always intended music to be a huge part of his film, and for a variety of reasons it took three years for this soundtrack of sorts to come to fruition. But it’s finally here, and it’s fabulous. (It also comes packaged with a DVD/Blu-Ray of the film.)

  

It opens with Bruce Cockburn, whom Johnson coaxed out of semi-retirement to write and record “3 Al Purdys”—which in turn became an anchor track on Cockburn’s most recent album, Bone to Bone. It also features one of the last things Leonard Cohen ever recorded: a recitation of “Necropsy of Love.” The parade of legends doesn’t stop there: Margaret Atwood recites “Wilderness Gothic,” Greg Keelor adapts Purdy’s poem “Woman” into “Unprovable” (“As unprovable as the sun on the other side of the world”). Gord Downie appears not once, but twice: with his highly underrated 2010 song “The East Wind,” which lifts lightly from Purdy, and a recitation of “At the Quinte Hotel,” which is a poem that “a sensitive man” such as Downie was born to read: it’s about bar fights in century-old hotels—something the Tragically Hip are more than familiar with—and about how poetry will buy you neither beer nor respect. Downie also does a striking Purdy impression at one point in the poem.

The best track here, however, goes to Downie disciple and friend Sarah Harmer, whose “Just Get Here” is not only perhaps the best melody she’s written in almost 20 years, but it summarizes the spirit of Purdy’s A-frame in Ameliasburg, Ontario, in Prince Edward County, which functioned as a gathering place for generations of Canadian poets—and continues to do so, having been restored for artist residencies. (A fundraising campaign to make that possible was the catalyst for Johnson’s interest in making this film.) On top of all that, her vocal and piano performance is devastating. While Harmer fans continue to hold out for new material (which is actually coming, though long delayed), this alone compensates for the eight-year wait.

 

Also appearing: Doug Paisley, Snowblink, Jason Collett, Felicity Williams, and Bidiniband—Dave Bidini, of course, like Downie, an enormous Purdy fan, who sampled Purdy’s voice on a 1994 Rheostatics song. If there’s any complaint with the choice of contributors, it’s that they all hail from an easy driving distance to Al’s A-frame; Purdy’s influence was felt far and wide across the Great White North, not just Ontario.

Tribute albums to musicians are often a hit-and-miss affair; this tribute to a poet, however, in which musicians were free to end the original text to their own uses, works brilliantly. Whether or not the name Al Purdy means anything to you: see the film, listen to the music, and, by all means, go back to the original texts. And say the names. (Nov. 9)


The album is being launched Tuesday, Nov. 26 at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto, at 7.30 p.m.

Stream: “Just Get Here” by Sarah Harmer, “Transient” by Doug Paisley, “At the Quinte Hotel” by Gord Downie

Pre-Polaris 2017 Day Two: Leonard Cohen, Gord Downie

The 12^th Polaris Music Prize gala is being held on Sept. 18, at the Carlu in Toronto, where 11 jurors locked in a room will decide which one of 10 shortlisted artists will get $50,000. All other nominees receive $3,000.

Every day this week I’ll look at two of the shortlisted albums, assess their chances, and celebrate two albums that didn’t make the shortlist—or, in some cases, even the long list. 

On day one I discussed A Tribe Called Red, BadBadNotGood, and should've beens Phillipe B and Japandroids.

Onwards:

Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker (Columbia)

Gord Downie – Secret Path (Arts and Crafts)

Oddly enough, both these records came out the same week. I reviewed them together on Oct. 27. This is that review.

Happy Hallowe’en! Feliz Dia de los Muertos! Two of Canada’s greatest poets would like to talk to you about death. 

One is 82 years old: his body is failing him and he’s made a meditation on mortality that’s easily one of the finest records he’s ever made. [ed: he died a month after the album came out.] The other is 52 with a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer: he’s processing his own death by atoning for the death of another, a 12-year-old boy who died trying to escape abuse at a government-sanctioned institution. 

Cohen’s record is a revelation. He’s been this dark before, he’s made records this sparse before, his wry wit has always been in evidence. Here, however, every moment here carries great weight, lyrically and sonically. It’s as slick as anything he’s done in the last 35 years, but with largely acoustic instruments in place of synths. 

Great credit must go to Cohen’s son, Adam, who sat in the producer’s chair. Adam has (justifiably) taken a lot of flak for his own records, but it turns out he’s an excellent producer, judiciously employing only the most appropriate window dressing for the skeletons of blues and country songs his father wrote this time out. There’s the rumbling bass and choir of Jewish cantors on the devastating title track; the twangy, Twin-Peaks-ish guitar on “Leaving the Table”; the familiar sound of female backing singers on “Traveling Light” (one of only two tracks where that classic Cohenesque embellishment appears); the weeping violins. 

Both of Cohen’s recent comeback records—2012’s Old Ideas, 2014’s Popular Problems—have proven him to be as powerful as he is prolific in his third act, but this one is on a whole other plain. He claims he’s still writing and has more music he wants to finish. As insatiable as Cohen fans are, one can’t help but secretly—and, morbidly—hope that this is his final will and testament. [ed: it was]

[My Leonard Cohen obit in Maclean's is here.]

Gord Downie told the Globe and Mail last weekend, “If Secret Path is the last thing I ever do, I’ll be happy.” 

He’s already succeeded on one level: he’s taken a long-forgotten tragic tale, that of a 12-year-old boy, Chanie Wenjack, who died of exposure, beside train tracks, trying to walk 600 km home from a residential school. That was exactly 50 years ago; a Maclean’s story was written about the case after an inquest took place—an inquest whose recommendations, of course, went unheeded. Unless you’ve had a media blackout, you probably already know that this album comes with a graphic novel by Jeff Lemire (Essex County) and an animated film aired on CBC-TV. There are several other Wenjack projects out there as well, including a Joseph Boyden novella; Boyden also talks about the case on the new Tribe Called Red album. 

There’s a lot to unpack here: but what about the music? The production by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and the Stills’ Dave Hamelin is crisp and sparse, in ways that sound like nothing else Downie has ever recorded. The result is that his voice sounds fantastic; it’s unclear if he’s become a better singer, or if he’s just never allowed us to hear him like this, not even during the most fragile moments of his discography both in and outside the Tragically Hip, not even 2001’s Coke Machine Glow. [ed note: I’m a complete idiot. Downie had upped his singing game as far back as 2006’s World Container.] Drew and Hamelin know how to create vast soundscapes with minimal instrumentation, the right synths and plenty of reverb, evoking the appropriate sense of isolation and empathy necessary for the subject matter. 

The lyrics are curious. Gord Downie never does anything directly; hell, even that song about Bill Barilko is narrated by some young punk feigning experience, a trait that’s personified in his makeshift, faux fifty-mission cap. Secret Path does not tell the story of Chanie Wenjack, at least not a narrative recognizable to anyone who read the Maclean’s story that inspired the album. Instead, it draws some elements of Wenjack’s story—like the fact he set out on the final leg of his journey with only seven matches in a jar and a windbreaker to provide him warmth—and extrapolates from there. If you heard any track here out of context, you’d be hard pressed to link it to Wenjack or, in fact, anything remotely related to issues illuminated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The good news: it’s not a preachy record, not in the least. The bad news: it’s unclear how effective it is as a teaching tool, which was the intention of Downie and his brother Mike, a filmmaker. 

But because this is Gord Downie in 2016, immediately following one of the landmark cultural events of this generation, he has our ears. And he’s using the moment to not necessarily tell the story, but to draw our attention to a story mainstream Canada has not wanted to tell.  

Later thoughts:

We’re now almost a year removed from the emotional weight that accompanied these records’ release. We’ve lost Leonard, which was not a shock to anyone, and yet the outpouring of grief was enormous, just as it was for David Bowie and Prince the same calendar year. That he went out on such a high note is a glorious epitaph; this record didn’t rack up Junos and a spot on this shortlist out of sympathy—it’s a stunning work that stands with his very best.

While we mourn Cohen, there’s also the relief that Downie is still with us to see his message taken to heart, to receive an Order of Canada, to see this album get shortlisted for Polaris—something no other Tragically Hip record or Downie solo project has done. Most important, he’s been able to see his primary goal achieved, to see Secret Path being used in schools to educate children about a part of Canadian history that we’ve all been happy to ignore for a century, either willfully or out of genuine ignorance. Despite my own doubts about the directness of the lyrics, the context is everything: no one stumbles upon this record not knowing what it is. Maybe no one will ever put this on as background music, but children’s choirs are singing these songs. The art will endure. The message will resonate further than anything else Downie has ever written. Mission accomplished.

If cynics need further evidence, watch this short doc.

The chances:

You Want It Darker won a Juno, as well it should have. But Polaris? Not likely. Buffy Sainte-Marie notwithstanding, Polaris usually skews young, and is unlikely to give the equivalent of a posthumous lifetime achievement award, even to one of the greatest songwriters ever born on this soil. Naturally, the Cohen record is musically conservative. The guy was 82. Comparing it to Weaves or Lido Pimienta is, frankly, ridiculous—but that’s inherent in the Polaris mandate to break down all genre divisions. This is an album prize, plain and simple—and this is as cohesive a collection of songs as you’ll ever find, by a master of the form. By that measure, it deserves to win. It’s a great record; I voted for it and I’m glad it’s on the shortlist. But I don’t think it should win the Polaris.

Likewise with Downie. His record is nowhere near as strong as Cohen’s—few are. Again, even comparing these two poets is ridiculous, exposing the fallacies of all awards anywhere, anytime. Their presence on this shortlist must be humbling to everyone else on it. But, to paraphrase Downie’s vision of this country, Polaris should be the prize of the next 150 years, not the Canada of the past. And in a year fraught with discussion of cultural appropriation, it would be downright weird to weigh Secret Path over Halluci Nation. If for some reason Secret Path wins, you can be sure that Downie is going to turn around and give it directly to A Tribe Called Red. Coz he’s a helluva guy.

No matter what happens, I’m really looking forward to the winner’s speech this year.

The could’ve, should’ve beens:

Loscil – Monument Builders (Kranky)

The album: (reviewed Dec. 1, 2016)

Why Vancouver composer Scott Morgan, a.k.a. Loscil, has not been tapped for any Oscar-bait assignments is anyone’s guess. (He has, however, scored the 2006 Genie winner for Best Documentary: Scared Sacred.) He’s been creating fascinating minimalist ambient music for more than a decade, and his 11^th album could well become a calling card. Inspired directly by Philip Glass’s stunning score for the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi, as well as the photographs of devastated landscapes by Edward Burtynsky, Monument Builders is sparse, expansive and evocative. French horns and percussion permeate the occasionally pulsing synths and layered atmospherics; melodies and movements are glacial yet hardly obscured.

In these past few months, if not the past year, we’ve all had plenty of reasons to shut off the noise of the world and mourn the losses that pile up seemingly every week. In addition to everything else 2016 has handed us, between this record, Johan Johansson’s Arrival soundtrack and Colin Stetson’s reimagining of Gorecki’s “Sorrow” symphony, it’s also given us an antidote. 

Later thoughts: There are few ambient albums I go back and play somewhat regularly; this is one of them. Tense and meditative at the same time, Loscil’s music never fades into the background.

Why it didn’t even make the long list: Ambient music doesn’t make it on Polaris lists, even if it shares qualities with longtime favourites Godspeed You Black Emperor or Tim Hecker (oddly, Hecker’s latest didn’t make the cut last year; previous Polaris winners Godspeed has requested that nothing they do be considered for Polaris ever again). There have been experimental records shortlisted before, but nothing as minimal as this tends to cut through in the age of distraction.

Tami Neilson – Don’t Be Afraid (Outside)

The album: (reviewed Sept. 22, 2016)

This Canadian is a star in her adopted nation of New Zealand, where she’s racked up plenty of country music awards and songwriting accolades. Don’t Be Afraid is only her second album to be released in her motherland, and we’d be fools to ignore this powerhouse voice any longer—a voice that could front an amplified band without the use of a microphone. 

Her last album, Dynamite!, was cut from the Patsy Cline mould, very much rooted in country music from the late ’50s, early ’60s. This time out the vibe is still decidedly old school, but Neilson gets bluesier and bolder, touching on torch songs and rockabilly and soul. Informed by the death of her beloved father—with whom she was in a family band when she was a kid—Don’t Be Afraid is considerably darker in tone, which gives her vocals even more of a chance to dig in deep. On the title track, she goes for full-out gospel-style projection over a slow blues, sounding more like Aretha Franklin that one would ever expect from this country belter. 

Later thoughts: Neilson is one of the most exhilarating vocalists I’ve ever seen in my life—and I’m not saying that just to be hyperbolic. But credit should also go to her ace band, including brother Jay on guitar—one of the few people who can conjure the ghost of the late Pops Staples.

Why it didn’t even make the long list: I missed Neilson’s last show in Toronto, but my lady and a friend went—and were apparently the youngest people in the audience by about 20 years. Hip baby boomers have got her number, but I’m not sure anyone under 35 gives a shit about roots music at all anymore, especially artists with such old-school chops as Neilson and her band. Okay, gramps out.

Tomorrow: Feist, Lisa LeBlanc

Canadian poets' society: Leonard Cohen and Gord Downie

Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker (Sony)

Gord Downie – Secret Path (Arts and Crafts)

Happy Hallowe’en! Feliz Dia de los Muertos! Two of Canada’s greatest poets would like to talk to you about death: their own and others’.

One is 82 years old: his body is failing him and he’s made a meditation on mortality that’s easily one of the finest records he’s ever made. The other is 52 with a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer: he’s processing his own death by atoning for the death of another, a 12-year-old boy who died trying to escape abuse at a government-sanctioned institution.

Cohen’s record is a revelation. He’s been this dark before, he’s made records this sparse before, his wry wit has always been in evidence. Here, however, every moment here carries great weight, lyrically and sonically. It’s as slick as anything he’s done in the last 35 years, but with largely acoustic instruments in place of synths.

Great credit must go to Cohen’s son, Adam, who sat in the producer’s chair. Adam has (justifiably) taken a lot of flak for his own records, but it turns out he’s an excellent producer, judiciously employing only the most appropriate window dressing for the skeletons of blues and country songs his father wrote this time out. There’s the rumbling bass and the choir of Jewish cantors on the devastating title track; the twangy, Twin-Peaksish guitar on “Leaving the Table”; the familiar sound of female backing singers on “Traveling Light” (one of only two tracks where that classic Cohenesque embellishment appears); the weeping violins.

Both of Cohen’s recent comeback records—2012’s Old Ideas, 2014’s Popular Problems—have proven him to be as powerful as he is prolific in his third act, but this one is on a whole other plain. He claims he’s still writing and has more music he wants to finish. As insatiable as Cohen fans are, one can’t help but secretly—and, morbidly—hope that this is his final will and testament.

Supplementary reading:

David Remnick’s New Yorker piece

Brian D. Johnson’s Maclean’s piece

Gord Downie told the Globe and Mail, “If Secret Path is the last thing I ever do, I’ll be happy.”

He’s already succeeded on one level: he’s taken a long-forgotten tragic tale, that of a 12-year-old boy, Chanie Wenjack, who died of exposure, beside train tracks, trying to walk 600 km home from a residential school. That was exactly 50 years ago; a Maclean’s story was written about it the case after an inquest took place—an inquest whose recommendations, of course, went unheeded. Unless you’ve had a media blackout for the last month, you probably already know that this album comes with a graphic novel by Jeff Lemire (Essex County) and an animated film. There are several other Wenjack projects out there as well, including a Joseph Boyden novella; Boyden also talks about the case on the new Tribe Called Red album.

There’s a lot to unpack here: but what about the music? The production by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and the Stills’ Dave Hamelin is crisp and sparse, in ways that sound like nothing else Downie has ever recorded. The result is that his voice sounds fantastic; it’s unclear if he’s become a better singer, or if he’s just never allowed us to hear him like this, not even during the most fragile moments of his discography both in and outside the Tragically Hip, not even 2001’s Coke Machine Glow. Drew and Hamelin know how to create vast soundscapes with minimal instrumentation, the right synths and plenty of reverb, evoking the appropriate sense of isolation and empathy necessary for the subject matter.

The lyrics are curious. Gord Downie never does anything directly; hell, even that song about Bill Barilko is narrated by some young punk feigning experience, a trait that’s personified in his makeshift, faux fifty-mission cap. Secret Path does not tell the story of Chanie Wenjack, at least not a narrative recognizable to anyone who read the Maclean’s story that inspired the album. Instead, it draws some elements of Wenjack’s story—like the fact he set out on the final leg of his journey with only seven matches in a jar and a windbreaker to provide him warmth—and extrapolates on them. If you heard any track here out of context, you’d be hard pressed to link it to Wenjack or, in fact, anything remotely related to issues illuminated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The good news: it’s not a preachy record, not in the least. The bad news: it’s unclear how effective it is as a teaching tool, which was the intention of Downie and his brother Mike, a filmmaker.

But because this is Gord Downie in 2016, immediately after he was the centre of one of the landmark cultural events of this generation, he has our ears. And he’s using the moment to not necessarily tell the story, but to draw our attention to a story mainstream Canada has not wanted to tell.  

Stream Leonard Cohen: “You Want It Darker,” “Leaving the Table,” “Traveling Light”

Stream Gord Downie: “The Stranger,” “Seven Matches,” “Son”