Fish & Bird
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | SELF
Music
Press
By Kerry DooleGiven that this quintet's members are based in Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, getting together to record must be quite the logistical challenge. We can be grateful it's one they met for this third album, an impressive collection of nine original folk-rooted compositions. Lead singer Taylor Ashton has a rich, compelling voice, one nicely complemented by the backing vocals of bassist Zoe Guigueno and fiddle player Adam Iredale-Gray. There's a refreshingly sparse feel to the Fish & Bird sound, with fiddle, banjo and upright bass interacting nicely with acoustic and electric guitars. The sense of space is appropriate, given song titles like "Space Telescope" (an album highlight) and "Northern Lights." They get a little experimental sonically on closing cut "Boxes & Bottles," something it'd be pleasing to see them pursue further.
(Fiddle Head) - Exclaim!
By Kerry DooleGiven that this quintet's members are based in Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, getting together to record must be quite the logistical challenge. We can be grateful it's one they met for this third album, an impressive collection of nine original folk-rooted compositions. Lead singer Taylor Ashton has a rich, compelling voice, one nicely complemented by the backing vocals of bassist Zoe Guigueno and fiddle player Adam Iredale-Gray. There's a refreshingly sparse feel to the Fish & Bird sound, with fiddle, banjo and upright bass interacting nicely with acoustic and electric guitars. The sense of space is appropriate, given song titles like "Space Telescope" (an album highlight) and "Northern Lights." They get a little experimental sonically on closing cut "Boxes & Bottles," something it'd be pleasing to see them pursue further.
(Fiddle Head) - Exclaim!
The first few seconds of any album may just be the most important.
On Fish & Bird‘s upcoming new album, Every Whisper is a Shout Across the Void, the first four seconds consist of a raw, lonely a cappella voice singing the opening number’s first, freighted word: “feeling.”
That one word sets the tone for the rest of the album. It’s as if, in that first instant, the band grabs the listener and holds on till the record’s finished.
Known for their unusual time signatures and funky approaches to traditional sounds, prog-folk project Fish & Bird have grown from a duo on their first album in 2006 to a crew of five musicians hailing from four cities across the country. Adam Iredale-Gray (fiddle, vocals) Ryan Boeur (acoustic & electric guitars) Ben Kelly (drums, percussion) Zoe Guigueno (upright bass, vocals) and Taylor Ashton (vocals, banjo) are as diverse sonically as they are geographically.
On this, their third album, the musicians take turns guiding songs, giving the album a diversity of direction, from the fiddle taking lead on the expansive instrumental “Circle Tune” to the buzzy guitar on “Crazy Dream.”
Though they’re young, Fish & Bird have a mature sense of honest emotion that creates a balance between their modern lyrics and their traditionally-influenced folk tunes.
It’s Fish & Bird’s lyrics that appeal most to me. This is a Canadian band, writing in Canada, about Canada (song titles include “Winnipeg” and “Northern Lights”). Without sticking to overt narratives, the songs tend thematically towards vignettes of human connection: a brush with a soft leg at brunch, a long glance across a campfire, shared body heat in a Winnipeg winter. And while drawing these familiar pictures, the songs don’t try to get too close; they’re observational, and they’re incomplete. As Ashton sings, on “Space Telescope,”I can’t put my finger on just what is is/ but I know it’s there.”
Every Whisper is a Shout Across the Void is an evocative album title, and it’s apt for this record. This is an upstart band sending their art into the mire of the music industry, finding meaning and inspiration in this country’s vast spaces, and those first long, lonely syllables at the start of the album.
The feeling behind a whisper is what makes it a shout. Fish & Bird is a band full of feeling, and this album is a shout worth hearing. - Roots Music Canada
The first few seconds of any album may just be the most important.
On Fish & Bird‘s upcoming new album, Every Whisper is a Shout Across the Void, the first four seconds consist of a raw, lonely a cappella voice singing the opening number’s first, freighted word: “feeling.”
That one word sets the tone for the rest of the album. It’s as if, in that first instant, the band grabs the listener and holds on till the record’s finished.
Known for their unusual time signatures and funky approaches to traditional sounds, prog-folk project Fish & Bird have grown from a duo on their first album in 2006 to a crew of five musicians hailing from four cities across the country. Adam Iredale-Gray (fiddle, vocals) Ryan Boeur (acoustic & electric guitars) Ben Kelly (drums, percussion) Zoe Guigueno (upright bass, vocals) and Taylor Ashton (vocals, banjo) are as diverse sonically as they are geographically.
On this, their third album, the musicians take turns guiding songs, giving the album a diversity of direction, from the fiddle taking lead on the expansive instrumental “Circle Tune” to the buzzy guitar on “Crazy Dream.”
Though they’re young, Fish & Bird have a mature sense of honest emotion that creates a balance between their modern lyrics and their traditionally-influenced folk tunes.
It’s Fish & Bird’s lyrics that appeal most to me. This is a Canadian band, writing in Canada, about Canada (song titles include “Winnipeg” and “Northern Lights”). Without sticking to overt narratives, the songs tend thematically towards vignettes of human connection: a brush with a soft leg at brunch, a long glance across a campfire, shared body heat in a Winnipeg winter. And while drawing these familiar pictures, the songs don’t try to get too close; they’re observational, and they’re incomplete. As Ashton sings, on “Space Telescope,”I can’t put my finger on just what is is/ but I know it’s there.”
Every Whisper is a Shout Across the Void is an evocative album title, and it’s apt for this record. This is an upstart band sending their art into the mire of the music industry, finding meaning and inspiration in this country’s vast spaces, and those first long, lonely syllables at the start of the album.
The feeling behind a whisper is what makes it a shout. Fish & Bird is a band full of feeling, and this album is a shout worth hearing. - Roots Music Canada
Folk-rock band grows from duo to quintet, but sticks with acoustic roots
By Roger Levesque, edmontonjournal.com June 4, 2011
EDMONTON — In roots music, bigger doesn’t always translate to better. But the West Coast act known as Fish & Bird seems to have made the transition from a duo to a full-fledged folk-rock band and only grown richer in the process.
They’re still largely about acoustic music, still characterized with an edge of bluegrass and jazz. “We’re not really contrived and that makes it so easy and natural to set up for rehearsal,” says Taylor Ashton, guitarist, lead singer and chief tunesmith for the band.
“In small shows we only plug in one guitar amp. That simplicity is great, but there’s also a challenge in taking what could seem like a limited acoustic palette and doing more with it. I think those limitations have bred something different creatively than if we had a whole bunch of electric effects.”
Ashton was outside Winnipeg as the group was making its way back west on a 36-date cross-country tour that started in April, the same journey that brings them to The Haven Saturday night.
The band’s collective experience takes in varied collaborations. Calgary-born Ashton started on trumpet in school band but later took up guitar, then banjo, then songwriting. It’s been about seven years since he met studio whiz Adam Iredale-Gray, who contributes fiddle, guitar and vocals to Fish & Bird.
Iredale-Gray’s small home studio made it easy for them to work on songs together and by 2007, they had done the seven tracks that became their first self-titled release. After borrowing their name from a Tom Waits song, they started looking for gigs around Victoria, B.C.
Soon they were inviting musical friends to sit in for a song or two. Between moving back and forth between Victoria and Vancouver, they made more acquaintances and when they created their second album Left Brain Blues (released in 2009 on their own Fiddle Head Records), it was only natural to include a bunch of guest spots.
Three of those guests — Ryan Boeur (electric and acoustic guitars), Zoe Guigueno (upright bass) and Ben Kelly (drums, bodhran) — joined up to make it a five-piece that appears for the first time as a cohesive unit on the new disc Every Whisper Is A Shout Across The Void. About half the album was written or arranged by the two original members, but Ashton says they want to integrate more ideas and tunes from the others.
Boeur and Kelly played in a rock band starting when they were 12, while Guigueno has five years of jazz studies behind her.
The title Every Whisper Is A Shout Across The Void is just a hint of the thoughtful depths that Ashton mines in his lyrics. It’s considerably beyond the sophomoric stuff you might expect from a band of musicians just hitting their mid-20s.
“The way it comes out is pretty mysterious to me, but writing songs is kind of my ultimate contribution to the band. I really see it as an art form to experiment with, and different songs come from different places.
“There’s so much insane stuff going on under the most mundane sides of everyday life,” says Ashton. “Philosophy and psychology really haunt me.”
Some of the most arresting images on the album come in Circle Tune, which Ashton says owes much to a scene from Guy Vanderhague’s novel The Last Crossing. He’s not averse to borrowing from other sources as long as he finds a way to spin them into something new of his own. Coupled with their open door to sonic exploration, the band’s future directions show real promise. - Edmonton Journal
Folk-rock band grows from duo to quintet, but sticks with acoustic roots
By Roger Levesque, edmontonjournal.com June 4, 2011
EDMONTON — In roots music, bigger doesn’t always translate to better. But the West Coast act known as Fish & Bird seems to have made the transition from a duo to a full-fledged folk-rock band and only grown richer in the process.
They’re still largely about acoustic music, still characterized with an edge of bluegrass and jazz. “We’re not really contrived and that makes it so easy and natural to set up for rehearsal,” says Taylor Ashton, guitarist, lead singer and chief tunesmith for the band.
“In small shows we only plug in one guitar amp. That simplicity is great, but there’s also a challenge in taking what could seem like a limited acoustic palette and doing more with it. I think those limitations have bred something different creatively than if we had a whole bunch of electric effects.”
Ashton was outside Winnipeg as the group was making its way back west on a 36-date cross-country tour that started in April, the same journey that brings them to The Haven Saturday night.
The band’s collective experience takes in varied collaborations. Calgary-born Ashton started on trumpet in school band but later took up guitar, then banjo, then songwriting. It’s been about seven years since he met studio whiz Adam Iredale-Gray, who contributes fiddle, guitar and vocals to Fish & Bird.
Iredale-Gray’s small home studio made it easy for them to work on songs together and by 2007, they had done the seven tracks that became their first self-titled release. After borrowing their name from a Tom Waits song, they started looking for gigs around Victoria, B.C.
Soon they were inviting musical friends to sit in for a song or two. Between moving back and forth between Victoria and Vancouver, they made more acquaintances and when they created their second album Left Brain Blues (released in 2009 on their own Fiddle Head Records), it was only natural to include a bunch of guest spots.
Three of those guests — Ryan Boeur (electric and acoustic guitars), Zoe Guigueno (upright bass) and Ben Kelly (drums, bodhran) — joined up to make it a five-piece that appears for the first time as a cohesive unit on the new disc Every Whisper Is A Shout Across The Void. About half the album was written or arranged by the two original members, but Ashton says they want to integrate more ideas and tunes from the others.
Boeur and Kelly played in a rock band starting when they were 12, while Guigueno has five years of jazz studies behind her.
The title Every Whisper Is A Shout Across The Void is just a hint of the thoughtful depths that Ashton mines in his lyrics. It’s considerably beyond the sophomoric stuff you might expect from a band of musicians just hitting their mid-20s.
“The way it comes out is pretty mysterious to me, but writing songs is kind of my ultimate contribution to the band. I really see it as an art form to experiment with, and different songs come from different places.
“There’s so much insane stuff going on under the most mundane sides of everyday life,” says Ashton. “Philosophy and psychology really haunt me.”
Some of the most arresting images on the album come in Circle Tune, which Ashton says owes much to a scene from Guy Vanderhague’s novel The Last Crossing. He’s not averse to borrowing from other sources as long as he finds a way to spin them into something new of his own. Coupled with their open door to sonic exploration, the band’s future directions show real promise. - Edmonton Journal
Discography
Stream of Thread, 2014 (TBA)
Every Whisper Is A Shout Across The Void, 2011, Fiddle Head Records
Left Brain Blues, 2009, Fiddle Head Records
Fish & Bird, 2007, Fiddle Head Records
Photos
Bio
“Fish & Bird’s carefully planned, creative musical juxtapositions are a delight, all the better given the scarcity of such inventiveness in much of today’s safe, homogenised musical output.” -R2 MAGAZINE (UK)
Raised on equal parts roots music and Radiohead, Fish & Bird have received praise on both sides of the Atlantic for their refreshingly unclichéd writing. With their fourth album, Stream of Thread (due early 2014), the young Canadian 5-piece continue to reimagine folk music for a new generation. The band has toured extensively in North America, from New York City to the Yukon, playing major engagements like the Winnipeg Folk Festival as well as opening for bands like Lake Street Dive and Joy Kills Sorrow on the club circuit.
Background:
Fish & Bird were once Victoria's most promising folk duo, and over the past 3 years they have evolved into Canada's most unique folk-rock ensemble. Their music hovers somewhere in the void between Newgrass and Indie-folk. If the Avett Brothers and Chris Thile's Punch Brothers' parents got married and they all became step-brothers, they might sound something like this.
Folk is kind of the idea but nowadays kids get their records from all over the place. Country, Art-rock, Jazz, the Beach Boys.... these individual influences come out if you listen for them but the strength is in the blend. The songs get you in the heart and the music screws with your brain.
Fish & Bird started as a recording project. In 2007, when Adam Gray and Taylor Ashton went into Iredale-Gray's basement studio, put together recordings of a few of Ashton's quirky folk tunes, made cases out of recycled file folders, and labeled them "Fish & Bird" (with homemade rubber stamps) the sound was a local hit in their hometown of Victoria. In 2009, they released a full length album of more mature material called "Left Brain Blues". Veda Hille has a copy and she loves it. The pair represented the tunes as a two-piece for a long time but when they became five is really when the sound started to come together. Ryan Boeur(guitar), Ben Kelly(drums), and Zoe Guigueno(bass) - all longtime friends of Ashton and Gray - brought the material to life.
The band has graced dozens of summer festival stages, and done over a dozen multi-province tours. In fall 2010, they recorded 9 new songs. A departure from the multitracked approach of the last 2 albums, almost everything was recorded live, including lead vocals. Entitled "Every Whisper Is A Shout Across the Void", the album features the entire five piece band pretty much exactly as they sound playing together all at once. The new songs are more cohesive, more personal, and more accessible. Fish & Bird rock out in 11/8, sometimes it seems like they're playing bluegrass, and they might make you cry.
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