Evening Hymns

The last record Jonas Bonnetta recorded under his moniker, Evening Hymns, was a beast. For reasons well-documented, here, here and here, it's understandable why Quiet Energies is a sonic 180 from the record that preceded it.

Where 2012's Spectral Dusk was the sound of stillness that often accompanies mourning, Quiet Energies is the sound of, well, anything but. There are elements of joy, groove, cheek and the odd touch of heartbreak. Simply put, Quiet Energies sounds like life being lived.

With a slight '70s vibe that urges the listener to hop in a car and drive 'til the tank hits empty, Quiet Energies was recorded in part and mixed by long-time Evening Hymns co-conspirator, James Bunton, about a half a tank of gas outside of the city of Toronto at Port William Sound in Mountain Grove, Ontario.

"If I Were A Portal" is a mid-tempo rocker that opens the album but by the time you reach "House of Mirrors" you'll be lowering windows and raising the volume. "Oh Man You'll Walk Again and Again" summons the spirit of Neil Young in its feedback drenched guitar solo and, as in Evening Hymns tradition, amid all of the subtly electronic folky sounds of Quiet Energies, there's an element of the countryside with the musical layers of "Connect the Lines" peeling away from piano to drones before finally coming to a end with the melody of bird songs.

Bonnetta and Bunton's combined talents make for a gorgeous sounding record that doesn't waste a space, a second or a note. It clocks in at a smooth 40 minutes without leaving the listener feeling like they're missing a thing.

Quiet Energies is out now on Outside Music. You can purchase the album here.



Tracklist
1. "If I Were A Portal"
2. "Evil Forces"
3."House of Mirrors"
4.Rescue Teams
5."Oh Man You'll Walk Again and Again"
6. "Connect The Lines"
7."All My Life I Have Been Running"
8. "Light As A Feather" - CBC Music

QUIET ENERGIES

RATING: 4 OF 5
Artist
EVENING HYMNS
Label
OUTSIDE

Two somewhat fragile albums informed by grief and mourning have led to a sturdy, far more full-sounding third effort from Toronto's Evening Hymns, aka Jonas Bonnetta, whose father died in 2009. He's cited Tom Petty as an influence this time out, but the singer/songwriter who comes to mind more is Joel Plaskett - particularly the folkier end of his canon.

Recorded with James Bunton in Bonnetta's rural Perth-area studio, the songs are as reflective and melancholy as ever, still circling around themes of loss and searching, but with even more poignant lyrics and newfound drive. Sonic details are plentiful and effective: uplifting backup vocals by Sylvie Smith, touches of strings and stately piano, alluringly atmospheric guitar and electronic experimentation.

Bonnetta lets loose vocally near the end of Oh Man You'll Walk Again And Again, mirroring the cathartic and noisier quality of his live shows, while the angry All My Life I Have Been Running is revelatory - the sound of Bonnetta moving up and out of the darkness.


Top track: All My Life I Have Been Running - NOW Magazine

I connected with Evening Hymns’ last record, Spectral Dusk, on a visceral, deeply empathetic level. At the time of that record’s release, I was facing the upcoming 15th anniversary of my father’s death, a milestone that felt incredibly foreign and yet carried ingrained memories. Spectral Dusk chronicled Evening Hymns songwriter Jonas Bonnetta’s reckoning of his own father’s recent death, and in listening to its haunting interludes, I came to understand that the notion of time being a healer is wrong. Time offers distance, perspective. But you don’t ever recover from a profound loss; you go ahead as a changed person, with a new normal.

So it’s comforting to hear that, on Quiet Energies, Bonnetta and Evening Hymns are on the road, moving ahead with a new perspective, and renewed spirits. Like my own personal journey, Bonnetta finds himself absorbing the atmosphere and natural wonder of Joshua Tree National Park, feeling the restorative power of the sun and mapping his way out of the wilderness, back to civilization. The album starts with “If I Were A Portal”, a title and lyric that suggests we are our own gateway to healing. It’s driving rhythm and forward momentum informs the first half of Quiet Energies, finding its peak early on the cathartic release of “Oh Man You’ll Walk Again and Again”: “I was tired of wandering at night in the fields specifically looking for you,” he sings, referencing Spectral Dusk’s gestation and creation, then adds, “Drove for a year / sang my songs into beers / and to be honest it never felt good,” suggesting again that true healing can only come when we let the dead rest and carry on as they would want us to.

I often find Spectral Dusk referred to as Bonnetta’s tribute to his late father, but I disagree with that. Spectral Dusk was a reflection of Bonnetta’s state of mind, a much-needed baring of the soul that ultimately led him to the real tribute, Quiet Energies. All a parent wants of their children is to leave them with a strength of character and conviction of spirit that will allow them to carry on. Move the family and its legacy forward. Wake the next morning and the morning after that and eventually find the new normal. Drop the needle into a new groove and let the “quiet energies” propel you into the unknown.

There’s no better tribute than carrying on.

Evening Hymns, Quiet Energies
Outside Music, September 18, 2015 - Quick Before It Melts

Following Evening Hymns' extensive tour supporting 2013's celebrated Spectral Dusk, core member and songwriter Jonas Bonnetta took some time off to visit Joshua Tree to get his head straight. Spectral Dusk, their sophomore album, was written at a tumultuous time for Bonnetta, whose father had recently passed; most of the material on that album addressed that experience, and the accompanying two-year tour meant that Bonnetta relived the loss night after night.

Evening Hymns' new album, Quiet Energies, was written after the tour ended and represents Bonnetta moving forward. The record is the first on new label Outside Music, and was recorded over the course of a couple of weeks with engineer James Bunton (Diamond Rings, Ohbijou) in Bonnetta's home studio in rural Ontario.

Addressing the material on the album, has Bonnetta explained that, "I had been listening to so much Tom Petty on that [Joshua Tree] trip, and it kind of came to me that this record was a journey. A road trip album. A driving album." The rambling motif behind the lyrics is clear, and it resonates through the expansive synths and the reverb-soaked guitar riffs. The progression of the songs creates momentum from opener "If I Were a Portal" to fourth track "Rescue Teams." Although one of the most candid songs on the album, fifth track, "Oh Man You'll Walk Again and Again" peaks with a built-up distorted solo and lamentably recedes with a minute-long ambient outro of soft picking. It's a prolonged lull in the album that is duplicated on the outro of following track "Connect the Lines."

"All My Life I Have Been Running" reignites the pistons briefly, and though it's a little too late to get the motor running again, there is thoughtfulness even in these uneventful gaps, most aptly expressed on final track "Light as a Feather." Beginning in silence, the momentous stillness is punctuated by gentle strings that are eventually joined at the three-minute mark by Bonnetta's soft voice and accompanying acoustic guitar.

As he sings, "Light as a feather, I cut that tether / I'm floating away," one gets the feeling that whatever was sought on that musical road trip has led Bonnetta to a point of serenity; with the final contemplative silence and the fading of post-punk synth it would seem he has found a little bit of closure. (Outside) - Exclaim!

Living only an hour and a half outside of the city in the seclusion of Mountain Grove, Ontario, the nation's capital has become something of a second home for Evening Hymns' lead man Jonas Bonnetta. The soft-spoken songwriter was quick to acknowledge it too, with two members of his backing band hailing from Ottawa (guitarist Jon Hynes and drummer Pat Johnson) on top of performing around town quite often.

After working through a few technical difficulties, the quartet led with a number of new tracks that are set to appear on their new record, which Bonnetta revealed will arrive in the middle of this year. Making sure to include some older fare, the group walked the crowd through the dynamic shifts and prominent vocal harmonies of "Dead Deer," as well as the raw emotion of "You and Jake," Bonnetta's reflection on his relationship with his father. The crowd stood silent and delighted as the man finished the evening with a solo performance of "Spectral Dust," proving that it didn't matter how many times they had seen him these past few months. - Exclaim

All too often, pop music insinuates that the biggest loss we suffer is when someone walks out the door. Those painful, but ultimately insignificant moments are thought as the times that take all of our strength to endure.

For Jonas Bonnetta – the primary songwriter and voice of Evening Hymns – music was his compass during a storm most of us cannot comprehend let alone navigate through, not just a release from a pain that disappears with each new lust.

Spectral Dusk is a touching, starkly honest documentation detailing Jonas’ suffering as he watched his father grow weaker and pass away. His notes carried forward confessionals, grew into anthems to lead his father to the battlefield and sadly, became the backdrop for words Jonas didn’t have the time or courage to share with his father in those final days.

Considering what Spectral Dusk means to Jonas and what it documents, the record is sophisticated and sure, a singular vision that holds true even as the songs transverse genres. A marked growth from the already fantastic Spirit Guides, the songs find the band introducing new textures that extend past the boundaries of traditional folk. Electronic undercurrents, cacophonous swells of horns and surprising distortion all add to the pain and anger Jonas felt, but Evening Hymns perfectly pairs that turbulence with moments of beauty, harmony and cinematic instrumentation to lessen the weight of the record as Jonas tries to celebrate life, not just mourn death.

Each song is perfect, in a sense that the message and meaning are delivered as complete thoughts and as Jonas intended. It’s hard to conceptualize a series of questions that have no real answer and a pain that will never relent in a finite form, but Jonas put everything he has into each moment and it creates a full and fulfilling listen. Whether it’s the empty reverberation of the church organ that starts the beautiful “Asleep in the Pews” or the rain storm that bookends the LP, every sound on this record has a purpose and conveys a heartfelt memory for Jonas.

The teary, broken steel guitar that frames “Moon River” and the strings on “Irving Lake Access Road” set somber tones, but the triumphant surge of “Asleep in the Pews”, anger of “Family Tree” and tenderness of “Song To Sleep To” are equally as important to the progression and the healing.

I love Spectral Dusk for how it sounds, but more for what it is. A heartfelt love letter from a son to his father. The confusion and frustration that only comes from death. Loss. Love. Hopelessness and never ending thanks. Letting a man know the respect he commanded and deserved. Ultimately, Spectral Dusk is a son doing all he can to ease his Dad’s pain and keep fighting, but knowing the outcome is inevitable and both men are powerless to stop it.

Jonas wrote these songs for his Dad and the observations and self-realization he includes are so personal it’s almost overwhelming to hear, but remarkably, the songs can transfer to anyone battling true loss. It’s no secret my own father is sick with a brutal disease that attacks without reason and has no cure, and maybe my own thoughts and fears take over as I slide my own pain into each melody, but every time I hear Jonas sing, “to make you feel so loved and so proud”, I fight off tears. These songs help me open up and share the things I never thought I’d have to say, but also help me realize that life is unfair for so many people, not just me and my family.

And maybe that’s why Spectral Dusk is so important, not only to me, but to today’s music scene. Jonas presents his most treasured and haunting memories without filter or cushion, only hoping his songs soar skyward and get heard one last time. In doing so, he gives us the chance to explore the same painful uncertainties and unjust conclusions. I know we all need mindless pop and the unlimited potential of call me maybe, but these songs – like so many of us – are longing for the chance to pick up the phone one last time and hear a voice on the other end, instead of cold, empty silence. - Herohill

Released on the continent and in his native Canada last year, and now getting a welcome UK release courtesy of the farsighted folks of Tin Angel, Spectral Dusk is the second album by songwriter Jonas Bonnetta in his Evening Hymns guise. A meditation on the death of his father, perhaps the most remarkable thing is that it’s not in any way a mawkish set of self pitying “sad dad gone” songs, but a reflective acoustic space realised through some powerful, airy, literate songs.

The album was recorded in a log cabin in Perth, Ontario, with musicians recruited from friends including The Wooden Sky and Timber Timbre, and recorded by sonic genius James Bunton. The sound is predominantly acoustic, with sparing use of electric guitars and keyboards and the sound of the woods and the lake. As a work of art it’s a memorial and an assertion of the writer’s growing awareness of himself as a man. Drawn from pain, it’s a musical and artistic triumph.

Opening with literally an invocation, a field recording from near Lake Mazinaw segues into ‘Arrows’, a drum beat calling his father’s spirit into being, wanting to see him and let him free: “I sing these hymns to call you in/I shout these songs to let you go”. It evokes an atmosphere of the vast outdoors and the spirituality that pervades the whole album.

The mood changes with ‘Family Tree’, a savage disownment of a family quibbling over a dead man’s memory. As the song says – with bitter and incisive writing – he shows no mercy. Things soften with the song that could make most men cry, ‘You and Jake’ – on one level an acoustic guitar-driven track with simple memories of his brother Jake and his Dad, “Smoking smokes and just dreaming big”, but also depicting his Dad as part of the air: “You hung around the bush like woodsmoke/How does it feel to be hardly there?/Spirits playing spoons with your bones/I could feel you in the air ” and the crucial driving thought behind the whole album, “You taught me how to be a working man/Well I’m gonna work on you”.

The theme of a man being part of nature – part Thoreau, part Frost - drives the powerful, electric guitar-driven ‘Cabin in the Burn’: “You are the Mighty Spruce/You are the mighty pine”, before finally acknowledging the power and comfort of memory: “I’ll let you lie down in my mind and there you can be anything….” This theme and imagery is developed further in ‘Asleep in the Pews’ which tells of feeling lost, and of the weakness of a man out in the world: “I spent some time in the woods. They were dark. They were deep”. ‘Spirit in the Sky’ is another invocation to his father, with a cry of pain for having been left alive and left behind. ‘Song to Sleep To’ recalls his father when he became ill – begging him to be strong in dreams, while ‘Moon River’ reflects on the mess a grieving person can make of their other relationships but also on the hope that love brings. ‘Spectral Dust’, the final track, sums up everything – life, death, childhood, adulthood. It’s a remarkable song of simplicity and depth, just Jonas, his electric guitar, the darkness, and if you listen carefully, ice cracking in a whisky glass from his friends and collaborators listening as he really does bare his soul. “Please come back to me”, he sings, “I need you to be a man”. It ends with another field recording and Jonas and his brother Jake hollering to each other through the wind, in its own way, as evocative as the train whistle at the end of Pet Sounds. This is an album about being alive: about the power of sound and of art and the human spirit – life, love and the world we live in. It’s also a simply beautiful record. Hear it. - The Line of Best Fit

Meeting up with a Canadian indie artist sometimes takes a bit of guesswork. Often meek and unassuming, they tend to blend into crowds. But I instantly spot Jonas Bonnetta, principal songwriter behind Evening Hymns.

Wearing lumberjack plaid and a thick, untamed beard that would put most Williamsburg hipsters to shame, Bonnetta looks like a man who’s just spent months in the wilderness. But it’s not just a look.

“I’ve been living in a tent since the third of May,” he says, settling in on a patio in Parkdale. “I just unloaded my car literally half an hour ago and came straight here.”

Bonnetta has been labouring near Peterborough as a carpenter, construction worker and designer helping to build a massive subterranean cruciform structure in the woods, part of an ongoing acoustic ecology Soundscape series by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer.

The project is unrelated to Evening Hymns, but the combination of bucolic rural immersion, blue-collar hand labour and carefully conceptualized artistry mirrors the making of his band’s new album.

Spectral Dusk (Shuffling Feet) stretches even further the pastoral vastness of its predecessor, Spirit Guides. A 56-minute meditation on loss, pain, memory and responsibility, the new album is a heavy, patient, thematically rich snapshot of Bonnetta’s upbringing in tiny Orono, Ontario, and his journey into adulthood, all told through his relationship with his father, who passed away in 2009, shortly before the release of Spirit Guides.

One song, Cedars, on the earlier album was a reflection on grief, whereas Spectral Dusk is a full exploration of the subject.

“I wrote Cedars just a few months after he died, and I struggled with whether or not to record it,” muses Bonnetta. “I didn’t know if it was exploitative or too heavy to write about. But I’ve always written about what’s important to me, and I felt really good about what it had to say about dealing with his death. Then, when it came time to write the new record, all I was writing were Dad songs.”

Bonnetta spent nine days recording in a log cabin near Perth, Ontario, along with his partner, Sylvie Smith (the only other official member of Evening Hymns), producer Jamie Bunton (formerly of Ohbijou) and backing band the Wooden Sky. They played shinny hockey every morning and drank whisky and played cards every night, but spent the rest of the time recording under a watchful portrait of Bonnetta’s father. The trip forced him to confront his grief the entire time they were making the album.

“When we finished, there were tears and cheers, everybody knowing we’d done something really important to me,” Bonnetta remembers. “It was heavy, but it wasn’t dark.”

Bonnetta also travelled with his brother Jake to a tract of land called the Burn, where his father shot his first deer. They took a case of beer and a tape recorder, making field recordings used to connect the more traditional, nakedly emotional folk songs.

“A few kilometres away from the recording unit, we lit a bonfire and had a beer and shouted off the clifftop, not thinking that the Zoom recorder would pick it up from so far away,” says Bonnetta. “Not until months later when I listened back did I hear us yelling off the cliff. It felt like it made sense to keep that cathartic hoot on the album.

“I’ll make another record someday that isn’t quite as heavy. I mean, I know I’ll write about him forever, but this is the really focused ‘Sad Dad’ record I needed to get out of my system. It’s a succinct picture of my relationship to him and what he meant to me, and I’m totally proud of what we accomplished.” - Now Magazine Toronto

"C’est une caricature pas forcément menteuse : les musiciens du label Kütu Folk portent souvent des liquettes à carreaux, celles que l’on met pour scier des planches dans l’Amérique rurale – ce qui semble logique pour cette musique boisée et bucolique.

Chez Evening Hymns, recrue canadienne de l’écurie clermontoise, ce n’est pas une figure de style : le métier de Jonas Bonetta est vraiment de scier des planches, dans la scierie familiale qu’il dirige depuis le récent décès de son père, acte fondateur de ce second album aussi contemplatif que le premier, mais avec des éclairs sur l’horizon dégagé.

Enregistré, comme le veut la légende du folk ascétique (de Mi And L’Au à Bon Iver), dans une cabane en rondins isolée, seulement visitée de quelques amis musiciens de passage (Timber Timbre, The Wooden Sky…), Spectral Dusk est, comme son nom l’indique, un album de crépuscule et d’ombres étirées, fantomatiques.

Mais la voix, impérieuse, épaisse de Bonetta offre une étonnante consistance à cette musique étale, plus méditative qu’active, plus suggérée que composée – à la Lambchop. On conseille activement cet album à Sean Penn s’il veut un jour présenter en ciné-concert ses films Indian Runner ou Into the Wild."

4/5 - Les inRocks

La rivière est sombre et froide, intimidante. Il faut du temps pour se jeter à l’eau, un peu de courage pour se laisser porter par le courant sans rien savoir des berges qui nous accueilleront en aval, mais la baignade régénère. Spectral Dusk a l’intensité et la douceur de cette dérive, voyage initiatique au cœur d’un folk méditatif, effaçant les repères au fil de morceaux qui semblent d’abord n’en former qu’une, avant de dévoiler plus nettement leurs contours. À la sortie du premier album d’Evening Hymns (Spirit Guides, 2009), Jonas Bonnetta avait confié en ces pages : “Les chansons me viennent difficilement ; il faut vraiment que je sois ému pour avoir l’énergie de composer quelque chose.” C’est peu dire que l’émotion et l’inspiration sont venues comme un choc à l’heure de composer de nouvelles chansons, hantées par la mort du père de Jonas. Intervenu au milieu des sessions du premier LP, l’événement avait déjà inspiré Cedars et transcende aujourd’hui un album d’une force et d’une cohérence soufflantes. Il faut donc s’y plonger et s’y acclimater, ce n’est pas forcément facile.


Une introduction se charge de nous prendre par la main, au bord d’un cours d’eau, avant qu’un orgue et des bourdonnements ne débouchent sur Arrows, premier titre sublime : batterie et piano impriment d’abord un rythme sourd avant que la guitare ne donne une ampleur incroyable à une mélodie portée à deux voix par Jonas et l’inséparable Sylvie Smith. Les chœurs féminins ont une sensualité fantomatique sur Family Tree, perdue dans des arrangements atmosphérique de toute beauté. Le voyage se poursuit comme un rêve éveillé, entre ballades folk déchirantes (rémanence des souvenirs sur You And Jake, classicisme folk sur Spirit In The Sky et sa guitare slide), lourdes processions menaçantes (Cabin In The Burn), orchestrations luxuriantes comme une forêt au printemps (cuivres, cordes et claviers sur Asleep In The Pews, pour dire la peine et le deuil) et longue dérive instrumentale (les neuf minutes impressionnistes de Irving Lake Access Road, post-folk encordé). Une inspiration d’air frais au bord de la rivière et les forces raniment la vie, prie Jonas en conclusion sur la belle Spectral Dusk, encore déchirée entre manque et apaisement.

-Vincent Théval - MagicRPM

Originally the bedroom recording project of singer-songwriter Jonas Bonetta, Evening Hymns have blossomed into a trans-Atlantic-touring ensemble — an evolution mirrored in the bucolic epics from acclaimed 2009 release, Spirit Guides, which go from intimate to expansive in dramatic gestures. Quite appropriately, Evening Hymns' NXNE showcase will be held in a church. - Spin.com

“It was hard to explain all the pain that was running through me,” sings Jonas Bonnetta on “Asleep in the Pews,” the warm, delicate centrepiece of an album that brilliantly captures the transformative confusion of grief.

Bonnetta is known for crafting sparse and contemplative acoustic-led folk songs, but on Spectral Dusk, his second full-length album as Evening Hymns, the Toronto-area singer-songwriter explores the process of mourning a truly life-shattering tragedy—in this case, the death of his father in 2009. What Bonnetta has created is a deeply evocative document of the sheer impossibility of getting over such a profound loss.

Bookended by field recordings made in the rural landscapes where this father-son relationship was forged, Spectral Dusk is a quiet, vivid collection of snapshot memories. But this is no simplistic exercise in artistic catharsis: Bonnetta’s hushed, weary tones preclude any obvious sense of release, which means the album feels less like a purging of his grief than like a companion to it.

Along the way, the listener is given a window into a bond that now exists in the past tense. Though Bonnetta still sounds lost, he’s taken the first steps down the path towards healing.

9/10 - The GridTO