Sykamore

Sykamore is the moniker for powerhouse independent singer songwriter Jordan Ostram. Her commanding presence and confident musical ability soar on her new Canadian-influenced album. One part pop star, another part country artist, what Sykamore brings to the table is a rich talent and incredible mix of sounds that really click from beginning to end in her new album.

The opening “Oklahoma” is a transcendent country ballad that’s sure to get folks clapping. From her references to classic country, the open road, and a thorough sense of adventure throughout, it’s a real hit. Seriously this is a hit song. It should be on radio across the country. Jordan Ostram is more talented than about 90% of the country artists producing music today. Her voice, both sweet and powerful, is destined for country stardom.

The second track “Air” is a little more the standard singer songwriter fare. Sykamore’s sweet vocals sound a bit more like the familiar girl next door type and a little less like the country diva belting out the power chorus on “Oklahoma.” But here’s the thing; she’s just as good at this. With a subtle vocal something akin to Sarah Jarosz or even Zoey Deschanel at times, it’s a comfortable song. “The truth is I wanted you to stay. If you’d pick up that phone I’d say baby come home I’m in hell.” Friends, that’s a country song.
“I can make you happy” uses synth openers to break up the sound of the album, but Sykamore’s acoustic melody has a Taylor Swift vibe to it. The pacing of the lyrics are all quite 21st century pop music, but that’s not to say they’re shallow or uninteresting. The track features the harmonizing vocals of Joshua Smith. The two produce a truly rich vocal blending that makes for a delightful song. It’s a nice break from the predominantly solo vocals on the rest of the album. The message of the song is, somewhat predictably, about hoping that a relationship will work out. It seems befitting the teen and young adult listening audience for the album.

“Slow Dancing” is another poppy acoustic song. It’s got a little more Nashville in it with the steel guitar backing, but for the most part it fits with the rest of the pop acoustic joy on the rest of the album. Some of the best writing on the album, the track is about that moment in the middle of a slow dance when a person feels supremely connected to the other. It’s beautiful and will certainly be the “first dance” song for couples. “Every day that passes by I dream of holding you at night.” Seriously this girl can write country music lyrics. “There is nothing to slow dancing. May your eyes saw mine. I’ll guard you with my hands. There’s a harmony when you’re this close to me. If I could just believe that we could always be this high above. Do I still have this dance? Cuz you’re still the one I love.” Beautiful. The lines are touchingly delivered in a true love song. Oh… but the kicker… well… I’m not sure I want to give it away here. Let’s just say you need to listen to the whole song.

The slow waltz of “The Fine Line” is adorable. That’s not a very technical analysis of a song, but it’s just what it is. The simple plucking of the banjo, the prominent bass, and the subtle vocal clarity of Sykamore come together for a genuine track. It highlights Ostram’s sincere songwriting. “There’s a fine line between sorrow and joy. There’s a fine line I can see.” The lament and heartfelt lyrics are palpably emotional. This is not just a gal strumming a few chords. There’s real feeling behind the words that really give Sykamore that “got it” factor. She really has it.

“Sleep Tight” is not the average song on this kind of album. Instead it’s a long “masterpiece” kind of track. It’s not what one might expect from this genre or kind of songwriter. But it’s got shades of gospel, country, and pop music wrapped up in an almost orchestral majestic piece. With long sections of synth chords, it’s evident that Sykamore’s sound is about more than conventional country. With an intentionally emotional perspective it seems evident, especially with this track, that Sykamore wants her listeners connecting in a deep and personal way with the music. (Quick note: While the track is quite long at eight minutes, it is not 18 as it shows on the bandcamp player.)

The final track is a much happier ukelele song. It’s cute and much more of what listeners will expect from the album. Titled the “Pirate Song” is about a sort of roleplay with a boyfriend and the joy found in “treasure” of a lover. It’s sweet, whimsical, and a perfect ending to a complex album.

All told this is the kind of album that I really like to support. It shows off brilliant songwriting, great musicianship, and Sykamore is a vastly-under-recognized artist. I shudder to think about some of the awful commercial country playing right now. This artist, especially with her sure-fire hit “Oklahoma” deserves much more credit. Please give her a listen and share her work with others. - EarToTheGround Music

Sykamore is the moniker for powerhouse independent singer songwriter Jordan Ostram. Her commanding presence and confident musical ability soar on her new Canadian-influenced album. One part pop star, another part country artist, what Sykamore brings to the table is a rich talent and incredible mix of sounds that really click from beginning to end in her new album.

The opening “Oklahoma” is a transcendent country ballad that’s sure to get folks clapping. From her references to classic country, the open road, and a thorough sense of adventure throughout, it’s a real hit. Seriously this is a hit song. It should be on radio across the country. Jordan Ostram is more talented than about 90% of the country artists producing music today. Her voice, both sweet and powerful, is destined for country stardom.

The second track “Air” is a little more the standard singer songwriter fare. Sykamore’s sweet vocals sound a bit more like the familiar girl next door type and a little less like the country diva belting out the power chorus on “Oklahoma.” But here’s the thing; she’s just as good at this. With a subtle vocal something akin to Sarah Jarosz or even Zoey Deschanel at times, it’s a comfortable song. “The truth is I wanted you to stay. If you’d pick up that phone I’d say baby come home I’m in hell.” Friends, that’s a country song.
“I can make you happy” uses synth openers to break up the sound of the album, but Sykamore’s acoustic melody has a Taylor Swift vibe to it. The pacing of the lyrics are all quite 21st century pop music, but that’s not to say they’re shallow or uninteresting. The track features the harmonizing vocals of Joshua Smith. The two produce a truly rich vocal blending that makes for a delightful song. It’s a nice break from the predominantly solo vocals on the rest of the album. The message of the song is, somewhat predictably, about hoping that a relationship will work out. It seems befitting the teen and young adult listening audience for the album.

“Slow Dancing” is another poppy acoustic song. It’s got a little more Nashville in it with the steel guitar backing, but for the most part it fits with the rest of the pop acoustic joy on the rest of the album. Some of the best writing on the album, the track is about that moment in the middle of a slow dance when a person feels supremely connected to the other. It’s beautiful and will certainly be the “first dance” song for couples. “Every day that passes by I dream of holding you at night.” Seriously this girl can write country music lyrics. “There is nothing to slow dancing. May your eyes saw mine. I’ll guard you with my hands. There’s a harmony when you’re this close to me. If I could just believe that we could always be this high above. Do I still have this dance? Cuz you’re still the one I love.” Beautiful. The lines are touchingly delivered in a true love song. Oh… but the kicker… well… I’m not sure I want to give it away here. Let’s just say you need to listen to the whole song.

The slow waltz of “The Fine Line” is adorable. That’s not a very technical analysis of a song, but it’s just what it is. The simple plucking of the banjo, the prominent bass, and the subtle vocal clarity of Sykamore come together for a genuine track. It highlights Ostram’s sincere songwriting. “There’s a fine line between sorrow and joy. There’s a fine line I can see.” The lament and heartfelt lyrics are palpably emotional. This is not just a gal strumming a few chords. There’s real feeling behind the words that really give Sykamore that “got it” factor. She really has it.

“Sleep Tight” is not the average song on this kind of album. Instead it’s a long “masterpiece” kind of track. It’s not what one might expect from this genre or kind of songwriter. But it’s got shades of gospel, country, and pop music wrapped up in an almost orchestral majestic piece. With long sections of synth chords, it’s evident that Sykamore’s sound is about more than conventional country. With an intentionally emotional perspective it seems evident, especially with this track, that Sykamore wants her listeners connecting in a deep and personal way with the music. (Quick note: While the track is quite long at eight minutes, it is not 18 as it shows on the bandcamp player.)

The final track is a much happier ukelele song. It’s cute and much more of what listeners will expect from the album. Titled the “Pirate Song” is about a sort of roleplay with a boyfriend and the joy found in “treasure” of a lover. It’s sweet, whimsical, and a perfect ending to a complex album.

All told this is the kind of album that I really like to support. It shows off brilliant songwriting, great musicianship, and Sykamore is a vastly-under-recognized artist. I shudder to think about some of the awful commercial country playing right now. This artist, especially with her sure-fire hit “Oklahoma” deserves much more credit. Please give her a listen and share her work with others. - EarToTheGround Music

You can take the girl out of the country but the not the country out of the girl.

Even if she really, really wants to get it out.

Jordan Ostrom spent the early part of her young musical career attempting to purge her soul of the C & W sounds she’d been brought up on in Strathmore. It was the music that was always on in her home. It was the music that was around when she was involved, like the rest of her family, in the rodeo scene. And it was the music that she first attempted to rebel against when she hit those early years of self-discovery and self-expression.

First it was a folk project. Then it was a pop band.

Now? Well, now the 23-year-old has given up and sonically gone home again.

“It’s funny, it just sort of finds you in the end,” says the local musician, who now performs under the name Sykamore. “It’s just funny how it just gets out of you what you’re meant to do, right down to the genre you’re meant to do. It finds you eventually.”

And it has found in Ostrom a willing and remarkably capable artist, one with a voice as pure as a prairie stream and sense of melody and songcrafting skills of an artist well beyond her years and experience.

All are sweetly on show on her original studio debut Petal, a wonderfully understated album that infuses in that coyly, quietly confident country understanding other influences that include those previously flexed pop and folk penchants. In turn, it probably has more to do with acts such as the Lumineers, Civil Wars and other CKUA artists than it does the Underwoods et al that dominate the current country landscape.

From songs such as the heartachingly breakingly weeper Slow Dance and the beautiful ambient instrumental track built around the E.E. Cummings poem i carry your heart with me, to the slightly more upbeat and radio-friendly Pray for Rain, the album, produced in Kelowna by Jordan Wiberg, is a rich, fresh, focused and accomplished work.

That’s something of a surprise when you discover, almost unbelievably, that it took only 12 days to record, mix, master and manufacture, winding up on Ostrom’s doorstep three hours before her release party earlier this summer.

Ostrom laughs at the “photo finish,” necessary because of the Ironwood show and her first, perhaps slightly haphazard Canadian tour which immediately followed.

That, itself, speaks to her full-time commitment to her music, something that the songs on Petal underscore as well as the pronouncement on the liner notes: “This record marks the beginning of my life’s work”

It’s a good thing that she’s not only good at it but that, even this early into Sykamore, she has an incredible number of believers in what it is she’s doing. That includes the many fans she’s picked up performing in smaller venues around town as well as a number of higher-profile supporters such as: Calgary hip-hop artist Transit, who featured her gorgeous voice on two of the songs from his recent CD; Jesse-James Cameron from local act Makeshift Innocence, who has been offering her advice along the way; and, perhaps, most importantly, Neil MacGonigill, whose ear for talent has led him to work with such artists as kd lang, Jann Arden, Billy Cowsill and Joe Nolan, and has now led him to Ostrom, whom he’s unofficially taken under his wing.

For the young musician, it’s a sign that she’s headed in the right direction and has committed to a just cause.

“It does. I mean, you start out and no one believes in you,” she laughs, before amending that to people out of your circle of family and close friends.

“People that know what it takes to make it or break it in this industry telling you you have what it takes is a really big compliment and it’s a great way to keep moving forward, it’s a great fuel for you.”

That said, Ostrom admits that even without that backing and as appreciated as it is, she’d still continue down this path without it.

She started it in her bedroom recording and releasing YouTube clips of her performing covers by artists such as Lana Del Ray, Blink 182 and Adele, and if — impossible as it is — that’s where she winds up again, albeit performing her own material for whomever stumbles upon it on the Internet, so be it. Music, she admits, is something she has to do.

“I do have to do it,” she says.

“It’s funny because when I put the record out people congratulated me and were like, ‘It’s such a big accomplishment.’ I don’t look at it like that because it’s just something I had to do. It’s just something that calls out to you. . . . This is what I do even in my spare time, this is what I’ve been wanting to do for so long.

“So when I think about it like that, of course it’s what I have to do. In the moments when I think I could do something else it’s fear or doubt.

“But it’s what I should be doing.”

Funny. It really does just sort of find you in the end.

Sykamore’s debut album Petal is available now. - Calgary Herald

"Sounding like a softer-voiced Adele at times, her ability to alternate breathy notes along with strong warbles was a pleasure to listen to." - Dan St. Yves, 'Such is life'

"Sounding like a softer-voiced Adele at times, her ability to alternate breathy notes along with strong warbles was a pleasure to listen to." - Dan St. Yves, 'Such is life'

"...powerful, haunting voice." - Scotty Gold, Rhino Smokehouse Calgary AB

"By about the third song into her set (original "Lilacs") and the wrenching "I Can Make You Happy", it became abundantly clear that the music biz is gonna be just fine with talent like that starting to make their way onto the landscape." - Dan St. Yves, 'Such is life'