The Rakish Angles
Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada | INDIE
Music
Press
"The Rakish Angles are pushing acoustic music into new directions. With impeccable taste, tone, timing and an all original repertoire, they are sure to be at the forefront of the Canadian Acoustic scene for a long time to come. Check 'em out!"
- Andrew Collins -mandolinist
"Beautiful playing" - Jayme Stone -banjoist
"Their musical stew has many surprising flavours with strings of dazzling melodic lines and swirls of sumptuous grooves which blend together to make such tasteful music that is simply beautiful" - Duane Andrews -guitarist
Finalist (top three) instrumental albums of 2009 - Indie Acoustic Project
The Sunshine Coast is known as the land of Bruno Gerussi, beaches and late ferries, and can add one of Canada's most progressive string bands to the list.
The Rakish Angles - a name taken from Dickens - play a recipe that consists of Gypsy swing, newgrass and a dollop of salsa. This 13-song totally instrumental offering is somewhat reminiscent of early Zubot and Dawons material, and slide guitar ace Steve Dawson guests on three tracks.
There's great interplay between the players, especially between mandolinist Simon Hocking and fiddler Serena Eades, and some great writing. They can speed along on tunes like "Breakwater", catching some pretty melody in "Dan & Mischa's Wedding." "Big Town Swing" is almost good enough to become part of the standard Gypsy repertoire.
The band shows more than a little promise. It was nominated as the instrumental group o the year in the Canadian Folk Music Awards. Hopefully the Angles will soon be able to catch a ferry and take their music to the rest of Canada.
- By Mike Sadava - Penguin Eggs
Nominated for 2010 Western Canadian Music Award for "Instrumental Recording of the Year" - Western Canadian Music Awards
2009 Nominee for Best Instrumental Band - Canadian Folk Music Awards
"The Rakish Angles were a real treat! They put on a flawless performance, bringing the audience along for a great musical ride, while really pulling off combining many styles of instrumental music. Their album is in my list of top 20 Canadian favourites." - Dinah D, bassist for The Kerplunks and host of Degnen House Concerts
"A great new band from Gibsons, BC." - Margaret Gallagher
"Delightful and infectious performers." - Linda Williams, Coast Cultural Alliance
#1 CHLY Folk/Roots/Blues chart Nov. 2008 - CHLY Radio
"The Rakish Angles were a real treat! They put on a flawless performance, bringing the audience along for a great musical ride, while really pulling off combining many styles of instrumental music. Their album is in my list of top 20 Canadian favourites." - Dinah D, bassist for The Kerplunks and host of Degnen House Concerts
Discography
The Rakish Angles - (2009) self-titled debut featuring guest artists Steve Dawson and Celso Machado. Most tracks been getting radio airplay nationally.
The Rakish Angles - Cottonwood Moon (2011) with guests: Doug Cox (dobro), Curtis Andrews (percussion), Angus Lyon (Accordion), Jayme Stone (banjo)
Photos
Bio
British Columbia's Sunshine Coast is a tranquil neck-of-the-woods beside the Pacific Ocean that resonates with a woody timbre. This unique place conjured up a definitive sonic quartet called The Rakish Angles. Newgrass, Latin, gypsy-jazz, old-time music. None of these styles were born there, yet they have given inspiration to the vision of these fiercely local musicians, who hail from various locations around Canada. There's gentle paradox that slides along side the band and maybe that's why their music and performances strike a chord - they simultaneously say sweet and mysterious, novel and worn, perfectionistic and fatalistic. The quiet clash is honest and musical and natural.
Since forming in 2007, The Rakish Angles - composed of Serena Eades (Violin), Simon Hocking (Mandolin), Boyd Norman (Bass), and Dan Richter (Guitar) - have been making their own noise, literal or otherwise. They have shared the stage with Tony Trischka, Doug Cox, Po'Girl, Celso Machado, The Red Clay Ramblers, Frazey Ford, Jesse Zubot, and Tanya Tagaq. In the process, they've managed to garner nominations for a Canadian Folk Music Award in 2009 as well as a Western Canadian Music Award in 2010.
As word of the band spreads, the emotional connection is the characteristic that comes through the loudest. They themselves will tell you their raison d'ètre isn't necessarily about unfolding the corners of musical innovation until the wheels come off, although they dabble in that regard. They are capable of finding new latitude, but it isn't that, their technical proficiency or their well-chosen lyrics - it's much more basic and raw than that. They bypass the intellectual filters and spark something in the emotional centre of the brain, and they're doing what they're supposed to do.
Listen to their second album, Cottonwood Moon (released 2011), created during that winter in a musty A-frame cabin over looking Georgia Strait and belonging to the album's engineer Montreal musician Courtney Wing. Listen to the title track. A simple, clean progression. Perfect and unpolished notes. Timeless, broken words such as "...time drains like wine." It does, doesn't it?
A word about the name. 'Rakish' is an adjective meaning, 'having or displaying a dashing, jaunty or slightly disreputable quality or appearance.' How this embodies the band, it can't quite be told exactly. Sure, you'll probably find them jaunty and jovial, but they ain't so disreputable. They're family people. They swim with no clothes on. They sing into one collective microphone. They themselves are warm, wooden-timbred, natural, mysterious folk - much like the place where they live.
Maybe time will tell just what exactly the word can mean and what it is meant to sound like. Until then, it's about playing music.
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