Trevor Tchir

Trevor Tchir is fascinated by the stories of our country and, like Maria Dunn, he effectively translates this interest into multi-dimensional, lyrically rich songs. - Penguin Eggs Magazine

"Even when he strums alone, Tchir is surrounded by people. His lyrics are populated with characters who are both universal and intimate: poets who waitress, not-even-exes wondering why love never got a foothold, and grandparents building a nation and a place in it. In Tchir’s hands place, time and relationships become characters, too, with their own agendas and idiosyncrasies...Like Bob Dylan or James Taylor, Tchir’s velvet-and-smoke voice sounds the same indefinable age throughout all his recordings, which seamlessly weave ’70s Tapestry sounds with bluesy-country touches; his allegiance is to the time-honoured art of evoking emotion through storytelling." - SEE Magazine, Christa O'Keefe

"Wooden Castles Fall is a singular body of work that is a testament to Tchir's personal integrity...It's a fairly sophisticated vision that reworks the stuff of everyday experiences...He's created many prairie images and tales with poetic lyrics that are at times humoured, tender and insightful. And the instumentation is spare but evocative...There's a strong core of philosophical truth and artistic integrity at the heart of this album, the kind that could be around for generations when other popular mainstream pieces have faded into obscurity." - St. Albert Gazette

"When Trevor Tchir put out his first album, The Way I Feel Today (1999), he had a kind of freewheelin’ approach – a style clearly inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. At heart, this Edmonton-raised Ottawan is still a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar, but he has taken his brand of folk music a step further. The result, on impressive songs such as Elevate Achilles and Soul Sister is something even Dylan would enjoy, and Bob might just envy this singer’s young vocal chords." - Ottawa Xpress

To accuse Trevor Tchir of singing like Calexico’s Joey Burns is no insult; he takes the best of Burns’ The Black Light-era quaver and applies that subdued, iconic style to our Alberta situation in a great leap since his last local album. Overall, Tchir sounds (and is!) more mature, moving on from simply detailing his surroundings to actually populating them with people broken in fascinating ways that not all of them necessarily understand or even notice. It’s an album of regret and slow-moving hope, given extra weight by the passing of Tchir’s father.
There are clichés, but they’re mythic clichés, and Tchir’s lyrics dig deep, f’rinstance: “I’ve been saving like a dam, but they drain you where they can.” Wow, remember just a year back, when it was just artists suffering in the boom instead of, like, everyone?
Tchir has moved away from intentionally muddy country into a more exploratory folk style, which means a song like “Beneath the Mountain Ash” needs nothing more than his ruminations emitting from a head bent over a single acoustic guitar. (Just watch out for the drunken waxwings.) Accordion and violin come in at perfect times. White space plays just as important a role. There’s a pretty duet with Volya Baziuk too. And the lament about tearing down Maple Leaf Gardens is one to keep in mind as we watch our city’s insatiable elites’ thick-tongued move to pillage, demonize, and erase the only arena the Oilers ever thrived in. Tchir’s passion for the old Gardens is nostalgic and charming.
Go to the release party on Oct. 10 at Queen Alex Hall for more — you’ll dig it for sure.
**** - See Magazine

A decade ago, at 19, Trevor Tchir made his first album. His debut demonstrated a natural affinity with a classic strain of poetic folk straddling the rootsy ease of Townes van Zandt and the high-minded '60s coffeehouse sounds of Leonard Cohen. Tchir was also blessed with an almost effortlessly lovely voice, smooth and supple, like a differently-tuned cousin of James Taylor.
His earlier efforts are all worthy, but now, with the release of his fourth album, Sky Locked Land, comes a startling integration—a sense of Tchir completely inhabiting his work, like when an actor who was previously handsome and capable acquires the further burnishment of character. An intangible something has been breathed into the music, and the songs that make up Sky Locked Land have a lived-in feel that animates the entire album.
Sky Locked Land answers the American Songbook with a Canadian volume, seeking to project that kind of universality through the specificity of stories and the beauty of craft. Listeners travel with Tchir through space (from the Great Lakes to Slave Lake on a longtime couple's road trip; from Newfoundland to the tar sands in search of prosperity) and through time (to a childhood backyard discovery; to an unproductive Alberta farm) and into dreams that range from disturbing to hopeful.
The stories largely converge on themes of collective memory, community and haunting dislocation, stretched across the elements of earth and sky, and are counterpointed and echoed by the warmth of the music, whether polished and full or loose and spare.
Perhaps the key to the album's vibrancy is a sort of spiritual interplay between the stories—rooted in truth, drawn from his own experiences or those of family members—and the music, created with an ever-expanding circle of musicians Tchir counts as community.
- Vue Magazine