A record that's been gathering on me like moss over the course of July is Captain, the latest from Aaron Powell under his well established moniker of Fog Lake. It's a record mired in landscape. More specifically the landscape of Glovertown, Newfoundland, (a town of barely 2,000 inhabitants), where Powell grew up.
Captain's a record that mutters and grumbles and would prefer not to get up and go out unless it really has to. After all, it's cold out there. Powell very rarely spits out what he's got on his mind, and when you do catch a phrase or clause it's nigh on inevitable that the next utterance will mark a retreat and be lost forever in studio interference. And it's this foggy introversion that is the core of the record's appeal.
With every play, the album casts its coils more deeply around you.Or at least it has around me. A comparison point would probably be Elliott Smith, (how often do I mention that man on here? either his influence has become just enormous or I just can't shake the memory of his records). Also Andy Shauf, another artist forging a name for himself from the emotional foundations of a cold, provincial Canadian upbringing.
Powell has a fair few records behind him now and has clearly learned his trade. The songs on Captain are never verse/ chorus, verse / chorus in the traditional sense but they are crafted round an assured, committed, momentum. It's a fine, fine record, muffled and incoherent maybe, but that's not something that will ever bother me. Seeing as Murmur probably still remains my favourite record thirty five years on, I'm hardly likely to hold that against Fog Lake. Captain gets my vote!
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