BeatRoute Magazine AB print e-edition - March 2017

ROOTS
PORT CITIES
Cape Breton trio comes together as a band and signs to major label
Supergroups have a formula. You take two or more
established artists in need of career invigoration,
give them a kitschy name (like the Moseying Masseurs)
or a quotable project (like covering All Things
Must Pass in Korean, backed by a choir of didgeridoos)
and you are essentially done. This formula has had
its share of successes to be sure, but some of the best
supergroups work backwards, finding success as a
collective of multiple talented singer-songwriters, and
eventually leading to several successful careers. Port
Cities is one of the latter, albeit in the early stages.
Carleton Stone’s slick song-writing has been seeping its
way through the East Coast music circuit for a few years
now, and his 2014 release Draws Blood crept up nationally
into number 1 on CBC Radio 2’s top 20. Stone is perhaps
the most prominent songwriting-wise on the record, and
his quippy turns of phrase and subtle lyrical references to
classics like Blood on the Tracks (1975) keep the record
earnest and grounded, even in its low moments.
Dylan Guthro fills out much of the music instrumentally
with his sprightly guitar work. His general
influence is broad and his soulful vocal affection
adds breadth to the band’s three-part harmonies. His
lineage is perhaps the most written-about aspect of
his work, but it does a disservice to the character and
effusiveness of his contribution.
Breagh MacKinnon centres the Port Cities experience.
A classically trained jazz performer, she lovingly works the
ivories into the record’s most effective and tender moments.
But her voice is the real spectacle. She has all of the
warmth and colour of her jazz roots, but also the range
and strength of a pop singer with a surprising restraint
when she is harmonizing behind her two bandmates.
Each member of the Cape Breton three-piece has had
their share of success, with a tableful of EMCA nominations
and several solo releases between them, but with
barely two years as Port Cities, the band has hit critical
mass much more than the sum of their strings. Their
self-titled record just dropped on Warner Music and they
are about to hit the road with Rose Cousins, fresh off a
much-lauded new release of her own.
The three began their musical relationship at Gordie
Sampson’s iconic songcamp in 2011. “I’d be touring in the
summers with them playing shows” Breagh MacKinnon
tells BeatRoute. The three traded off playing in each other’s
bands supporting each other’s solo projects, frequently
writing and collaborating on recordings together. MacKinnon
describes the genesis of the Port Cities project:
“we were on a tour around the Maritimes as three solo
songwriters, sort of as a songwriter’s circle, and it was on
that tour where we started to get that idea of ‘what would
it be like if we started one band?’”
The ball rolled quickly with the band able to curate
together a list of songs they had already been collaborating
on, songs that specifically “seemed to work well with three
voices.” The 12-track release features writing from all three
songwriters, but also credits from Donovan Woods to
Gordie Sampson and Mo Kenney.
Port Cities will be supporting Rose Cousins on March 15th
and 16th at the Ironwood Stage and Grill in Calgary and on
the 17th at the Arden Theatre in St. Albert on March 17th.
Established singer-songwriters find room for one another by balancing strengths.
by Liam Prost
photo: Mat Dunlap
CORIN RAYMOND
the small time hits the bright lights
Corin Raymond’s winding and genial path to his first Juno nomination.
ROOTS
photo: Justin Rutledge
Twenty years is a long time in any line of work, but
when you’re tasking yourself daily with saying things
that have never been said or rephrasing things that
have, through the emotional lens of the troubadour, the
task feels Sisyphean. Those moments you live for, when the
modest crowd grows incrementally until one day you turn
up in a town you’ve been in any number of times before to
play and the joint’s already full, those moments make the
minefield of doubt and obstruction, the hard nights putting
pen to paper and melody to words all the more worth
it. It is, as they say, the journey, not the destination.
Corin Raymond endured those trials, first with The Undesirables,
his bluesy folk duo with Toronto guitarist Sean Cotton,
and then on his own. Along the endless highway through
North America and back to his home at Toronto’s venerable
Cameron House, he has trekked back to his home in Hamilton,
where he has recently been honored with his first JUNO
nomination for his 2016 album Hobo Jungle Fever Dreams, in
the category of Contemporary Roots Album of The Year.
“You know, you’re constantly being given these rewards,
and this energy from people, there’s a lot of dignity in this
life that keeps you going,” Raymond tells BeatRoute over the
phone from Hamilton, “And the work is rewarding, but along
with all of that, you’re given reasons to feel discouraged on
a weekly basis. It can be hard for us in ‘the small time’, with
the onus of believing in yourself when it feels like sometimes
you’re the only one who does. It’s like talking to a stranger at
a party, and you say, ‘I’m a professional songwriter.’” Raymond
pauses momentarily, and chuckles before continuing. “So
now, with a JUNO nomination, I have one sentence I can say
by Mike Dunn
at a party to substantiate my claim.”
Hobo Jungle Fever Dreams is a bit of a departure for
Raymond sonically. Where his previous effort, the double live,
fully acoustic Paper Nickels (2013) was a collection of underground
songs pulled from his extensive group of songwriting
friends, and There Will Always Be a Small Time (2009) largely
hung on acoustic instruments with mild amounts of electric
colour. Hobo Jungle Fever Dreams is darker and moodier, with
atmospheric production elements added to those acoustic
instruments, creating a stark landscape for Raymond’s voice,
which, while always retaining playful innocence, dramatically
straddles regretful resignation on heavier lyrical phrases. “Only
Jesus would go down the road you’re burnin’, you should be
turnin’ to him, but how will you wade and be washed in the
water, when the river is dirty as sin,” Raymond croons on “The
Law & The Lonesome.”
Raymond’s March run through Alberta, with Shari Rae on
upright bass and Tyler Allen on guitar, will get him home just
in time to drive to the JUNOs in Ottawa at the end of the
month, and Raymond’s looking forward to the break afterward.
“No rest for the stupid,” he laughs. “I feel like I’ve already
won though, nominated with such cool artists, people like
William Prince, who I love. The nomination announcement
was kind of weird though. It was this cavernous nightclub at
like, noon, with all these lasers and LED lights. It’s an animal
that I don’t really understand.”
Corin Raymond plays March 24th at the Jeans Joint in Red
Deer, March 25th at the Bow Valley Music Club in Calgary, and
March 26th at the Paintbox Lounge in Canmore.
BEATROUTE • MARCH 2017 | 35