AMAZING NEW GLOBE & MAIL REVIEW

She's a feeling, felt out loud
ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN

May 15, 2007

Orchestra for the Moon

Jenn Grant

Paris 1919

***½

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Some singers can get to you without a word. They make a sound and twist it this way or that, and you know what they're telling you even though you can't say it either. The best of them make it seem as if they're just feeling out loud, and that's the kind of singer Jenn Grant is when words fail.

Actually, there's not a lot of failing or even near-missing on this debut album. Grant, a 26-year-old art-school grad from Prince Edward Island, makes music that sounds comfortable but that's actually pretty fearless. Follow what she does in the course of a song and you discover there's not much she wouldn't do to let an idea or a sound expand in the way that suits it best.

Morning Break, for instance, begins like a kicking country song, but Grant's cherry-bright vocals soon drift above the pedal steel and toward a mode of reverie that suddenly overwhelms the song's forward motion. The tempo stalls, strings and piano enter, and the twinned vocal lines float through a shimmering wordless miniature that wouldn't be out of place on a disc by Antony and the Johnsons. And then just as suddenly, the country beat returns, and Grant finishes the song in a long melodic stream of rhythmic oohs and ahs that brings the extreme points of this song closer than you thought possible.

In Dreamer, she fastens onto two words and fills them out till they become the object of desire so shyly hinted at in the verse, and even more powerfully projected through the thrumming, allusive music. Dancin' in the Wind finds its way by crossing between a music-box waltz and a darker two-stroke chorus with a Jamaican tinge, from which all pretense seems to have fallen away: "You know how I am."

In a Brown House is a beautiful duet with Ron Sexsmith that turns on a subtle counterpoint of the voices and solo guitar, each of which finish the line in a different way. Unique New York, about a guy who got away, somehow resolves the free-floating vulnerability of Grant's verses by rising into another of her wordless cadences so full of alluring sadness.

Record stores will probably treat her album (which also features cameos by Jill Barber and Matt Mays) as roots or folk or some earthy subdivision of pop, but it's really just magic that's heard and not seen. Listen as close as you like, but by the end, you won't know how she did it.

Jenn Grant plays the Shaika Café in Montreal on June 6, the Casbah in Hamilton June 13, Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern June 15, Barn Party in Ottawa June 16 and the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield, Que., June 17.




The reviews are starting to pour in. Exclaim! saw fit to review Jenn's album not once, but twice in the same magazine!
#1.

Orchestra for the Moon

By Rachel Sanders

It’s rare that an album is as immediately arresting as Jenn Grant’s Orchestra For The Moon, and even rarer that it remains so right through to the last sweet, quivering note. But the Halifax-based Grant has a voice like raw silk and songwriting skills to back it up. Her poignant folk pop is as unique as it is enthralling, combining vintage music box appeal with modern pop sensibilities. And the long list of Canadian musicians that threw their talent behind Grant’s solo debut clearly agree. Produced by the Heavy Blinkers’ David Christensen and Jason MacIsaac, the record contains contributions from Matt Mays, Jill Barber and Rose Cousins. It even features a duet with the illustrious Ron Sexsmith; “In A Brown House,” is an elegant heartbreaker of a tune that would stand out for its melancholy beauty if the album wasn’t already jam-packed with loveliness. It’s not all delicious despair though — the poppy “Don’t Worry Baby” balances things out — but when Grant’s voice catches in her throat, it’s enough to make you vow to be sweeter to your lover. (Paris 1919, www.paris1919records.com) (Paris 1919)

#2.Orchestra for the Moon

By Pras Rajagopalan

Orchestra for the Moon is not a hip record. The clean production, the earthy earnestness, the reverence for traditionalism — none of these are hallmarks of what so many notorious indie rags cherish. Yet the Halifax chanteuse should probably feel glad that she’s free from the fickle clutches of the indie masses, as she has made a fine debut that portends well for a career of making timeless, emotive music. Orchestra is refreshing in its antique store feel — there’s none of the laptop amateurism or forced coquettishness that now so pollute the blogosphere. Instead, the record is gracefully shaped by such disparate sculptors as honky tonk, Jeff Buckley’s quavering croon and the sea-flecked sounds of the Halifax coffeehouse circuit. Yet what stands out the most is that peerless voice, one that the echoes of legendary Nashville belles cling to like smoke on curtains. If there are any complaints at all, it’s that even sincerity this endearing can weigh a little heavily after 13 songs. But this should not cloud the successful achievement of a difficult task: the minting of a debut that puts many others to shame, indie validation be damned. (Paris 1919, www.paris1919records.com) (Paris 1919)