Coursing through the veins of the Eastern Canada grassroots festival circuit, Heather Kelday is riding that glorious wave of pretentious popularity that occurs right before you get your own Wikipedia article. Resting somewhere between blues and bluegrass, Heather sits comfortably and confidently on her little folky lilypad.
The Hitchin’ Post was given to me by a friend, and I had to go through it a few times to really absorb the music. It’s deceivingly simple in its instrumentation – charming in its anachronism. Cute seems to be the cliche adjective to select, but no adjective is more perfect.
Some subtle electric guitar and organ licks are sprinkled amongst the a minimalist arrangement of piano and acoustic elements, all topped up with a solid song-writing foundation. Heather has a strong folk backbone with a sensual voice that is nothing less than velvet. It’s smooth – not an ounce of gravel or grain, strikingly resonate of Carole King.
The album evokes memories of some of my favorite summer festivals, not necessarily in the energy parameters, but rather in the shameless delicacy of approach. Heather isn’t trying to ‘rock your socks off’ yet at the same time, this isn’t an album of monotonic ballads. Every track is truly unique.
Carmacks for example, features heavy open-ended membranophones and a reggae pulse that is inescapably fun without being a stereotypical Bob Marley salute, while Lady Slipper is a distant, almost ethereal piano ballad.
Above all else, the lyrics on The Hitchin’ Post are thoughtful and constructed with faculties of story-telling and honesty. It is evident, if not stoically so, that the songs came before the sounds. The yrics are written to beckon the music – the core tenant of a good folk disc.
“Well thanks for the advice, I’d have taken it had I thought it was truth,
But I’m building my own city on the concrete idea that I can’t change for you.
You don’t know what is right until you know what is me.” – What’s Right
The album almost presents itself as a dulcet summer drone, a manifestation of the melancholy escapism you find at a summer music festival in the late afternoon. It smells like honey and feels like polyester, it is engulfing as July humidity while remaining approachable as an early summer barbecue.
The Good: Well, everything. Indeed, the songwriting, the instrumentation, the production are all executed with tact and dare I say, care. It seems as though every note on this disc has a purpose, a reason for existing.
The Bad: If you are in the mood to thrash about like a troglodyte, you are in the wrong genre. This music is definitely is mollifying, so those that are sleep-deprived need not apply.
Verdict: It’s unique, its quirky, and it’s very, very good. Enjoy The Hitchin’ Post and in fact, all of Heather Kelday before the rest of the hipster crowd catches on.
Heather Kelday - Other Side Of Bliss
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