A Montreal Paul
A Montreal Paul’s muse is anxiety. Walking on the streets of Brooklyn, he tried to trick his mind into calming down off the whirling treadmill of static panic by intoning a musical mantra. “OM”, he sang to himself underneath his breath as ambled along uncertainly. Before too long, the chanted mantras became songs, though not all of them were calming- the twitchiness insinuated itself into the tunes, changing key in midstream, wandering off in unexpected and even unexplained directions. After coming up with some a capella choral tunes he learned some instruments- guitar first, later ukelele, before dabbling on keyboard instruments. Then he came to fashion a noisy dream with producer and multi-instrumentalist Shane Watt called “Awaiting an Awakening” (2012), and also recorded “When We Get There” (2014) assisted by Laura Crapo and Alden Penner, before briefly fronting a band in Montreal. Recently he has reverted to more rustic arrangements, wondering if he’s always been a country boy at heart. (Probably not, but you gotta make do with what ya got.) His latest album, “Words… and Things” (2018) features stark instrumental arrangements and often rich vocal harmonies. Listen and you may hear The sound of voices raised in bittersweet Borderlines between rejoicing and melancholy Arising out of dissonance into harmony And dissolving back again Before resolving, when We seek resolution in revolution, Going around in deja vu revelations that some see, Reconciliation or some remodeling of reality That may appeal to me or you Remaking matter’s patterns is our creativity Whether in ugliness or in beauty Trying to express something true