Banai making some famous fans with second album couchwalker
Vancouver singer/songwriter Jenny Banai's sophomore album couchwalker arrives on waves of praise.
Trish Klein, formerly of the Be Good Tanyas, was so taken by the Fraser Valley Arts Award-winning Folk Artist of the Year 2018 that she was pumping up her new record as early as April.
Netflix hip-hop documentarist rapper Shad has a glowing endorsement posted on the artist's website, and songs such as the new single Gold are gaining traction on CBC and other broadcasters.
That's pretty good for an album the artist admits was formed “with the all-too-eager help of heartbreak, uncertainty and questions to do with faith.”
Clearly, any doubts she may have had were channelled into the writing and producing of something that blends “an old soul and a child of the '90s” together into a dozen tracks that — with the exception of cello courtesy of Peggy Lee — sees Banai handling all the string duties while drummer Scott Currie and bassist Ben Appenheimer hold down the bottom end.
Here are five things to know about couchwalker:
1 Something Soft
The opening track quickly establishes that this is music made by someone who likes a lot of genres. She also likes to build textures, as the guitars aptly demonstrate on this short opening instrumental. It's equal parts Radiohead and Montreal art rock with a lead electric sound that could have been pulled off of a vintage King Crimson record. Rather prog rock, actually.
2 Intermittent Heart
This bubbly pop tune was featured in a short film of the same title that dropped May 8. Without doubt, Banai's sound is super-adaptable to film and TV, and I expect that her management is working this angle for the material on Couch Walker. The defiant rise in this song somewhere at around the 2:30 mark is certainly cinematic in its use of tension and release as her voice gets more and more agitated, and then falls into a coddling whisper before building back up again. Nice.
3 Couch Walker
Is it the title track when it's spelled differently? The Jeff Buckley influence mentioned in the promotional material is certainly on display here as her voice soars and winds its way around the string-driven song that ebbs and flows on some surprisingly deliberate rock rhythms. The chorus is quite folk-centric, which works very well. The way the track fades out to be followed by the almost jazzy Quite Satisfaction — cross-fade is one of the album highlights.
4 Gold
Banai says: “One day, driving around Vancouver, I had this image pop into my head of golden streets above our own.
An existence that is unseen, but somehow covers our reality (to use the limitations of language). That there is a reality existing at the same time as our own, where peace and truth come from ... ” This song certainly layers elements of that second (alternate?) reality into our terrestrial existence with a waltzing ballad of spiritual renewal.
5 Timshel
I don't think it's about the box that your doughnuts came in, but it could be cool if it was. One of the moodiest tracks on the entire record, it's also the shortest. Another moving instrumental loading up layers of strings and harmonizing vocals over a straight-up beat before fading out on a few final strummed chords, like the final bites of that last honey-glazed gem. These instrumental interludes must be perfect transition points in the live show.