Time: 8 p.m.
Tickets: $42.50
In a world of workaday singer-songwriters mired in vacuous self-regard,
news of a new Ron Sexsmith record can only gladden the heart of those
who care about deftly poetic, gently affecting songs that perfectly
distil the pitfalls of being human.
Especially when that record pairs him again with the producer who, for
two decades, has framed his music in its most sympathetic surroundings.
In the late summer of 2011, Sexsmith bumped into Mitchell Froom in Los
Angeles and gave him a CD of demos he’d been working on over the
previous few months. His 2011 album Long Player Late Bloomer had been a
liberating pop-rock breakthrough for Ron, but when Froom — producer of
Ron's first three albums and of 2006's Time Being — began talking of
string and woodwind arrangements, the singer was instantly intrigued.
"Mitchell's someone I've always looked up to,” Ron says. “They don't really make producers like him anymore."
The songs Ron had written in the wake of Long Player — returning him as
they did to the bittersweet melancholia on which diehard fans have
feasted since 1995 — seemed to cry out for a softer, more orchestrated
treatment than the gleaming electric sheen of its predecessor.
"With Long Player, I wanted to make something like Tapestry — just sort
of catchy from start to finish," Ron says, "but these were perfect
songs to work on with Mitchell. It's probably the most personal album
I've made, too, so it felt appropriate to do it with him."
The
two set to work in November 2011 at Froom's Santa Monica studio,
temporarily dubbed "Froom and Board" by Sexsmith. Assisting on the
sessions were engineer David Boucher and a clutch of seasoned West Coast
players that included drummer Pete Thomas, bassist Bob Glaub and pedal
steel prince Greg Leisz. Strings were overdubbed afterwards using LA's
feted Calder Quartet.
"There isn't anything on the record that
hasn't been written," says Ron. "The bass parts are written, the drums
are written, so there was no point at which musicians were just jamming
along to songs. I thought that was pretty cool, because I'd never made a
record like that before."
The album's earliest song — and
coincidentally its opening track — was written in the immediate
aftermath of the Long Player sessions, when for a terrible second it
looked as though the record might not get a release at all. Setting
Forever's downbeat tone, "Nowhere to Go" was Sexsmith doing the only
thing he knew would help: Giving sweet voice to deep despair and finding
redemption in that process.
Details - Ron Sexsmith
