Nothing is as it seems in Shuyler
Jansen’s songs. I knew that from the first time I really heard his voice on an
album called Pulse of Light/Dark
Landscape that his band Old Reliable released in 2002. There was still
something called alt-country in those days, and just because Old Reliable were
five scruffy guys from Edmonton, Alberta who worshipped at the altar of The
Band and Townes Van Zandt, alt-country was what they were called.
But like all labels, it fell
embarrassingly short in describing even a hint of what their artistic intent
actually was. Coming off of the band’s previous effort, for which co-front man
Mark Davis wrote all of the songs, Pulse
of Light was Jansen’s album. The songs were driven by a desire to know the
unknowable; to break down what one sees on a daily basis into its essential
elements; to journey to a place you’re not sure is safe.
Jansen continued on that journey
in 2004 with his first solo album, Shuyler
Jansen’s Hobotron, a bold hybrid of folk and electronica. The pendulum
swung back to the rootsier side of his personality for 2007’s Today’s Remains, recorded in Vancouver
with producer Steve Dawson firmly at the helm. It was Jansen’s first work after
the demise of Old Reliable, upon which he had moved to Saskatoon. That sense of
starting fresh was all over the album, and Jansen spent a year after its
release strengthening his ties with other likeminded musicians, touring as part
of Carolyn Mark and Luther Wright’s regular cross-Canada Hootenanny, as well as
touring with Saskatoon’s own roots rock heroes The Deep Dark Woods.
It has all led up to Voice
From The Lake—two years in the making, but by far Jansen’s strongest
statement yet as a solo artist. He chose to record in Vancouver again, although
this time, significantly, with the city’s finest purveyors of pop-rock, John
Collins and Dave Carswell, otherwise known as JC/DC, the sonic architects of
modern classics by the New Pornographers, Destroyer, Tegan & Sara, Nardwuar
& the Evaporators, and others. The album’s release on Vancouver’s Scratch
Records also marks the label’s 20th anniversary. Jansen joins a
roster that over those two decades has included Black Mountain, Frog Eyes, and
Thor.
As Voice From The Lake’s
brooding opening track, “Can’t See Through Tomorrow,” demonstrates, the
subtleties that JC/DC were able to recognize in Jansen’s songs have led to even
more powerful results. Jansen admits to being a fan of the pair’s work, but how
they wound up working together came about almost by accident. “Someone in
Saskatoon was asking me who I thought should produce them, and I recommended
John and Dave, just because I thought they made great records,” Jansen says.
“So I ended up meeting them through that connection. We started doing three and
four-day sessions after that, whenever we could schedule them, and sometimes
having up to five-month gaps in between really made me concentrate on what I
wanted to accomplish.”
Other contributors to Voice
From The Lake include Neko Case’s collaborator and guitarist Paul
Rigby, who most recently was part of Jakob Dylan’s Three Legs band. As well,
former Old Reliable drummer Mike Silverman, legendary Vancouver keyboardist
Ford Pier, and members of The Deep Dark Woods all give standout performances.
But all of it is built upon
Jansen’s songs, many of which brim with the realities of his life he has had to
face up to, both as a musician and a human being. “I’ve always had a panic
disorder my whole life, it’s just been ignored since I was a kid,” he says. “By
the time I was on the road with The Deep Dark Woods, it got as bad as it was
going to get. I was passing out randomly, sort of Tony Soprano-style, where
your body just can’t handle the stress anymore and shuts down. You start living
in fear all the time thinking of what could happen when you’re on stage or
behind the wheel.”
Jansen says that going through
that experience was the catalyst for him to completely change his lifestyle,
and with the help of his family and physicians he has cleaned up his mind and
body. He acknowledges that his situation is far from unique, and is grateful to
have the further opportunity to heal by exploring different facets of his
musical personality. What he is most hoping for with Voice From The Lake is to
break free of his alt-country tag once and for all. Even a cursory listen to
the album’s first single, the driving “Totally Anonymous,” shows that those
influences are deeply buried inside the dark confessional tone of the lyrics.
“We all know that traditional country
music is dead to some degree,” he says. “It’s the same with the blues; if you
keep doing one kind of music then you’re automatically limiting yourself so
much. That’s not what I want to do and not where I want to end up. I don’t want
to chase away the roots fans; in some ways I think that being obsessed with one
kind of music is admirable, but I’m not one of those people, and neither are
most of the people I know in the business.”
Jansen will be joined on tour in
support of Voice From The Lake by a new backing band called Foam Lake,
comprised of the four Ross brothers, well-known figures within the Saskatoon
scene. As Jansen explains, each record he makes seems to mark a new beginning,
but, more than ever, this time it’s for real. “I’ve been pretty indifferent to
having a musical career over the past couple of years, just because the
business has changed so much,” he says. “But finishing this record has given me
a huge sense of both happiness and relief. I almost feel like I did in my late
teens and early twenties in terms of making the kind of music I’ve always
wanted to make.” (Jason Schneider)