Here’s an mp3 stream from the upcoming Doug Paisley album, out Oct 12th. It’s fantastic. Feist is on backing vocals.
Doug Paisley “What I Saw”: http://soundcloud.com/press-here/03-what-i-saw
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Pardon me, I won’t take much of your time here, but please — this is important. I think Doug Paisley’s new album, Constant Companion, can help you. You’ll know it the moment you hear his voice, which’d be made of silk if silk weren’t so prideful. Constant Companion’s got everything his self-titled debut had, only more of it, and better. And that record’s gotten me through some dark days and darker nights. He’s my favorite navigator.
Doug is a plainspoken oracle of the highest water, an old-fashioned reporter of the heart; the truth that comes out of his mouth flows like the proverbial mountain creek but hits like the proverbial avalanche. And these are the sort of proverbs you were forced to forget the moment you were born. You need reminding, we all do; everytime you take a punch you need to be reminded of the sun and the moon, and the earth and the sea, and other transient states. Doug reminds us of what we’re made to forget. He’s been through the dark places, walking, riding, driving. It ain’t always about the way out. More often it’s just about the way on. He traces out those pathways with just a curl of his lip, and that bow-and-arrow picking, and words of elemental elegance. And a steady gaze — I haven’t known Doug all that long but I don’t recall ever seeing him look away from anything.
And with all that, you know, Constant Companion isn’t a sad album. It’s just kind of about sad things, and how we carry them around. And anyway, once you look at them in Paisley light, you realize that there’s less sad to it. Stuff just is. Things fade out and others always fade in. I admit that at first I thought it was for sad things, but like most great albums, Constant Companion is really about love.
Doug’s music is also a magnet; all I can think to do is find people to come and listen with me. A lot of good people were drawn to him for Constant Companion, like Garth Hudson of the Band, who played keyboards (now there’s a sound you’ll know when you hear it). Leslie Feist sings on two songs too: “Don’t Make Me Wait” and “What I Saw.” He’s also got Julie Faught of the Pining singing on three tunes, another Toronto friend, Jennifer Castle, on three more and Brazil Donovan of Blue Rodeo on bass. Everything is in its place from sky to sea, every note, every blade of grass. The album’s a love letter to you and your Constant Companion. You should try being nicer to each other.
—Mike Wolf, NYC, July 2010
