READERS' CHOICE 2022 PART THREE

Part three of Readers' Choice presents five vital songs by performers ranging from edgy Finnish folk singers to an indigenous Ontario academic, poet and musician as well as two Iranian sisters singing a more than century-old protest song to rally resistance to government repression

KURATED NO. 167
Readers’ Choice 2022
Part Three

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson‘s song, OK Indicts tops contributor John Doherty’s playlist.

CONTRIBUTORS

Torontonians Caitlin Smith and John Doherty present five vital songs by performers ranging from edgy Finnish folk singers to an indigenous Ontario academic, poet and musician as well as two Iranian sisters singing a more than century-old protest song to rally resistance to government repression.

Smith enjoyed this summer’s Vancouver Folk Music Festival and especially Finnish artists Vildá and US guitar prodigy Molly Tuttle.

Doherty highlights indigenous artist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Seattle band The Walkabouts whose folk and country music covered similar ground to that of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Sandt and others. He finishes with Iran’s Behin and Samin Bolouri who sing Bella Ciao.

(ED. NOTE: to learn more about Bella Ciao see Kurated No. 160.)

The 5th Annual Readers’ Choice

Kurated readers share their favourite music of the last year in the annual Readers’ Choice series. Anything musical is welcomed whether its new, an old favourite, something self-composed and more. Thanks to all the contributors!

7 January 2022

Caitlin Smith
Toronto, ON

Molly Tuttle is one of the best acoustic guitar players in music today. Read about her in Kurated No. 147.
(Jeffrey Neubauer photo)

4-song playlist – Molly Tuttle and Vildá

Thanks to Kurated, I heard three great musical performers at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in July. The Finnish duo Vildá – featuring Viivi Maria Saarenkylä on accordion and Hildá Länsman on vocals and frame drum – was danceable and sassy.

On a completely different note, southern US musician Molly Tuttle sang chilling lyrics about contemporary themes mixing old time country rhythms with modern touches.

About Caitlin: Caitlin Smith is a fundraiser who lives in Toronto and enjoys music of all kinds. Okay, maybe not opera. Or death metal. Or … oh, never mind. Some kinds of music!

John Doherty
Toronto, ON

The Walkabouts were a Seattle band active between 1984 and 2015. The group was led by Carla Torgenson (left) and Chris Eckman (right foreground)

3-song playlist

Here are the three top songs I liked in 2022.

OK Indicts by Ontario’s Leanne Betasamosake Simpson came out in 2021. This sounds like winter in Ontario. It brings back memories of walking through the woods in the snow in Northern Ontario. The bass and the voice play off each other so well. I played it a lot last winter. She is from the Nishnaabeg nation, around Peterborough.
( ED. NOTE: You can read about Simpson and her album The Theory of Ice in Kurated No. 122.)

i saved fallen snow
from the front row

forsaking tomorrow
slow burning today
the sky is falling up

i saved shards of hope
in my sky blue coat
i saved drops of light
you paved paradise

i saved your mistakes
etched them into my skin
the sky is falling up

i sang like thunder
spilled anger like fire
the sky is falling up

please don’t mourn me

skin departing bone
ice abandons snow
my skin’s departing bone
pain instead of snow

a choir is spilling
the morning sun
the sky is falling up

archiving blindness
in meticulous ways
the sky is falling up

sweating bits of time
leaking pools of kind
dissolving bits of spine
drowning in sublime

skin departing bone
ice abandons snow
my skin’s departing bone

you never saw me
and i never called out
the sky is falling up

foiled by indifference
melted by greed
please don’t mourn for me
please don’t mourn me

Credits: from Theory Of Ice, released March 12, 2021

The Light Will Stay On is by the American band The Walkabouts from Seattle. This 1996 song is such a hopeful, yet nostalgic, song. Carla Torgenson’s voice plays very well against Chris Eckman’s .

I go to sleep, before
the devil wakes
and I wake up, before
the angels take
all my worldly desires
all my yardsticks of fear
all my secrets untold
all my motives unclear
hangin’ down in the fire
burnin’ them higher
won’t take them away from here
and long after we’re gone
the light will stay on
watched the city … city of crows
watched them fly, watched
’em all flyin’ low
out above the flood plain
just above the dirt road
they were hungry as winter,
hungry as us
not afraid to be flyin’, not
afraid to be lost
and long after we’re gone
the light will stay on
and if you bury me, add
three feet to it
one for your sorrow, two
for your sweat
three for the strange
things we never forget
and long after we’re gone
the light will stay on
and long after we’re safe
the lights will not fade

Bella Ciao was a great discovery. A 2022 version of the song has been popular in the Iranian uprising. Even playing it feels like you are poking the government. What I found amazing is how old the song is, how many covers have been made and how many movements around the world have adopted it. I had never heard it before.

About John Doherty: John has evolved/devolved to the point where a good weekend means staying up until 11:30 listening to music in the kitchen, having a beer and reading various newspapers.