Drive Faster – I Hear Banjos…

"...[Left Brain Blues] is getting a lot of play over at our house. It sounds great, and the picture on the inside is really cute." - Veda Hille

“There is something about Left Brain Blues that carves a path right to your core in the most intimate way.” – Nancy Vivolo, Victory Review Acoustic Music Magazine

“Let the ripened fruit it bore shape your diet evermore.” – Taylor Ashton, Fish & Bird (from “Mark My Grave”)

They have arrived at gigs and festivals near you in a sailboat, on a train, and most famously in a right-hand drive Delica van powered by used vegetable oil. They handle their records like works of art, each CD case hand-stamped or silk-screened on recycled paper. Their fiddle-banjo-guitar sound has set boots to stomping in seedy bars, at house concerts and at festivals from the West Coast to the East Coast. They may be Canada’s latest, greatest and most heartfelt counter to mass-manufactured music. Who, or what, is Fish & Bird?

The music of Fish & Bird is rooted in an authentic love for folk music, but it’s a tough love that doesn't stop them from showing the genre a little abuse. They have been compared to an “old timey Radiohead” – the kind of thing that might have resulted if a lost tribe of art-school rockers discovered a crate full of banjos, fiddles and old records washed up on the shore. By turns dark, funny, spirited and smart, the songs that result always grab you – sometimes roughly, sometimes with a sweet and lyrical touch.

Fish & Bird began as a partnership between virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Adam Iredale-Gray and highly literate singer/songwriter Taylor Ashton, and has since expanded to include guitar wizard/sea captain Ryan Boeur, upright bassist/Humber graduate Zoe Guigueno, and drummer/fishmonger Ben Kelly. Their music is informed by a background in Irish sessions, jazz school, garage rock, musical theatre, and old-time jams sitting around kitchens and campfires. Sure, that’s a lot of traditions, but Fish & Bird bring them together in new and exciting ways. The sounds may not be entirely unfamiliar, but they aren’t always what you'd expect from an acoustic folk palette.

A self-recorded, self-produced, and self-titled 2007 debut EP drew the attention of festivals and fans across Canada. The band let their diverse musical influences collide again in their latest recording, the more mature and developed full-length Left Brain Blues. In just under an hour, they take the folk genre for a ride through gardens of delights and some wicked dark territory. The album is anchored by Ashton's soulful songwriting and agile voice (ranging from a warm bass to a sturdy falsetto) and it’s coloured by the pair's relentlessly creative arrangements and Iredale-Gray’s production talents.

Some of Canada’s biggest folk festivals have been paying attention, as have the Canadian Folk Music Awards. CBC Radio and college radio stations across Canada have played songs off of both albums. Live Fish & Bird shows have evolved from a stripped down duo show into a full band experience, playing for sold-out nightclub crowds and for handfuls of appreciative fans in the back rooms of cafes. The shows are a growing legend, hundreds in number. They have covered over 50,000 km by land and sea to bring their unique brand of art folk from Folk Music Festival events in Victoria and Vancouver, to clubs in Montreal and Halifax.

So, are you driving the Trans Canada? Do you hear the notes of a banjo, played claw-hammer style, wafting on the wind? Is that a right-hand drive van in the next lane, smelling ever-so-faintly of french fries or tempura? If so, my friend, drive faster to the next town and catch the Fish & Bird show. It’s what keeps them coming back out on stage night after night – a passion to perform for as many people as they can get to listen. And trust me, you should be listening.