The New CD
1. Resilience
2. Seven Years
3. Runaway Lane
4. Wait For It
5. Piece of You
6. Racing with the Sun
7. The Sioux
8. Driving Away
9. I Left My Brain
10. Firewalker
11. Line of Ascent
12. Nashville
Listen/Buy @ CD Baby
Download MP3's @ Indiekazoo
Review: Chvostek Sensational Solo
The Wailin' Jennys' loss is the world's gain. Annabelle Chvostek, who replaced Cara Luft in that fabulous roots-folk trio, has struck out on her own and created a sensational solo album.
Chvostek is a ridiculously talented musician from Montreal by way of Toronto who plays guitar, mandolin, violin, organ, accordion and who knows what else. Vocally, she's up to any task, from pop highs to gritty blues lows.
On Resilience, Chvostek's original compositions are full of aching desire dressed in poetry and rendered with a musical imagination that seems to know no bounds. Her balalaika-like mandolin gives an exotic flavour to the heart-on-sleeve love song Piece of You, which has a melody that you simply melt into. More edgy is a thing called I Left My Brain that you assume is an ancient field holler or a cover of an obscure blues-gospel number that Chvostek discovered on a flea-market 78. Not so, it's original. It's awe-inspiring that the same mind can conceive both this song and its polar opposite, the irresistible, bright and sunny mandolin-strummer Wait for It. The Sioux, meanwhile, is an easy to listen to but incredibly sophisticated old time fiddle song with a geopolitical theme.
Even solo albums are group efforts, of course, and Chvostek had help here from a couple of folk legends. She co-wrote the duet Driving Away with Bruce Cockburn while Mary Gautier and Michael Jerome Brown are musical guests. Grammy-nominated Canadian Roma Baron and Vivian Stoll produced the album, which was recorded in New York and Montreal. There are at least a dozen musicians contributing to the project, making the achievement of the producers in directing all that talent even more impressive.
Resilience ends with a catchy, languid, twangy country tune called Nashville which asks "what would you do for the love inside a song?'' The answer is this album.
- Cam Fuller, The StarPhoenix, April 24, 2008