Out of this Spark

FOREST CITY LOVERS HAUNTING MOON SINKING (OUT OF THIS SPARK/SONIC UNYON)

Beauty lies in the rows of red brick houses in the morning dawn. New possibilities arise every time the streetlights come to life. The small town girl in the big city maintains her poise amid the bustle, taking carefully detailed notes on her new surroundings and setting it all to lovely melodies that dare to dream beyond all the other bedroom singer/songwriters in her neighbourhood.

On the one hand, singer/songwriter Kat Burns is one in a long line of similar southern Ontario artists with a mastery of minor key melancholy and string-laden songs about leaving those small towns behind. But she's more multi-dimensional than most, with a band of Lovers who rock out when they have to, are able to step into vintage cabaret mode without a hint of clumsiness, and do a classy dance around Burns's subtle melodies.

Key help comes from two University of Guelph grads: bassist Kyle Donnelly (also of labelmates the D'Urbervilles) and violinist Mika Posen. Though Burns often performs solo, this material comes alive in their dynamic hands; even when drummer Paul Weadick backs off, Posen and Donnelly drive the songs away from the more sedate territory of earlier material.

Together with the D'Urbervilles' debut album and last year's scene-defining compilation Friends in Bellwoods, Haunting Moon Sinking marks a formidable debut for the new label Out of This Spark, started by ex-CFRU staffer Stuart Duncan. If he keeps up this level of quality, he'll have the best label roster in Canadian indie rock.

The Forest City Lovers play the Ebar in Guelph on March 13 with the D'Urbervilles, and in Waterloo on March 15 at the Trepid House with Entire Cities and One Heart Many Hands.

Original URL : http://news.guelphmercury.com/arts/article/305213