Sloppy Ground

We have long been champions of the Eric Chenaux’s inimitable talents – as a songwriter, arranger and mind-bending guitarist – and this album should make these talents clear to any listener. This is a collection of beautifully fried love songs, highly original in compositional approach and instrumental texture, and utterly compelling in lyrical content and delivery. As Chenaux says, “the lyrics are more concerned with what love does rather than what it means…the time moving through these tunes is not one of the beginning of love or the end or heartbreak of love (though I love that stuff too) but more often in the middle (the working middle, the in-between)”. Chenaux has rallied some of Toronto’s finest ‘out’ players for Sloppy Ground, including Nick Fraser on drums, Ryan Driver on amplified melodica and synths, David Prentice on violin, Doug Tielli on 5-string banjo, Martin Arnold on electric tenor banjo, and Aimee Dawn Robinson on electric echo harp. Chenaux’s own guitar work has never been more thrillingly deployed in the context of (relatively) conventional songcraft.