Enough Wondering

I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day
Julie Doiron
Label, 2008
4 stars

I’m a newcomer to the musical stylings of Ms Julie Doiron, but from my limited exposure - her excellent recent collaboration with Mount Eerie and this record - I like what I hear. Perhaps it’s the awkwardly-spelled surname, but I don’t understand why an artist like Doiron, with a decade-and-a-bit’s worth of solo material, isn’t more widely known – especially when she’s capable of producing gems like the ones found on I Can Wonder. This record has bits of everything; cute acoustic sing-alongs (Nice To Come Home), fuzzy dirge-rockers (Heavy Snow and Consolation Prize) and melancholy pop classics (Lovers of the World is on heavy rotation on my stereo at home); all strung together like a row of hand-made, mis-matched paper lanterns. Reverb-soaked lullaby Blue, the album’s blissed-out highlight, stays in your head well after the final watery guitar note fades out and, in my opinion, would have made for a far more satisfying closing track than the cute Glad To Be Alive. Still, the overall package is a bright, intimate and smart album that showcases one of Canada’s unsung musical champions.

Artwork: A
As un-fussed and, for that reason, beautiful as the album itself. Spot-on.

Published in mX,Thursday July 23, 2009.