Michael Cloud Duguay – Succeeder
MC Duguay; Various Artists
Watch That Ends the Night (michaelcloudduguay.bandcamp.com/album/succeeder)
Glorious and gorgeous, Succeeder lives up to its name as it includes a community of musicians to make Michael Cloud Duguay’s songwriting and compositions explode in sonic splendour. The liner notes on Bandcamp (and on the artist’s website) provide a fascinating history of these songs and Duguay’s musical and life journey and I will not attempt a summary except to say it all makes for a rich and diverse background to this unique production.
A Very Fine Start begins the album with the rhythm section and a warm pedal steel providing a beautiful backdrop along with a female background singer. Amidst the lyrics about family and circumstances instruments are added, including a fine baritone sax solo, over the evocative soundscapes. Someone Else’s Blues has a funkier and soulful up-tempo beat with a horn section and harmony vocalists. Port Hope begins more delicately with a tremolo guitar, pedal steel and arpeggiated piano backing things up. There are 17 performers listed and the instruments include drums, bass, piano, vocalists, pedal steel, saxophones, percussion, guitar, flutes, jaw harp, accordion, hurdy-gurdy and pocket trumpet to list only a few. I would like the vocals to be mixed more clearly, but it is also fascinating how they blend into the orchestration and emerge as spots of insight.
The artist’s website declares “the album continues to mine the sumptuous, expansive rootsiness of Duguay’s earlier albums, yet also gestures toward the more outward experimentation of several of his upcoming projects through its careful, yearning ambiences.” I cannot improve on that description because the feeling of Succeeder with its evocative ambiences, its blending of folk, jazz and experimental idioms, and the joy of the Peterborough musicians who helped create this work are all important to its expansiveness. Please sit in a quiet place and let this album embrace you for a sumptuous 45 minutes.
