Roots duo The Chimney Swallows, teaming songwriters Corwin Fox and Raghu Lokanathan, will be in Powell River on Saturday, February 23* to showcase its debut album.
After half a dozen tours over six years, Fox and Lokanathan felt like something had taken shape that was worth giving a name to. The band and the album of the same name are all about the songs. The show is a conversation in words and music between two artists who have spent much of their lives searching for ways to translate the human experience into song.
Lokanathan was born in India and raised in Montreal. After moving to Prince George 10 years ago, he released the album Caledonia and gained national attention as a writer of captivating and sometimes hilarious songs, telling unusual stories about unusual people. In the albums that have followed, he has continued to sing about a world that is both strange and familiar.
Fox’s schooling in art and music as a way to take on the big things began at Canterbury High, in Ottawa, where he studied theatre and played bass in punk bands. He grew into a multi-instrumental songwriter who as a solo artist, frontman and sideman, toured Canada, the United States and Australia. After studying sound engineering, he moved to Vancouver Island and has since produced albums for a league of independent artists including celebrated spoken word performer Shayne Koyczan. As part of orchestral folk ensemble Morlove, he has appeared at the Vancouver Island Music Fest and Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival. He also produces a steady stream of home-made recordings of his own music, which plays with folk, hip hop, reggae and electronica. His work as a songwriter is an ongoing reflection on the meaning of the good life in an often troubled and troubling world.
Fox and Lokanathan played their first gigs together on the picket lines in Victoria in support of their fellow striking library workers. Shortly afterward, Fox recorded and produced Lokanathan’s album Petal Press. They then went on tour together and found they made good companions not only in the studio, but on stage and on the road as well. Over the next few years, what began as a pair of songwriters playing double bills developed into a fully collaborative project. Last summer, at Fox’s Pleasantville Studio in Cumberland, they sat around a couple of mics, picked guitar, squeezed accordion, frailed banjo and recorded the songs they love playing together. The result is a record with the spirit and sound and wits of their live shows: rootsy music with teeth, claws and wings.
The Chimney Swallows play at 7:30 pm at Cranberry Hall. Tickets are $12, available at Breakwater Books and Coffee and at the door. For more information, readers can visit the band's website. Proceeds from intermission snacks will go to Powell River Friends of the Library.
(Editor's note: The article has been revised to correct the date of the concert.)
