Zaac Pick has a way with time. Of slowing it down to reveal the space that connects and divides us; and of urging it on to shrink that space. Generous, slippery, capricious, kind — time is a theme that courses through each track on his expertly paced new album, ‘Constellations’.
Though ‘Constellations’ is his first full-length release, the Vancouver-based artist has long been building a reputation as a songwriter with a knack for evocative lyrical imagery and a haunting melody. His large-scale, cinematic style earned acclaim after all six tracks from his 2009 debut EP ‘Fierce Wind’ were featured in prime-time TV dramas including One Tree Hill, Degrassi, Rookie Blue, and Saving Hope.
A second EP, 2011’s ‘Whitewater’ continued to gain speed, with its title track featured on CBC’s Vinyl Cafe and subsequent rotation on CBC Radio 2. The EP was soon nominated for a West Coast Music Award for Best Solo Roots Recording, and Zaac was invited to share stages with Grammy- Award winning duo The Civil Wars, Afie Jurvanen’s Bahamas, and American folk troubadour Noah Gundersen.
The cinematic folk songs on ‘Constellations’ ebb with intimacy and augury, as they examine the interconnected people in our lives and the mysterious gravity that draws us together and pulls us apart. His storytelling shines in the somber ‘Fault Lines’, about confronting the fears that creep into relationships before they fracture foundations, and the affecting ‘Slow Kind Light,’ about choosing to see the good in others. Throughout the album, Pick uses a measured cadence that evoke the voids, both literal and figurative, that we cross to connect with others.
Co-produced by Jonathan Anderson (Aidan Knight, Jordan Klassen) and created in collaboration with band members spread out across the provinces of Canada, the songs are unified by thickly textured arrangements with lush strings, meandering bass, and lilting guitar, the warm tone of Pick’s voice setting the stage as he lyrically examines the cosmic links between us all.
Hello
Hello, and have a good day. I’m off to chainsaw some: I’ve had someone bring down a tall, dead tree, and I’m off to start chainsawing it. With a view to eventual firewood.
Ciao!
Good morning!
@Benoit, whenever you get back I have a question for you. Good morning all!
Good morning! Did anyone watch the Grey Cup yesterday? It was a heck of a game. I watch exactly one CFL game a year, that being the Grey Cup. I’m not sure why, but I always feel the need to watch, even though I didn’t pay that close attention to the CFL when I lived in Canada.
I knew there was something I meant to watch* last night
*or at least record
Hi Janet
Oh and I started to work on my player/playlist thingee, that uses data from cbcmusic artist pages. So far things are working as planned, I have a hard-coded playlist that plays songs from the site in sequence.
I’m now just wondering how to bring back playlists for everyone, and where to store them. Also wondering if we can embed it into this site. or I can just try it with a Chrome extension.
I caught the second half of the Grey Cup, What a finish!
@Wynnzie
There was talk at one point of having user pages here not unlike the old R3 site but I don’t know what happened with that plan
@Garf, well I’m wondering what format most of us saved our playlists in, mine are in the original JSON format, from the site, I have a ways to go, but maybe by the new year, we’ll have a working prototype.
@Wynnzie
If they used the code I created it returns a list of artists and titles
eg https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqwooac8acxvu3v/nvp.txt?dl=0
Hmm, ok that may work. Here is a list of what I think we can do with it:
1. Ability to create/save new playlists
2. Search artists
3. Play individual songs, and playlists
4. Import playlists, such as the ones you have above
Gotta figure out the storage thing though. That may be tricky.
BTW – word is that they almost have the artists admin ready to go again – for the CBC Music site, but I don’t think they are bringing back playlists anytime soon.
Would it be worth having a script (chrome/grease monkey) that would allow people visiting the R3 site to add songs or should we just allow access to the R3 pages through a portal in our site.
For storage we could either have user pages here or the script could work with sites like dropbox and google drive as long as the user has their own account.
Yes I think it would be good to have an extension or script that can do that on the CBC Music site, but for a first pass, it may be ok to just have a player that can bring back our old playlists, for me that’s the main reason I’m doing this.
With google extensions I think there’s a way to save data to a users computer, that may be another way to store the data.
Morning people!
Sounds cool Wynnsie/Garf!
I had a great weekend. Wintersleep on Friday night was fantastic! I was so happy. Love those guys. Yesterday was a full day with my new theatre friends. We went early to move props and set pieces up to the main stage, went for breakie, did an escape room and then a full afternoon of rehearsal up on the main stage. The week will be a busy one with dress rehearsals and then the play running Wed to Sat. Excited!
Hi DarBar, should we expect the play to be shown on HBO or Showtime?
Ha! Maybe PBS.
I didn’t think PBS could afford to show it
They would have to get a lot of funding but I think it is worth it.
I have heard good things about the cast
Great cast! Very talented. Especially Awgwa #1 and Reindeer #2. They will steal the show. 😉
only second reindeer!?
Yup but he gets the funnier lines.
The director from the last play we auditioned for stopped Devin in the hall the other day and urged him to audition for the next one and sent him an email about it. That was cool.
It all helps with the voice acting work
@Wynn… this playlist code, do you have it in a repo somewhere?
@Darbar, that’s really cool that the director is excited about keeping Devin involved!
@justin no not yet. It’s very basic, I’m using jplayer for now. I was trying to use the jplayer playlist component, but it seems to need the mp3s right away. CBC Music is creating links to mp3’s that only last for a couple seconds, their way of ‘blocking’ illegal downloads I think.
@Garf- It sure does help with his voice over/voice acting aspirations and just for his self esteem in general. It has been a good experience for sure.
@janet – The play is about Vimy Ridge and they are looking for young guys to play some Canadian soldiers. It just seems to be a good play for him and his interests. I hope he gets a part!
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for him!
But first, break a leg with the upcoming play! 🙂
Yeah, break a leg, just not mine (again)
Hehe. Thanks! 😀
@DBS, I almost forgot to ask, did your brother enjoy the game last night?
@Garf – I have no idea. I haven’t talked to him but by FB posts from my SIL it looked liked they were enjoying being there.
I was sad I missed the officials being introduced at the start.
I don’t know what the score was or even who won
I hear Ottawa won and it was a really good game. That is the extent of my knowledge.
Grey Cup spoilers below:
It started out as a bit of blowout by Ottawa, but Calgary slowly came back in the second half, and scored 10 points in the last 2 minutes to force over time. Final score was 39-33 Ottawa. First win in 40 years
Hmmm, for whatever reason all the space I included between the first line of text and the second was erased upon posting. My apologies to anyone I spoiled the game for.
@Janet, The strange thing is the spaces are still there if I look at that comment in the comment check/edit area
if you know html you might be able to change the font colour to 2e2e2e to make it blend in with the background so that it only shows up when highlighted Like This.
that didn’t work
Rather than highlights it shows up as grey. Seems fitting for the Grey Cup
I got the colour code wrong, it should have been 2e2e2e
So this shouldn’t be visible
I don’t know html, but if you can go in and edit my comment, that would prevent spoilers!
<font color=”2e2e2e”>Spoiler goes here</font>
That is the html code to hide text for spoilers so that it only appears when highlited
Constellation – listening and enjoying
Fire wood – so glad I don’t have to do that anymore
Grey Cup – ?
Code – ? but my lack of knowledge does not mean that I don’t support your work and what I hope we get to use from your efforts. I just don’t understand how it works.
Doing theatre with your kid – awsomesauce!
Grey Cup = the point half way between the Black Cup and the White Cup
The code simply set the text colour the same as this here sites background colour meaning it blends in until highlighted
I wonder how quickly the cease and desist letter would arrive if I sold a grey mug with a picture of a compact fluorescent light bulb on the side as a cfl grey cup
this is a lovely mellow album!
after a busy shift at work it is perfect … except that i feel a nap coming on.
I would be willing to have a nap on your behalf Morgana but as it is almost 11:30pm here it might evolve into more than a nap
OK, you call it a night and I will nap.
I wish I had written tomorrows post already so I wouldn’t have to get up early in the morning to do it
OK, sounds like a plan
G’night
Michael Wynn, I’m back. (I’ll put a ringer on FB)