MP3 Norma MacDonald - the forest for the trees
Seamlessly melds old-school country sensibilities with modern influences (Wilco, Patty Griffin, Bruce Springsteen) without losing so much as a drop of authenticity.
10 MP3 Songs in this album (37:22) !
Related styles: COUNTRY: Alt-Country, FOLK: Alternative Folk
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Details:
Norma MacDonald is a singer-songwriter and avid biology nerd. She was raised on AM country stations and Willie Nelson cassettes in her hometown of New Waterford, Cape Breton, but has made her home in Halifax, NS for the last number of years. She is a Virgo and not a bad little bowler. On her sophomore recording, ‘the forest for the trees’, MacDonald manages to seamlessly meld her innate old-school country sensibilities with more mainstream influences (Wilco, Patty Griffin and Bruce Springsteen) without losing so much as a drop of authenticity. By the time the band kicks in on the opening track “a little longer”, one gets a sense they are listening to an artist who has finally come into her own. Juxtopositioning lyrical sophistication with playfulness (check out the anthemic, pedal steel driven “sand”) MacDonald balances a visceral sense of nostalgia and longing with hopefulness for what lies ahead. On “we’re ghosts” she sings the refrain “Let me come back as a flesh and blood reminder of the past” with an almost otherworldly conviction. Backed by some of Halifax’s finest musicians; Charles Austin (Superfriendz, Buck 65) on guitar and banjo, Adam Fine (Gypsophilia) on bass, Dale Murray (Cuff the Duke, Hayden, the Guthries) on pedal steel—not to mention a host of others—‘the forest for the trees’ is the ideal showcase for MacDonald’s pure yet soulful voice.
MacDonald’s debut album ‘nothing is here it was’ (2005) garnered glowing reviews from as far away as the UK and earned her a NSMW nomination for Female Recording of the Year in 2006. She has performed on the “Canadian Music- East Coast Style” stage at the North American Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN as well as the prestigious Stan Rogers Folk Festival (2007). Look for her touring throughout the Maritimes this fall and next spring as she makes her way to Ontario and westward