Today's Press: In Tune With The Seasons
May 08 2009, 08:28 AM
Filed in: Music News
A 57-song album that's about connecting, healing
BY TOM HARRISON, THE PROVINCE MAY 8, 2009
Scott Valentine wants you to take all the time you need to absorb his Seasons.
Seasons is a four-CD and one 15-minute movie package. In addition to the 57 songs on Seasons, a few months ago he started placing, freely, one song a week on his website and filming them.
If you don't know him now, by the time you've listened to Seasons and seen the films, you will.
Valentine is based in Victoria, has played in rock bands and is signed to the independent Thorny Bleeder Records. He knows Seasons, which is sparingly arranged around acoustic guitar for the most part though it does roam, adding instruments here and there and exploring different styles, is foolhardy but undeniably ambitious. At more than two hours long, the album is a lot to digest, and even single albums these days are a tough sell. Valentine and Thorny Bleeder are willing to take a chance.
"I'm not part of that machine," Valentine claims, holding out his hands helplessly as he dismisses the recording industry while embracing art.
"I just thought I had a lot of different styles," he explains. "The album is an art form and a lot of that gets lost in the digital age. I had a lot of different styles and a lot of different emotions. I just want to share it. I just wanted to get it out there.
"It's not going to appeal to everybody," Valentine admits. "You might not like Spring, but you might like Winter."
As the title suggests, Seasons has one CD each devoted to Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Spring, predictably, is lighter and has the fewest songs; just as predictably, Winter is heavier and has the most. It's a good idea to listen to the album in instalments rather than one sitting.
"'Ain't That the Truth (Part Two)' was my 'Imagine,'" Valentine notes, referring to the John Lennon milestone. "It was my song. That summed up everything for me and why it's the last song on the LP.
"Summer was a lot different from Spring. In Spring, I was falling in love. By Summer, the old teen angst started to set in. It reflects the angry teenager in me."
Well-spoken and clearly knowing himself, the 33-year-old Valentine cites Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder as inspiration.
"Those guys said to me that I wasn't the only one going through these emotions," he confesses. "I like to call Winter my hopeful epic. My perspective had changed. I'd matured, I was more experienced.
"A lot of the songs were written as I went along," Valentine adds. "But . . . I knew the mood and where they belonged."
"There's definitely a story," Valentine says. "It's an album of experience, an awakening consciousness. The major theme of the album is 'us' and our connection to each other. It's an album of connection and healing."
tharrison@theprovince.com
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Article appears as originally printed in The Province:
http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/music/tune+with+Seasons/1575289/story.html
