With Sarah Harmer, Joel Plaskett, Hawksley Workman and Neko Case all having recently done their thing on its stage, the Avening Hall is developing a reputation among musicians as a little gem, the kind of place where something special happens when songs and audience meet on a Saturday night. On February 9, another iconic if somewhat enigmatic Canadian artist, Hayden, will add his name to the list of musicians in the know.
Since his emergence from Toronto’s burgeoning alternative scene with 1995’s Everything I Long For, Hayden has intrigued, both for his highly introspective personality and his musical independence, performing most instruments on his records and almost always engineering, mixing, and producing as well as self-releasing on his own label, Hardwood Records.
The Avening show will be part of a tour of small, unique venues around Ontario that Hayden is embarking on in February before heading out on a North American tour in March. The Toronto-based musician, who also has a place near Collingwood, is releasing his first album in four years on February 19. It’s his first on the Arts & Crafts label, and has the feeling of a new beginning of sorts. He was inspired to return to writing and recording, and to take things more seriously in general, he says, after he was informed by a fan that his Wikipedia page listed him as deceased.
“I was dead six months before anyone noticed,” he laughs. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always taken the music extremely seriously, but I’ve definitely made a few promotional missteps. One example would be not doing a single show or interview for my last record. Really, I put out a record in 2009!”
With Arts & Crafts behind him and a tour that will see him go from Avening to the Mercury Lounge in New York City, and onward to South by Southwest in Austin and various points across the United States, it’s unlikely that Hayden’s new album will go unnoticed by anyone. Especially given what it sounds like. Entitled Us Alone, the record is a sonically rich, beautifully textured return to form. Lyrically, Hayden continues his strength in crafting stories that range from the highly autobiographical (“Almost Everything”) to strangely unsettling (“Just Give Me A Name”), and goes as far as leaving specific direction of what to do with his body when he dies (“Instructions”).
“There isn’t a particular recording story around this album,” Hayden explains. “I didn’t go record in a Norwegian village or at the bottom of a shrimp vessel. I walked upstairs where every instrument has a microphone and hit the record button. And, as usual, the songs came together over a long period of time.
“I was moving away from so many records now, including some of my past work, where every song features an overwhelming number of instruments; it’s often hard to replicate things like that live. I wanted the sound of five people walking into a room and playing a full set. With the exception of some stellar help from friends on a song or two, those five people were mostly just me…”
Hayden will play the Avening Hall on Saturday, February 9. One of those friends, Lou Canon, will open the show. Tickets, at $25 are available at the Creemore Echo, by contacting sara@creemore.com or 705-466-9906, or online at arts-crafts.com/store. They’ll cost $30 at the door.
Photos by Vanessa Heins