Great Lake Swimmers | |
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Background information | |
Origin | Wainfleet Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Genres | Folk rock, Indie |
Years active | 2003 | –present
Labels | Weewerk, Nettwerk |
Members | Tony Dekker Erik Arnesen Kelsey McNulty Bret Higgins Ryan Granville-Martin |
Past members | Julie Fader Colin Huebert Mike Overton Sandro Perri Greg Millson Miranda Mulholland Bret Higgins Joshua Van Tassel Darcy Yates |
Website | greatlakeswimmers |
Great Lake Swimmers is a Canadian folk rock band from Wainfleet, Ontario, [1] and currently based in Toronto.
The current touring line-up is Tony Dekker on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica, Erik Arnesen on banjo, electric guitar and harmonium, Ryan Granville-Martin on drums and backing vocals, Bret Higgins on upright bass and Kelsey McNulty on keyboards and backing vocals. Past members included Julie Fader on backing vocals, Sandro Perri on guitar, and Greg Millson and Colin Huebert on drums.
The band's style has been compared to Red House Painters, Nick Drake, Iron & Wine and Neil Young, [2] as well as Will Oldham [3] (Bonnie "Prince" Billy) and Sufjan Stevens. [4] Dekker has cited influences including Gram Parsons and Hank Williams. [5]
The band released two albums, Great Lake Swimmers in 2003 and Bodies and Minds in 2005, on the independent label (Weewerk) before signing to the larger Nettwerk in 2007.
The band released its third full-length album, Ongiara , on March 27, 2007 in Canada and in May for the rest of the world. Although signing to Nettwerk early in 2007, Great Lake Swimmers continue to be managed by (Weewerk). In September 2007, (weewerk) released a limited edition vinyl version of Ongiara. It was available in Australia through native indie label Speak N Spell.
Their fourth album, Lost Channels , was released on March 31, 2009. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize, [6] and was nominated for a Juno Award, in the category of Roots & Traditional Album of the Year – Group, and a Canadian Folk Music Award.
In 2009 Great Lake Swimmers took part in an interactive documentary series called City Sonic . The series, which featured 20 Toronto artists, had Tony Dekker talk about his daily underground commute along Toronto’s subway system. [7] In 2011, Dekker participated in the documentary series National Parks Project , visiting Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia with filmmaker Keith Behrman and musicians Daniela Gesundheit and Old Man Luedecke.
The band's fifth studio album, New Wild Everywhere , was released on April 3, 2012. [8] The band also composed an instrumental soundtrack for photographer Ian Coristine's One in a Thousand, an e-book of photography from the Thousand Islands region of Ontario, also released in April 2012. [9]
Dekker released a solo album, Prayer of the Woods, in October 2013. [10] The album includes eight original songs as well as covers of Gordon Lightfoot's "Carefree Highway" and Human Sexual Response's "Land of the Glass Pinecones". [10] In 2014 he followed up with Sings 10 Years of Zunior, an album of covers of other Canadian artists — including Old Man Luedecke, Chad VanGaalen, Christine Fellows, Ohbijou, Rae Spoon, Matt Mays, Martin Tielli, Jennifer Castle and Cadence Weapon — released to mark the 10th anniversary of Canadian web music store Zunior. [11]
The sixth studio album by the full band, A Forest of Arms , was released on April 21, 2015. [12] In 2017 they followed up with the Christmas-themed EP They Don't Make Them Like That Anymore. [13]
In February 2018, the band released the single "Falling Apart"/"The Talking Wind", as an advance preview of the forthcoming album The Waves, the Wake. [14]
Their eighth album, Uncertain Country, was released on April 28, 2023. [15] In 2024, they appeared on several tracks from Abigail Lapell's album Anniversary. [16]
Year | Song | Chart peak | Album | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CAN Alt [20] | |||||||||
2005 | "To Leave It Behind" | × | Bodies and Minds | ||||||
"Bodies and Minds" | × | ||||||||
2007 | "Your Rocky Spine" | × | Ongiara | ||||||
"Backstage with the Modern Dancers" | × | ||||||||
2009 | "Pulling on a Line" | × | Lost Channels | ||||||
2012 | "Easy Come Easy Go" | 28 | New Wild Everywhere | ||||||
"The Great Exhale" | × | ||||||||
"—" denotes a release that did not chart. "×" denotes periods where charts did not exist or were not archived. | |||||||||
In 2006, the band released a "digital box set" on Zunior, consisting of their first two albums, the limited edition Hands in Dirty Ground EP, several digital tour photos and the video for their song "To Leave It Behind" on a 512 MB USB flash drive. [21]
In 2008, Dekker appeared on Jenny Omnichord's album Charlotte or Otis: Duets for Children, Their Parents and Other People Too, performing a duet vocal on the song "Do You Know Karate".
In 2009 the band released a limited double 7" vinyl split single with the Dutch band Audiotransparent. This release includes a cover of the Elvis Presley classic "Don't Be Cruel" and the original song "Send Me a Letter". Dekker and Arnesen also appear on the Audiotransparent song "You Are a Movie".
In 2010, the band contributed four tracks to the online music community Swim Drink Fish Music, including live versions of their songs "Your Rocky Spine", "I Could Be Nothing" and "Everything Is Moving So Fast" and a previously unreleased track, "Ballad of a Fisherman's Wife".
The songs “I Became Awake” and “Various Stages” are heard in the 2010 independent Canadian horror film The Corridor .
The song "Moving Pictures Silent Films" was featured in the August 8, 2011 episode of Warehouse 13 , entitled "3...2...1..."
In 2012 the band contributed the Christmas song "Hang a String of Lights" to Paste magazine's annual online Holiday Sampler music collection.
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Great Lake Swimmers | Favourite Folk/Roots Artist/Group [22] | Won |
Zunior.com is a Canadian online independent record label and music store founded in 2004 by Dave Ullrich, formerly of The Inbreds.
Christine Ann Fellows is a Canadian folk-pop singer-songwriter from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Elliott Brood is a three-piece Canadian alternative country band formed in Toronto in 2002. It consists of Mark Sasso on lead vocals, guitar, banjo, ukulele, harmonica and kazoo, Casey Laforet on guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals, bass pedals, keys and ukulele, and Stephen Pitkin on percussion, sampler and backing vocals. The band's style has been categorized as "death country", "frontier rock" or "revival music".
...As the Poets Affirm was a Canadian independent rock band formed in 2001 in Ottawa, Ontario. The band began as a three-piece acoustic project, and later evolved into a seven-member line-up experimenting with jazz, classical and electronica. Its name is taken from a line in Dante's Inferno. The original members were – Gary Udle, Nathan Gara (drums), Ryan Patterson, Adam Saikaley, bassist and singer Alex Cairncross and cellist Cindy Olberg. They were occasionally joined by violinist Renée Leduc, bassist Ryan Griffin, keyboardist, cellist and singer Kina De Grasse Forney, and on guitar, keyboards and trumpet, Ben Belanger.
Outside Music is a Canadian record label and distributor founded by Lloyd Nishimura in 2001. In 2007, it expanded to include an artist management division which includes Jill Barber, Matthew Barber, Aidan Knight, Justin Rutledge as management clients.
Bodies and Minds is the second studio album by Canadian folk rock group Great Lake Swimmers, released in 2005.
Ongiara is the third studio album by Canadian folk rock band Great Lake Swimmers, released in Canada on March 27, 2007 and in the United States on May 8, 2007. The album was released on Nettwerk.
Weewerk, stylized as (weewerk), is an independent folk, roots, bluegrass, country record label and artist-management company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 2002 as an art-and-music salon series in the apartment of Teenage USA Recordings partner Phil Klygo and artist-curator Germaine Koh. Klygo was Festival Director of Canadian Music Week from 2001 to 2007.
Jenny Mitchell, better known by the stage name Jenny Omnichord, is a Canadian indie rock musician. She has released three solo albums and an EP as a solo artist, and also records and performs with the bands The Barmitzvah Brothers and The Burning Hell.
Tony Dekker is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Most noted as leader of the indie folk band Great Lake Swimmers, he has also released two solo albums.
Lost Channels is the fourth studio album by Canadian folk rock band Great Lake Swimmers, released on March 31, 2009. It was recorded in the Thousand Islands area near the New York–Ontario border and features several guest appearances by other artists, including Serena Ryder, Bob Egan, Erin Aurich and Paul Aucoin.
The Burning Hell is a Canadian band fronted by songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalist Ariel Sharratt, particularly known for their literate songwriting, DIY ethos, and dynamic live performances. Kom holds a PhD in ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he studied the political economy of DIY music.
Michael Peter Olsen is a Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, composer and arranger currently based in Toronto, Ontario.
FemBots are a Canadian indie rock band from Toronto formed in 1998. FemBots are known for their unique sound of combining instrumental everyday items, junk instruments, and traditional instruments in their music.
New Wild Everywhere is the fifth studio album by Canadian folk rock band Great Lake Swimmers, released April 3, 2012 on Nettwerk.
Audiotransparent is a Dutch indie pop band, influenced from several genres, including american, pop and rock. This band was formed in 2002 but they made their debut in 2003, with their self-titled album Audiotransparent, and received positive reviews.
Snowblink is an indie pop band based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Snowblink is now a duo of singer/songwriter Daniela Gesundheit and multi-instrumentalist Dan Goldman. The band has opened for Feist, Jeff Tweedy, Owen Pallett, Timber Timbre, Ohbijou, Great Lake Swimmers and The Hidden Cameras.
Have Not Been the Same: The Can-Rock Renaissance 1985–1995 is a book by Canadian music journalists Michael Barclay, Ian A.D. Jack, and Jason Schneider, which chronicles the development of alternative rock in Canada between 1985 and 1995. Published by ECW Press, the book has appeared in two editions, an original in 2001 (ISBN 1-55022-475-1) and an updated tenth anniversary edition in 2011 (ISBN 978-1-55022-992-9). In conjunction with the 2011 edition of the book, two compilation albums of music from the era chronicled by the book were also released as fundraisers for charitable organizations.
A Forest of Arms is the sixth studio album by Canadian folk rock band Great Lake Swimmers, released April 21, 2015 on Nettwerk.
The Waves, the Wake is the seventh studio album by Canadian indie folk band Great Lake Swimmers, released August 17, 2018 on Nettwerk. The album was marked by a shift in the band's traditional folk rock instrumentation, with bandleader Tony Dekker choosing to avoid acoustic guitar and instead incorporating instruments including marimba, flute, pipe organ, harp, congas, vibraphone and lute to expand the band's sound.