Chris Warren :: Beautiful Ruins
Bringing Chris Warren’s celebrated songcraft one step closer to the epigrammatic, this accomplished and polished platter contains 10 of the best songs you will hear this year or any year.
This spare but smartly produced follow-up to Warrens first album Crazy Wisdom is a unique distillation of social commentary and lush melody from one of the most perceptive and visionary voices in pop since John Lennon.
An ace new rhythm section (bassist Maury Lafoy of Sexsmith, Supers, Sarah Harmer and drummer Tom Bona of the Bourbons and Sue Foley) lays down some new world grooves on tracks like Memory is Water andThanks…and Sorry, counterpointed by the sparse and intimate art-folk of Beautiful Ruins and Something (that feels) New and rounded out by the pop-rock bombast ofHole On Bloor St. and Outside Time.
Sarah McElcheran and Darcy MacFadyen contribute horns, while Chris weaves elegant textures of guitar, woodwinds, keyboards, and percussion. His arrangements surprise and delight with every twist and turn of melody and lyric, incorporating jazz, orchestral tone and a little Brazil into Warren’s trademark intimate delivery.
Chris Warren writes with soul, vision, compassion and humour. Beautiful Ruins is an extraordinary record of our times.
“The words are wonderfulclever, poignant, offhandedly funny. The music has as much complexity and colour as the lyrics themselvesspare, like the Modern Lovers, but beautiful and coherent. An absolutely original songwriter.” –Exclaim
“I find his music and his lyrical outlook consistently refreshing and inspiring.” –Ron Sexsmith
