TLOBF Loves… Hello, Blue Roses

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Dan Bejar is one busy man. If the next release under his main musical banner moniker wasn’t enough (Destroyer’s Trouble in Dreams comes out March 25) he’s also got side projects like The New Pornographers and Swan Lake. Well, you can add another side project onto the inscrutable indie rocker’s belt.

Hello, Blue Roses is the new musical project with his girlfriend Sydney Vermont (visual artist, Bonaparte vocalist, former Toronto Children’s Choir kid singer). The couple started their romantic relationship in 2005 and releasing their debut album on January 22nd on Locust Music. It’s called The Portrait Is Finished and I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty.

Even though Bejar arranged the entire album Vermont’s vocals and lyricism maintains a subtle beauty. This is an unabashed pop album in the vein of ‘70s folk chanteuses like Kate Wolf or Joni Mitchell. Kate Bush also comes to mind on some tracks that seem plucked out of ‘80s AOR. The Portrait Is Finished showcases the softer side of Bejar’s raucous musical pastiche, but his signature guitar shredding pops for tracks like “Mediterranean Snow,” “Coming Through Imposture“ and “Skeleton Aim.”

A track with electronic instruments would seem out of place on this chamber acoustic album’s 14 tracks. The haunting “Shadow Falls” discounts that notion. Drenched in reverb and synthesizer it builds with a steady electronic beat. Like the rest of the album Vermont’s voice flutters in the high registers giving the sense that you are listening to Renaissance music. The sweetheart duo sing in unison, “my shadow falls for you” with Vermont drawing out the “for you’s.”

Talk about music to swoon to in the night. Bejar’s ominous guitar lines picks up the mood and plops onto his mesa of electronic starkness. “Heron Song” brings to mind a Native American indie folk singer I interviewed last year named Mariee Sioux. The bold pastel covers on the cover are perfect with that pastoral Native American flute playing. This is an early 2008 release that is a delight to listen to in the tight grasp of winter. I hope the rumor that Hello, Blue Roses won’t tour in the future proves to be false because this is beautiful music that deserves to be seen and heard.

mp3:> Hello, Blue Roses: “Shadow Falls”

Links
Hello, Blue Roses [album steam] [official site] [myspace]