While dreaming of an island he's building for one person plus
himself, Mark Hamilton remembers something: "I'm just an ordinary guy."
Hamilton's second album with Calgary-based Woodpigeon is full of
moments like that, in which the scale of dreams is shown to be larger
(or smaller) than the plain reality. The band's music has a handmade,
home-workshop feeling about it. Finger-picked guitar seems to mark the
ground zero of daily experience, the point from which extravagant shows
of brasses or strings spiral out, and to which they return. Some songs,
such as Anna, Girl in the Clocktower, sound almost medieval; Love in the Time of Hopscotch
is pop clear through. Hamilton's light, resilient voice is tailor-made
for mulling on the deceits and realities of what we see and do. This
belated issue of a scarce, limited-release album comes with Houndstooth Europa, a good new compilation on a second disc.
Robert Everett-Green