GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS - ONGIARA Rating: 5/5
eye weekly, 22 March 2007
By Vish Khanna
"Toronto's Great Lake Swimmers continue to hone a remarkably haunting, heartfelt folk-pop sound, mixing ambient textures with skilful instrumental interplay. Tony Dekker's voice is still the band's most captivating presence, capable of turning the seemingly mundane observations of 'Backstage with the Modern Dancers' into a harrowingly mournful tale. That deceptively simple song demonstrates that Dekker's gifts as a vocalist are matched by his direct yet multi-layered lyricism - a romantic ode to our geography emerges in 'Your Rocky Spine,' while 'There is a Light' is a delicate protest song whose pointed wordplay is tempered by a dreamy arrangement. As a trio rounded out by inventive multi-instrumentalists Erik Arnesen and Colin Huebert, the group sounds rather lush here; recording in a hall with natural reverb and calling in talents like Sarah Harmer and Owen Pallett surely affects the sound. The Swimmers exude confidence and conviction on Ongiara, an understated masterpiece."
"If you've ever peered down into the murky waters of Lake Michigan, you find that the beach'll do just fine, thanks. So take note of the bravery of maverick alt-countryman Tony Dekker, aka Great Lake Swimmers, who-- following his present overseas excursion with band-- will hit the dusty trails of the U.S. in search of adventure next month. The jaunt aims to drum up support for Great Lake Swimmers' otherworldly third album Ongiara, out May 8 on Nettwerk. Ongiara features ten tracks of languid folk and guest spots from, among others, Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett." - Paul Thompso, Pitchfork
Great Lake Swimmers - Ongiara Rating: 9/10
LAS Magazine
By Kevin Alfoldy
The sun sets a little sooner these days, signaling that summer is coming to an end. Not quite autumn, it is still warm enough to enjoy the evenings while sitting on the stoop in just a t-shirt. Hours are spent watching the flash of lighting from the far off storm that hovers as a single black mass on the horizon. Even better to put Ongiara on the stereo and pass the idle time with some good friends and a few beers.
Great Lake Swimmers are criminally overlooked. They've already created two albums full of winsome longing and beautiful sorrow and Ongiara, their third, is no different. Fine tuning their particular brand of sparse, folk-tinged melancholy, their newest album has an affecting way of recalling lost loves and simpler times. It is easy to get lost in singer Tony Dekker's ethereal voice backed up by the band's tender finger picking and reassuring percussion.
If there is any justice in the independent music industry, this little band from Canada will be recognized for the gorgeous music they continue to release. Not relying on hype or shtick, Great Lake Swimmers deserve to be acknowledged for quality songwriting and their plaintive, haunting melodies. They're one of the only bands I know of that can bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye.
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS - ONGIARA Rating: 4.5/5
PASTE Magazine Issue 31
by Stephen Deusner
"Swimmers' third album has its roots deep in Canadian soil
Named for the boat that carried them across Toronto Harbour to their studio, the Great Lake Swimmers’ third—and best—album, Ongiara, is anchored musically and lyrically to the land around the band’s hometown. Tony Dekker, Erik Arnesen and Colin Huebert create folksy compositions that will likely prompt the label “Americana,” but it seems more accurate to call this starkly evocative and melodically melancholic album “Canadiana.” “Your Rocky Spine” describes the northern reaches as an eroticized landscape, while “Changing Colours” connects singer and wilderness spiritually: “When you change colours, I change mine, too,” Dekker sings, his empathy spiked with desperation. Especially on the percussively orchestrated “Put There by the Land” and “Where in the World Are You” (featuring string arrangements courtesy of final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett), the Swimmers’ swirl of acoustic guitar, banjo and brushed snare complements Dekker’s musings and reinforces the album’s simple, yet stirring, evocation of place."
ONGIARA
CHART, Tuesday March 20, 2007
By Shannon Whibbs
"Just when it seems like it can't possible get more beautiful, the next song sets the bar even higher and it becomes an overload of pure awesome. Ongiara is slow and spare, yet amazingly rich and varied... Decidedly country in flavour but not in overall tone... Dekker weaves lyrical tales that are as ethereal as his shimmering songs, open to interpretation while bearing a straightforward foundation."
Album of the Week: 'Ongiara' by Great Lake Swimmers
DUMMY Music Quarterly
9/10
My ceasless complaint with British indie is that it never does anything new – seems to spit, in fact, on the very notion of newness – and yet when a folk album like this comes along, an exquisite retread of timeless styles, I have no complaint. Why? Perhaps because rock is supposed to be rebellious and exciting, and there is nothing in the world less rebellious and exciting than four young white males for whom history ended not with the fall of the Berlin Wall but with London Calling or Entertainment; folk, on the other hand, is supposed to be older and wiser. And Tony Dekker, the Wainfleet, Ontario singer-songwriter behind Great Lake Swimmers, certainly sounds old and wise – like Sam Beam and Will Oldham, he has one of those ninety-year-old-man voices that's as hoarse as a pile of dead leaves. (link to complete review).
The quiet, splendid world of the Great Lake Swimmers
DAILY NEWS, Wednesday, June 6th 2007
By Andrew Katchen
The delicate and well, often melancholy, Great Lake Swimmers' songs, gently led by affecting singer and guitarist Tony Dekker, seemed to always be around the house, being absorbed into the wooden floors or escaping through the slightly-cracked windows. During the morning coffee making, the playing with the calm house cat and the silent staring off into space that marks one's attempts to wake up (or at least mine), Dekker and his band mates politely kept the time, evoking the nature around us in their old banjos, dusty acoustic guitars and general unpluggedness. (link to complete review).
Great Lake Swimmers Dive In
Exclaim! Magazine
By Michael Barclay
"Great Lake Swimmers, personified loneliness with their weightless arrangements, canyons of space between acoustic guitar chords, and Dekker’s lost choirboy vocals that sounded almost smothering in their empathy. Desolate, yes, but desperate? No. As lonely as he sounded, Dekker’s vocals were always confident and firm; even if his lyrical voice didn’t believe he would ever see the sun again, his delivery suggested otherwise." (link to complete review).
BODIES AND MINDS Rating: NNNN
NOW Toronto, 10 March 2005
Sarah Liss
"If there were justice in this world, Tony Dekker's hauntingly clear tenor would be worshipped by legions of acolytes who'd put the combined fan bases of Thom Yorke and Damien Rice to shame. Everything the Great Lake Swimmers mainman sings sounds like the sweet mantra of a repentant sinner chased by demons, while his band's precise, echoing arrangements of Wurlitzer, banjo, lap steel and fragile acoustic plinking mimic the quiet desperation of Dekker's existential cries. His lyrics, about feeling trapped in his own skin, the redemptive/ destructive power of love and dodging imaginary beasties, are overwhelmingly intimate, but they're balanced by a restrained openness in the album's production. Even the soaring choir on Falling Into The Sky is just the right size. GLS should give lessons on how to succeed at the whole quiet-is-the-new-loud thing." (link to review).
"Tony Dekker takes acoustics very seriously. His haunting, somber ballads emit an otherworldly quality, due in no small part to the natural environment in which they're captured … Natural reverb and folkie arrangements complement Dekker's soft voice perfectly" - Rob Bolton, Exclaim!
To dive for: Great Lake Swimmers' still waters run deep
eye weekly, 3 March 2005
By Stuart Berman
"Songs that are disarming in their honesty, but remarkable in their lack of affectation or contrivance... The album projects a palpable feeling of an expanse..."
(link to complete article).
BODIES AND MINDS
Chartattack, 15 March 2005
By Marc Boudignon
"The notion of mind/body duality has been debated in philosophy circles since Descartes, and now London, Ontario's Great Lake Swimmers have joined the fray, but with a strictly musical discourse. To say they're happier than Sartre is a given, but GLS straddle the line between half-empty and half-full, with songs of longing ('To Leave It Behind'), fantasy ('Falling Into The Sky') and Kafkaesque body-swapping ('Let's Trade Skins'). Bodies And Minds is where gothic country meets the baroque pop of Red House Painters and though the duality remains a theory in philosophical terms, as an album, it can only be considered a successful amalgam." (link to review).
BODIES AND MINDS Rating: 8.5/10
Montreal Mirror, 17 March 2005
Lorraine Carpenter
"Great Lake Swimmers, you've earned your wings. Recorded in a rural Ontario church, this Toronto-based quintet's sophomore LP opens with 'Song for the Angels,' a mournful hymn that exemplifies their ability to bridge the earthly and the ethereal. The band's tempos now surpass dirge-speed and their ever-reverberant arrangements have grown to include drums, banjo, pedal steel, Wurlitzer and, on one song, a choir. However, Tony Dekker's reliable, vaguely liturgical tenor still dominates the vast, barren landscapes of their sound, a fine, if sometimes frosty setting for his intimations about mundane tragedies and transcendental yearnings." (link to review).
Swimmers flow on talent CD Pick of the Week
Toronto Star, 24 March 2005
Vit Wagner
"The title track from Bodies and Minds, the stealthily superb second album by Great Lake Swimmers (Weewerk), has many of the hallmarks of a full-on rock tune, including a refrain that relies on repeated use of the word 'wanna,' followed by a coda of 'yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.' There's even an electric guitar in there somewhere. All it needs is several extra decibels. But volume is something singer/songwriter Tony Dekker, the guiding force behind GLS, uses sparingly. Like its eponymous predecessor, this 11-song sequel finds its distinctive voice in Dekker's hushed singing and low-key but intricately executed arrangements. True, the supporting cast is more substantial this time. Significant contributions coming from Sandro Perri on lap steel, Almog Ben-David on keys, Colin Huebert on drums and, especially, Erik Arneson, whose banjo awakens some of the album's brightest cuts, including 'Let's Trade Skins' and 'When it Flows.' Engineer Andy Magoffin has gone so far as to enlist the London Ontario Community Singers to back up "Falling into the Sky." But restraint is still the operative aesthetic. Lyrically, Dekker remains fixated with relationships — not only romantic, but also those between man and nature. The two themes dovetail beautifully on 'I Could Be Nothing': 'You would be nothing without me/I could be nothing/Said the waves to the sand/I could be nothing without you.'..."
BODIES AND MINDS
Discorder, May 2005
Soren Bros.
"This album is the wet dream that a lot of you more subdued readers have been having for a while now, but haven’t been able to quite realize. Considered Toronto’s answer to the Red House Painters, Nick Drake, and err… Neil Young, the Great Lake Singers have returned on their second album to the atmospheric folk that got them voted the best folk/roots artists in 2004’s Canadian Independent Music Awards (though where their first album was recorded in a deserted grain silo, this one was recorded in a lakeside rural church, giving it, like, a totally different flavour). For those wary of yet more 'folk/roots Canadiana,' you can also have the comfort of knowing that the Great Lake Swimmers’ lap steel guitarist is none other than the Constellations Records rising star, Polmo Polpo, and that Bodies and Minds was engineered and mixed by the same guy who works with the Constantines and Royal City. That’s not to say that this is the be all and end all album to come out in the past decade, though. While apparently more varied than their first album, Bodies and Minds still never quite reaches the intensity of any of the above–mentioned acts, even in its loudest moments, but instead finds its greatest strength in the quiet moments where there are chirping crickets in the background, and Tony Dekker’s plaintive singing seeps into the head, making everything else wait on the backburner."
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS
Stylus Magazine, December 2003 - January 2004
Jenny Henkelman
"For awhile now, I've been hearing certain music fans wax rhapsodic over the Great Lake Swimmers. Yeah, yeah, I thought. Whatever. They can't be that good. Oh, yes, they can. It was all over for me about four bars into their debut self-titled release of what amounts to an extended lullaby that won't let you fall asleep. The introductory track, "Moving Pictures Silent Films," has a refrain that will break your heart into tiny little pieces. Part cathedral resonance and part campfire vulnerability, the songs were, famously, recorded inside an abandoned silo in southern Ontario. The three-piece outfit, led by vocalist Tony Dekker, creates a cozy sonic sleeping bag that you can curl up in, listening to the chorus of crickets in the background. The Swimmers' sound has been likened to Nick Drake on downers, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, and A Northern Chorus. Take that for what you will, but whatever you do, buy this record."
Year in Review: Folk, Country & Blues Top 10
Exclaim! "," Dec 2003/Jan 2004
Michael Barclay
(No. 5) "This is easily the most captivating combination of ghostly vocals, hypnotic songs, and environmental atmospherics since the first two Cowboy Junkies albums. Tony Dekker paints his sketches in stark black and white, using the most basic strokes, and leave longing, lonely spaces for you to colour in the rest and navigate the paradoxes: feather light, yet humid heavy; comforting yet somewhat creepy; urban disaffection bathed in a sea of starry nights and crickets. Guaranteed to give goose bumps."
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS
Chart magazine, June 2003
BP
"As delicate a record as you will listen to all year long, Great Lake Swimmers is that rare find that becomes all the more precious with each new listen. You will be stunned by the gentle, acoustic guitar backed by low hiss and cricket chirping that is born from recording in a silo on a farm. Yeah, a silo, which gives the record a truly down-home feel. Songs like opener 'Moving Pictures Silent Films' and 'This Is Not Like Home' make you feel like lying out in a sleeping bag staring up at the stars. You won't want to lend this record to anyone for fear of breaking the personal bond you have with it..."
All Archived reviews of GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS (2003)
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS at the Music Gallery
"Quiet riot", NOW Toronto, 7 April 2005
By Jered Stuffco
"Making good use of the quiet vibe and the audience's rapt attention, a slightly anxious-looking Dekker (dressed in a jacket and tie) went for the soft sell, too, opting for a slow, steady build that showcased his lofty voice and gave his backing band a chance to shine..." (link to complete review).
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS at the El Mocambo
UmbrellaMusic.com, 10 March 2005
By Howard Druckman
"They had the cover story in this week's edition of local alternative paper eye, so the room was packed. But they've developed enough of a following that it might've been packed anyway. All of the guys onstage look like they might have been recently released from some sort of institution, which is to say painfully shy, a little off-kilter and completely internal. None more so than frontman Tony Dekker, whose energy is akin to that of Tony Perkins/David Byrne/Charlie Salmon, and who physically is wearing Sarah Harme's face on Don Kerr's body. The Swimmers play thoughtful, quietly beautiful and entirely original music about heartbreak and transcendence. At one point, in 'I Will Never See The Sun,' Dekker charmingly rhymes off subway stops along the Bloor line in Toronto, in their actual order. Their rear-projected films of flowers, clouds and insects added to the vibe as well. Captivating, mesmerizing stuff." 9/10 (re. 4 March, El Mocambo, CMW 2005)
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS at the El Mocambo
ChartAttack.com, 5 March 2005
By Brian Wong
"Displaying some Nick Drake soul, Dekker and his players managed to combine naked and intimate songs with some catchy pop-rock - and rocking with banjo, wurlitzer and Sandro "Polmo Polpo" Perri on lap steel, no less. And in the middle of this fragile heart-pouring, mostly from the new Swimmers album Bodies And Minds, is a song that has "Toronto classic" written all over it...", (re. 5 March CMW show at El Mocambo)
Songs for Swimming Upstream Download PDF
National Post, 12 June 2003, re. NXNE 2003
By Samantha Grice
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS - NXNE high note
Spill magazine, 5 March 2005
By Jeff Cann
"How fitting, my last show of NXNE quite easily turned out to be the best surprise of the festival. Great Lake Swimmers' Tony Dekker sang intimate - instantly relatable songs offering the crowd a direct window into his world. Dekker's amazingly delicate and truthful voice was reminiscent of a Nick Drake at his most revealing - with a shy Elliot Smith style of delivery. Adding to the stunning vocals was the subtle layering of bass, drums, lap steel guitar and the accordion, complimenting each other perfectly in the creation of the bands folk, folk-country sound. The reception of the crowd after the GLS's set was so overwhelmingly positive that the band was allowed an encore - extremely rare for the strictly timed festival. GLS definitely ended the evening - and NXNE on a high note. " (re. NXNE 2003)