Jordan Klassen - Repentance (2013)

Jordan Klassen is a songwriter from Western Canada (Vancouver, Calgary) who quietly released an EP entitled Kindness last year. After steady increases in accolades, radio play and live crowds, Jordan's new full length Repentance will be a lot less quiet. Is there such a thing as unsentimental sincerity? If so, this could be it. A resonate warmth carries Klassen s crafted, literate lyrics through vivid images and stories. Repentance juxtaposes a multi textured simplicity with a trembling confidence and a fresh familiarity. Playful and wise, vast and intimate, the album travels from the jubilant in Go to Me and Piano Brother to the quiet intensity of The Horses are Stuck and Strengthen Me With Raisins. These are songs that fuse melody and poetry, stinging the imagination and summoning forgotten emotion. Recorded at Buena Vista Audio with Producer/Multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Anderson (Aidan Knight, In Medias Res, Sheree Plett), the album employs diverse instrumentation. Ukuleles, strings, horns, choirs, glockenspiels, omnichords all make appearances alongside guitars, pianos, and drums with Klassen's floating falsetto drawing everything together.