Get Back Get Back (to Ootischenia)

Its been over a month since I last posted a song on the blog and my guilt has actually kept me from making good on my commitment to spreading the good news of the lord, indie music. Part of the problem has also been that I scooped up a lot of good cheer over the holidays including 5 new albums (some of those which made my top 10 of 2006 had not been purchased and obviously earned the honour, including Matt Mays' excellent When the Angels Make Contact album as well as Pink Mountaintops Axis of Evol. Moreover, a free week or two of downloading from my favourite bittorrent site (the best way to listen to new music) has given me a whole new library of tunes to sort through and its been tough to find the one song that deserves a blog post out of the bevy of great picks and friends recommendations I've heard.

However, this post is about picking and not indecisive meanderings (save those for the philosophical posts) and the pick is The Be Good Tanyas's "Ootischenia". Besides the obvious qualities of the song, most notably lead singer Frazey Ford's drawl and the comforting old-timey rhythm, the lyrics tell a story about a small Doukhobor community in the interior of British Columbia. The song, which Ford describes as a reminiscence of life growing up in the town of Ootischenia (near Castlegar), feels like a warm embrace which I wanted to send out to all friends and family in the little town of Kelowna (OK not so little) no matter whether they've been scattered (to Ulsan, Vancouver, Toronto, etc.) or if they're still making life work in that odd little city-on-the-lake. So sit back, relax and drift away to The Be Good Tanyas' Ootischenia.