John K. Samson

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John K. Samson

John K. Samson "Provincial" album

- Release date : January 2012 -

Provincial is the debut solo album by singer-songwriter for critically lauded indie rock band The Weakerthans, John K. Samson, released on January 24, 2012 on ANTI-. The record contains newly recorded versions of songs from Samson’s previous two acclaimed EPs, “City Route 85” and “Provincial Road 222,” alongside a collection of beautifully evocative new tracks.

"Provincial" album tracks and lyrics

"Provincial" album reviews

Leave it to John K. Samson to turn a little holiday away from the Weakerthans into the solo-record equivalent of a master's thesis.

One has come to expect a certain amount of scholarliness from Samson over the years, but left to his own devices on Provincial the celebrated Winnipeg singer/songwriter has challenged himself to create a crowded pseudo-concept album linking together the stories of people and places — real, imagined, vanished and/or vanishing — strewn along Manitoba's highways and byways. It's a painstakingly researched song cycle that you can actually experience yourself, to some degree, if you've a decent map at your disposal and couple of days free to spend driving around and about Winnipeg.

Taking the listener from Grace General Hospital and “the corner of Memorial and me” out beyond the city limits to the “Longitudinal Centre” of the continent, the Ninette Tuberculosis Sanatorium and Riverton, the home of NHL-er Reggie “the Riverton Rifle” Leach, Provincial muses on the subject of emotional geography more deeply than anything that's preceded it in Samson's lyrical canon. And that's saying something, since emotional geography has long been one of his greatest lyrical preoccupations.

Provincial's literary density is at once both its primary attraction and the principle obstacle to its easy enjoyment. It's a great read — one that, fittingly, arrives in stores the same day as Samson's new book, Lyrics and Poems 1997-2012 — but because of that it takes a little while to figure out that it's also a pretty good listen, too. More so here than has ever been the case with the reliably pop-savvy Weakerthans, Samson's punk-informed folk-rock arrangements and melodies are bent to satisfy the demands of the weighty textual material rather than the other way around, meaning the songs don't always set in as songs until you've properly digested the lyric sheet.

If mere pop distraction was Samson's goal, however, he wouldn't have titled one of Provincial's centrepieces “www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle/” and employed it as a means of fomenting public support for Reggie Leach's inclusion in the NHL Hall of Fame, would he?

John K. Samson, temporarily sans Weakerthans, plays an in-store at Soundscapes on Tuesday at 7 p.m. and a “real” solo concert date at the Great Hall on March 22.

*** by Ben Rayner, Toronto Star ***