Kamloops folk singer Dave Hadgkiss has made a successful and true bridge from punk rock geek to indie folkie with Love, Heartache and Oblivion.
Hadgkiss, who works under the pseudonym Folk Thief, possesses the sound of a world-weary rustic, released from the pine woods into the chill of the city.
Folk Thief (FT) is best taken in the element of the sparse atmospheric strumming of western mountain music. He’s part of a movement of Canadian artists looking back into the land’s past to find an honest identity that resonates from the country’s landscape and rural roots.
FT’s songs are simple movements of wide acoustic strumming in a big reverberant room. What can sound better for such material? A voice to fit the space within and without – and FT’s voice has the ache people can feel but not identify.
Broken Record, Brand New Love and After the Accident aren’t the jingle-jangle proclamations of a pseudo-troubadour but close-to-the-bone expressions of a singer with something on his mind.
–– Dean Gordon-Smith is the CD music reviewer for The Morning Star. His column, Street Sounds, runs every Friday.
