The most underrated and under-appreciated album of the year pitches the Canadian singer-songwriter at a perfect crossroad of enigmatic lyrics and a peaceful melodic core. It has a warmth among the monochrome/grey aesthetic that can be found on it’s greatest cuts (Like Trees, Chains) that is such a fine balance to strike, yet Cousins does it with ease. Natural Conclusion is a tranquil record and one of the standard bearers, coming right at the start of the year, that set the tone for the fabulous female releases that would follow this year.
Rose Cousins. Her previous full-length release, 2012’s We Have Made a Spark, won a Juno Award for best roots/traditional solo recording. Cousins’ wonderfully textured, emotionally nuanced fourth album, NaturalConclusion, “I feel like I have come up through my career in the folk genre; but I don’t think this record is folk, and I don’t think it’s not. It could be partly Americana; there are elements of pop ballady stuff in there. … I feel like a singer-songwriter.” Overseen by revered American recording artist and producer Joe Henry (whose credits range from Madonna to Ani DiFranco, Loudon Wainwright III, Meshell Ndegeocello and Bonnie Raitt), Natural Conclusion’s spare, intuitive instrumentation swirls around her earthy voice for an effect that is at once hazily atmospheric and strikingly intimate.
“My favourite songs are ones I can listen to lying flat on my back on the floor,” Cousins said. “I love being taken over by the experience of a song. Joe Henry has this beautiful esthetic. He cares deeply about poetry, melody and the artist. And we put together the most amazing band. I knew we picked the right characters to take these songs and make them what they were meant to be. All the space and all those floating musical notes — it’s like a dream for me. It’s the kind of music I love.”
The album was recorded live off the floor in Toronto, with a mixture of Henry’s people — engineer Ryan Freeland, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist David Piltch — and Cousins’ — pianist Aaron Davis (Holly Cole, Jany Siberry), guitarist Gord Tough (Kathleen Edwards, Sarah Harmer), pedal/lap steel player Asa Brosius (Anais Mitchell), bassist Zachariah Hickman (Josh Ritter, Ray Lamontagne) and violinist Kinley Dowling (Hey Rosetta!), with backup vocals by Jill Barber, Caroline Brooks (Good Lovelies) and Miranda Mulholland (Great Lake Swimmers).
Cousins knows about interpersonal dynamics, and she also knows about peace and quiet, having grown up as the second of five children on a seaside potato farm on Prince Edward Island. She played volleyball and rugby in high school, keeping up with the former after moving to Halifax to study kinesiology at Dalhousie University. Music came early, and came later. She taught herself piano at a young age, but only came into her own as an artist after finishing her studies.
“It was a slow incubation,” she said. “I learned guitar while I was at school in Halifax. A few years later, I played my first open mic, and played covers and covers forever. The first time I played my own song on stage was maybe in 2001, and it just carried on from there. It’s been about 10 years that I’ve been doing it full time. It’s interesting to reflect back on.”
Winning a Juno doesn’t change you, but it feels good, she admitted. Cousins was handed her trophy during the non-televised portion of the 2013 awards. “It’s one of those things where I couldn’t even believe I got nominated, let alone that I would win,” she said. “It’s something that as a Canadian musician you might have in mind, maybe somewhere down the road, but it’s so cool that it happened with (my last album).
Rose Cousins performing “Freedom” from her new album NATURAL CONCLUSION out February 3rd, 2017
The Fat Angel Sings 