Malowany and his Parkland Music Project shed some exquisite light on our daily darkness.
There is a particular, rarified group of singer-songwriters that particularly populate the world of Americana for whom their words and lyrics are an equally, if not more potent weapon they use with their music to convey their message. Not counting the legends like Dylan or Springsteen, among the more recent artists, the first names that come to mind are the late Jason Molina, Will Oldham, or Matthew Houck. All three above have used or used monikers to present their art, Songs: Ohia, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Phosphorescent.
So it might not come as a surprise that another artist whose wordsmith capabilities are of a high standard and match the quality of his music is taking the same artistic route – Vancouver’s Rob Malowany, who operates under the moniker of Parkland Music Project. His fifth album as PMP and tenth official release, ‘Daily Acceptance For Evenings of Disarray,’ presents all the right reasons why Malowany can be included in the above heady group of artists. With some intricate, slow-evolving backing from his collaborators here, where the lap steel work of Robin Hunter particularly stands out, Malowany presents his dark-toned tales with his quite specific vocals.
Through the five, mostly elongated tracks, he tries to convey and understand, if possible the disarray he sees around him and convey it to his listeners:
“So grab a hold friend of the end of this rope
And help the rest of us stay afloat
‘Cause I don’t want to hear those lies again” (‘Say Something Good’)”
It is a dark misty, set of musical pictures, but a rewarding one at that.
To be brutally frank (uh oh!), I really like the instrumentation and the lyrics, but I have considerable listening difficulties with Malowany’s voice. A shame, since with a better vocal presentation, this could have been “over the top” music.