Tyson Ray Borsboom has reached a milestone, and he’s looking for a way out on today’s song from the just-released album These Days, which is a milestone in itself for the Vancouver-based alt-country singer. Exit Sign is a classic piece of work: a driven rock band which is also drenched in pedal steel. It makes for a sound that is going to carry Borsboom for the rest of a 30-date Canadian tour that kicked off in May; it’ll see him hitting the cattle town of Calgary tonight. That’s very appropriate because it was in that very town that the album was recorded, with producer Phenix Warren pulling the perfect sound out every time, as Borsboom tells it: “I think Phenix really understands where I’m at as a songwriter. He heard how I was performing the songs live, and we talked a lot about how my favourite records sound. We pretty much recorded my vocals and guitar, and then I let him run with it. He’d send me mixes, and apart from a few minor tweaks, they would be perfect.”
The record pulls on the live sound, and the live sound is what’s going down right now, people, and we know it’s a way from the UK, so maybe Canadian folk in particular, get out and catch that live experience if you can. And if Calgary is too far, then take a good look around and find the entry sign for the next great evening of live music. It matters. It really does. No, I insist, it does.
