Still the forest nymph, with a bigger voice to boot: Basia Bulat's Heart of My Own

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When I first saw Basia Bulat, she was dancing around in the middle of a forest with gypsies, bears, and skeletons.

That music video for her song In the Night is what initially drew attention to Bulat’s indie-folk stylings. Then, Little Waltz was used in a TV ad for the Australian Volkswagen Eos and her name began popping up all over the Internet. In 2008, her very first album, Oh, My Darling, featuring those two songs, made the long list, and subsequently the short list, for the Polaris Music Prize.

As such, the February 2010 release of Bulat’s second album, Heart of My Own (which I happily got for free - thanks CBC Radio 2 Drive!), was met with much anticipation across Canada and Europe.

Heart of My Own takes a step in a slightly different direction from Oh, My Darling. Its opening number, Go On, begins with a galloping guitar that builds to a flurry of instrumentation, similar to Oh My Darling’s I Was A Daughter, but Bulat’s vocals have a notable change.

No longer does she consistently keep her voice at a quietly intimate, controlled level, but loosens the reigns a little, belting out her choruses with hearty gusto (adding intensity to the exuberant Gold Rush, and the lyrically bold Walk You Down), possibly a style aquired after honing her chops over two years of touring, which included the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 2008.

This, combined with an increase of backing musicians (playing trumpets, organs, and french horns, among other things) on more tracks gives Heart of My Own a fuller, more complex sound.

Bulat lost her voice recording Oh, My Darling, which is probably why that first album sounds soft and reserved compared to the almost orchestra-like power that appears on Heart of My Own.

That’s not to say the album doesn’t have its share of quaint tunes mixed in with the rollicking ones. Those who liked Little Waltz or A Secret on Oh, My Darling will be pleased to hear Bulat’s lone voice sing out sweetly and pleasantly under-accompanied in Sugar and Spice, Sparrow, and I’m Forgetting Everyone.

Those who’ve kept up-to-date on Bulat since Oh, My Darling’s release will find that three of the unreleased songs that’ve been floating around on the Internet have made it onto this newest release: Sugar and Spice (from her self-titled EP), The Shore, and the title track, Heart of My Own; the latter two with some minor changes.

I’m not usually one to criticize when the songs I’ve heard as live, unreleased, or demo recordings sound different when they eventually make it onto an official album. After all, songs evolve as they’re played, adjustments are made in the studio, and sometimes feedback from the audience all contribute to the final sound put on the album.

But when I heard the beginning chords of Heart of My Own on this newest recording, I was shocked to hear it played out on guitar as opposed to Bulat’s signature autoharp.

I’ve heard said song once on a fantastic unreleased track (get it here, under its then "untitled" status), and twice live, with all three performances featuring the autoharp’s warm strumming which gives the song a much more unique and rich sound.

In fact, the lack of autoharp seems to be indicative to the album as a whole. For an artist who’s notable for her use of the instrument (indeed, she was featured on NPR about “making the autoharp cool”) it surprisingly appears on only 3 of Heart of My Own’s 12 tracks – and on 2 of those 3, its very nearly drowned out by accompanying instruments.

What remains consistent across Bulat’s albums, however, is the honest, often poetic nature of her lyrics (thankfully this time we get a booklet for moments when the pace becomes hurried) and delightful melodies.

From the pleading lines of Sparrow (“the horns and shells you’ve gathered here/One day, the one you battle might be me”) to the simple chorus of Run, Bulat mixes words and music with incredible talent worthy of some great composer, but sings them like the smiling forest nymph she is.

Basia Bulat plays this Thursday at the West End Cultural Centre.

Tickets $15

This blog is starting to sound like a confessional

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Once again, I have a confession to make: I don’t have Facebook.

And in the beginning, I wasn’t the only one. Back in high school, there was a group – albeit a small, handful size group – of us who who weren’t ready to jump on the Facebook bandwagon.

Over the years, I’ve watched as one by one, my friends from that group have given in to the powers of Facebook and signed themselves up for an account, until there was no one left but me.

“And then there was one.”

That’s not to say I haven’t considered it. I certainly have, especially going into post-secondary education where you can befriend someone in one class, only to lose contact with them once that class ends.

But what keeps me away from the time-waster that is Facebook is – well, just that. I’ve watched friends and classmates waste away in front of it, and I prefer to spend my time doing something more productive. I also question whether I want to know that much information (you know what I mean) about everyone I meet. But that’s just me.

Still, I can’t deny the enormous popularity of Facebook, and other social media tools, and as a public relations student, have to consider what it means when it comes to PR.

Our major project in PR class this term is to develop a fully-fledged proposal to publicize Sean Garrity’s new film, Zooey & Adam. Many of us have chosen “20 somethings” and college/university students as our target audience, which means a lot of our tactics to reach them involve social media.

Facebook and Twitter are the popular kids of the social media crowd; many people are involved with both, yet don’t always realise how they use each of them for different purposes.

But understanding these differences is crucial in creating a PR proposal that can maximize the benefits of each effectively. And after chatting this week with some friends who have both, I think I’ve grasped the gist of it.

Facebook tends to be primarily for interaction with friends and family, whereas Twitter is a combination of friends, family, and celebrities or businesses. Many celebrities have Twitter accounts, probably because they are one of the easiest social media tools to maintain, and manages to be personal (posting status updates to the world) without being too intrusive (no lengthy bio to fill out, relationship statuses to change, photo albums to fill).

The type of interaction and communication, however, differs significantly on each site.

Twitter is (in some ways) a one-way conversation: posting updates and interesting links to inform your followers and whoever might be watching, but not necessarily to interact with them on a lengthy personal level.

With Facebook, however, you can communicate through pictures and messages (longer than 140 characters) that describe things beyond what you’re doing, where you’re going, who you’re with, and what you find interesting.

One of my friends mentioned that she comments more on Facebook because she can comment directly, rather than @replying, or “RT”ing on Twitter. And, perhaps most importantly, you can see communications from other people TO other people on the same topic. If you comment on a friend’s Facebook photo, you’ll be able to see (and receive notifications) when other people have also commented on that photo.

Communicating on Facebook can also be much simpler: photos and videos are automatically embedded, and can be uploaded in multiples at a time. Twitter is more suited to sharing one photo or one video, and relies on links (which you have to shorten first) to direct you outside the Twitter site, instead of having one central “page” where everyone can view everything related to that one person.

This personal information is primarily what people go to Facebook for. Pictures, relationship statuses, events – as a friend of mine so eloquently said “Facebook is a good stalking tool.”

Twitter, on the other hand, seems to be used more for receiving breaking news and gossip, in combination with keeping up with friends/family on a less intimate level: random, mundane updates on what they happen to be doing or interesting in at the moment.

As such, a “good” person to follow on Twitter would be someone who has something to offer that is valuable to you, whether it be a friend who posts humourous life commentary or a media outlet that provides breaking news. A “good” person to friend on Facebook is generally someone you know, or have met due to the volume of personal information contain on one’s Facebook page.

So what does this mean for us PR people who want to use social media to target our audiences? First, like with any other communication tool, you have to know your audience. Then, you have to know what kind of information you want to communicate, and what kind of interaction or relationship you want with your audience.

If you’re simply going to be playing the messenger – frequently (ie. daily, hourly) passing along tid bit size info (A photo, A website, A video) to your audiences – with little interaction other than the occasional “thank you” , for example, if someone tweets that they enjoyed watching your client’s film, then Twitter is the way to go.

If you’re going to be playing the virtual scrapbooker/host – infrequently (ie. weekly) posting information like show times, event details, visuals (photos & videos) – and want two-way, longer-than-140-character, “friend-like” communication with your audience, then you’ll want to consider Facebook.

In this sense, Facebook is a great way to document an event over a long period of time, in that posting things like photos and videos which people can comment on, and feed off other people’s comments, can produce valuable feedback.

Thanks to @changingheaven and @alyssajm for their input.

How God Created the CBC (with a little help from his friends)

That’s the title from a chapter in Sandy Stewart’s book From Coast to Coast: A Personal History of Radio in Canada, and upon seeing that listing in the table of contents, I knew I was in good hands.

Actually, the realisation occurred the moment I reached into Garry Moir's Safeway shopping bag (not Steve Vogelsang’s Bucket of Glory) and pulled out the slip of paper that was to be my presentation topic for radio class: the formation of the CBC.

(Somebody needs to knit me this sweater.)

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I’ve been listening to CBC radio since the day I was born (and probably absorbed its radio waves while in the womb) thanks to my devoted parents, who quite literally listened to nothing else.

I grew up listening to Ron Robinson’s weekend morning show, and Garry Moir reading the weekend news. By about age eight I could recite from memory the “toll free” number for call-ins (1-800-268-5483) and the noon announcement (“the beginning of the long dash following ten seconds of silence indicating exactly 12 noon”, etc.)

So when I opened Stewart’s book from the library and saw the title of his chapter on the CBC, I “LOL”ed for real.

To a girl who, for quite some time, received all her news from the CBC and thought it was the only channel on the radio dial, here was a man who thought like me.

And for the rest of the night, I sat curled up on the floor reading about how my radio god was born:

Religion, Politics, and the CBC

Usually politics and religion are the catalysts to end relationships, not start them. But it was discussing these two very topics on the radio that eventually led to the formation of the CBC.

Back in the late 1920s, radio stations received essentially no funding from the government (who would collect license fees, but use the money for purposes other than radio), but found churches were willing to provide cash to use the medium as a way of broadcasting their message to large audiences.

The National Bible Students Association of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, owned stations in Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and a phantom station (broadcasting from a station where they leased air time) in Toronto; however, problems arose in 1927-28 when broadcasts by the Jehovah’s Witnesses were found to contain anti-Christian messages.

P.J.A. Cardin, the minister for broadcasting at the time, decided that the best solution would be to quietly switch the frequencies of such stations, essentially forcing them off the air.

When the word got out, Parliament erupted in a debate over the issue of freedom of religion, and ended with the government searching for a Canadian broadcasting system which would have appropriate policies and regulations.

In 1932, the CRBC (Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission) was created – the forerunner for what would become the CBC.

The CRBC did pretty well until the 1935 election between the in-power Conservatives, under R.B. Bennett, and the Liberals, under Mackenzie King.

The Conservative ad agency created a series of radio broadcasts which were in actuality dramatized political propaganda in the form of “Mr. Sage”: a crotchety old man who would sit on his front porch complaining (and defaming) the Liberal party.

Cheekily, no sponsor was listed for the radio broadcasts – even when the Liberal’s demanded one, the name that was announced following the broadcasts was that of an employee at the ad agency, and not the Conservative party.

The Liberals won the election, and with it, Mackenzie King decided to put an end to the propaganda. On November 2, 1936, the CBC was created as a crown corporation under the Canadian Broadcasting Act.

Under the Act, the CBC was subject to certain regulations. One of them, surprise surprise, being that they were prohibited from broadcasting dramatized political propaganda. However, they were also given the power to establish radio stations and buy out private ones in order to create a radio network across the country.

On July 1st, 1948, the CBC bought Winnipeg’s CTV radio station from MTS, and began broadcasting on Sept. 3rd.

CBC’s expansion across the country was highly successful: by 1938, they had an estimated reach of 79% of the Canadian population, compared an only 49% reach during the years of the CRBC.

The CBC won over Canadians, not only by importing popular American programming, but by employing Canadian talent: musicians, actors, singers, and writers.

Today, the significance of the CBC is much the same. It serves an important cultural role in distributing Canadian talent across Canada and around the world, while at the same time acting as a national public radio system that connects Canadians from coast to coast on issues that matter to them.