The beautifully grand driving sweep of "You Are Not Young Start Walking" by Hamilton, Ontario Canada singer-songwriter / composer Gareth Inkster, and the title track of his latest EP, feels not only wonderfully cinematic but gently squeezes your shoulders in tender ways. This pervasive dreaminess has heaviness to it's sonic storytelling. I think, for me, it is the multi-generational touchstones from 70's psychedelia and pure pop realms to 80's futurism to 90's post rock melancholia to a 2000's blend of pop revivalism, new age spiritualism and art rock all in one, that blindsided me upon first listen. There is, undoubtedly, a lot to take in, a lot to digest but it lands in you heart and in the recesses of your brain fostering all kinds of memories and that is a wonderful thing. Artistically, attitudinally, I could probably mention a lot of adjacent artists from different decades but instead of playing that game, I thought of (mostly) Alan Parsons Project (circa 1982) and Sufjan Stevens (circa 2010) and that makes me smile deeply.
This is just a fucking beautiful piece of work.
LINER NOTES: (bracketed) about the track:
[While walking back from Supercrawl (a music festival in Hamilton) on a very still, humid, silent night - it was some distance after two in the morning, maybe pushing three - I took a moment to feel that stillness that secretly visits even an urban centre in the small hours of each morning. A few feet ahead of me was a sewer grate and a plume of steam was rising out of it and seemed to be collecting in a circle around the streetlight above, like a halo. I tapped the lyrics out into my phone without intending to imbue them with any deeper significance, though I felt that they articulated well something which was more substantial than the mere scene before me. As it so often happens, the deeper meaning became clear with time.]
[The song itself is about directing one’s attention to the higher things after being governed by less conscious impulses and lesser insights for too long. Moving one’s gaze from the lower to the higher and recognizing something like sanctity there is what the song describes, for my part.]
[The second verse was wrung out of all the Kierkegaard I’d been reading in the fall, particularly his insistence that one must dare to decide. The true action must be a true decision, and -in a sense - only in doing can one actively be. To be is, after all, a verb.]
[The Kierkegaardian fascination seamlessly led me on to a deep dive into the work of Carl Jung. Similarly, he passionately calls his readers to a deeper consciousness. Without an awareness of the hidden motivations and resonances implicit in the shadowy parts of one’s person, one cannot truly be aware of what their experiences - or even their actions - are meaning to them. Any attempt to resist the facts of one’s inner life will perhaps successfully obscure them from one’s view, but they will surely persist.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
LYRICS
Up from the grate
Steam rising
Up past the light
Soft halo
A silent night
A blessed light
You are not young
Start walking
You have to choose
'Cause being is doing
For to decide is to be alive
Do you not see?
It's happening
Do you not hear
A voice calling?
If you resist
It surely will persist
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2LXbDJEbEXhZjPX6QJLm8y
https://garethinkster.bandcamp.com/album/you-are-not-young-start-walking
https://www.instagram.com/garethinkster/
https://www.facebook.com/GarethInksterMusic/
In blending elements of classical training with pop sensibility, Gareth Inkster has created a sound that is both parts intricate and harmonically complex, yet catchy and memorable.
Inkster is an active member of Hamilton’s arts scene writ large, performing often on stage and in-studio with many artists, notably including Walk off the Earth, Monster Truck, Golden Feather, Scott Orr, Timid the Brave, Low Chord, to name only a few.
Inkster has been called a case-study of the modern, self-made indie artist. Having taught himself the ropes from sound-engineering, to mixing, to marketing, Inkster continues to develop his burgeoning skillset. This, coupled with his increasing momentum comprises a bright future for the young writer.
Up past the light
Soft halo
A silent night
A blessed light
You are not young
Start walking
You have to choose
'Cause being is doing
For to decide is to be alive
Do you not see?
It's happening
Do you not hear
A voice calling?
If you resist
It surely will persist
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2LXbDJEbEXhZjPX6QJLm8y
https://garethinkster.bandcamp.com/album/you-are-not-young-start-walking
https://www.instagram.com/garethinkster/
https://www.facebook.com/GarethInksterMusic/
In blending elements of classical training with pop sensibility, Gareth Inkster has created a sound that is both parts intricate and harmonically complex, yet catchy and memorable.
Inkster is an active member of Hamilton’s arts scene writ large, performing often on stage and in-studio with many artists, notably including Walk off the Earth, Monster Truck, Golden Feather, Scott Orr, Timid the Brave, Low Chord, to name only a few.
Inkster has been called a case-study of the modern, self-made indie artist. Having taught himself the ropes from sound-engineering, to mixing, to marketing, Inkster continues to develop his burgeoning skillset. This, coupled with his increasing momentum comprises a bright future for the young writer.
Gareth Inkster, new EP "You Are Not Young Start Walking", Hamilton / Ontario Canada, singer-songwriter, composer, art rock, folk, sophisti pop, indie rock, 70's pop, 2000's new age, 90's post rock melancholia, vast,
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