The Caraways

I went to The Silver Dollar Room in Toronto last night and caught a couple of great sets by the Paul James Band. Paul is one incredible slide guitar player and his band plays a stripped down soulful rhythm that is as solid as it gets. Keep an eye on his show schedule and don’t miss him if you get a chance!

I have been missing a lot of sleep lately, and so I had planned to call it an early night after Paul’s band threw in the towel, but I decided to stick around when I saw that the next band had a French horn player.

Young players in the new pop underground of Toronto often include the experimental use of additional instruments – some are even electronically altered, like the glockenspiel used by The Tokyo Police Club – but it is not often that you see a French horn on stage outside of classical or jazz music.

The Caraways played a short set of etheral, quirky pop that built its ambience on simple arrangements, dreamy, floating guitar sounds, French horn, and a soothing female vocal duo that could noticably lower your blood pressure. The dreamy sounds were counter-balanced by a straight ahead rhythm section that put emphasis on the beats just when it mattered – just enough to keep the vocals from totally hypnotizing you.

The lead guitarist hauled out a beautiful 1978 Les Paul custom and paid tribute to Les by working some dreamy magic on the song, Is There Any Wonder Left? I was immediately reminded of the song Gilbert by ABBC – a great cover opportunity for The Caraways (hint, hint).

Vocals were not coming out very well in the mix at the dollar last night, but I found some sample tracks on The Caraways MySpace page that reassured what I thought my ears heard last night – listen below: