January 15, 2008 | Posted by David B. at 8:05 AM

Smoke and shadows

basia bulat

Today: autoharp!

Basia Bulat - In The Night.

It's an underused instrument, and kudos to Basia Bulat for bringing it back as if Timberlake with sexy.

Bulat hails from Canada, and she and her band have recently opened for folks like Sondre Lerche. That's a good fit; both artists have a penchant for melody and a love of surprise. The melody of "In The Night" is just incredible, and I love the way the song uses the melody to become more and more epic (complete with background chorus) until the end. And the percussion! It's not that the song has different kinds of drums, it's that the drums here provide this persistent rhythm, which, mixed with that faraway piano and Bulat's vulnerable delivery, makes me pretty much smitten.

Also, I may have neglected to mention the video featuring bears and dancing skeletons.

I highly recommend buying Bulat's record Oh, My Darling, which comes out Feb. 5 on Rough Trade. Pre-order it here.

Comments

Basia is quite great, and we are lucky for her to play shows several times a year here in Toronto.

Posted by: Ricky at January 16, 2008 1:57 PM

sounds like shakira

Posted by: chris at January 22, 2008 10:24 AM
Post a comment









Human verification is easy! Type a in this box to prevent your comment from being rejected:


Remember personal info?

Human verification:

To help us fight the good fight against comment spam, you must enter your anti-spam key as indicated on the left. Don't forget to do this! Your comment may end up in the junk bin if you dont...