BRUCE PENINSULA is a band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada

CHROMEWAVES : LIVE REVIEW
( November 2007 ) ( link )

First up was Bruce Peninsula and, after seeing them at Dog Day Afternoon in the Summer, it was strange to see them indoors rather than under the late afternoon, country sky. Once underway, though, the eleven-piece outfit - more congregation than band - somehow managed to recreate that sense of elemental urgency, not unlike an impending thunderstorm. There's a rawness to their foreboding country gospel aesthetic that connects on a very primal level and as they continue to work on their debut album, I wonder how it'll be possible to capture that energy to tape. Maybe it'd be better to simply pile into a covered wagon and travel the country spreading the good word in person. Check them out on November 24 at the Horseshoe with The Acorn and be saved. Or damned. Or both.

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EYE MAGAZINE : FEATURE
( August 2007 ) ( link )

Neil Haverty had only been to church once before in his life. He was in Grade 3, and was the only sinner in a car driven by the more spiritually inclined. He was also the only one to be injured in a car accident on the way home that fateful day. Three stitches later, he decided never to go back.

But on a muggy August night at St. George the Martyr Anglican Church, Haverty stands on the altar and leads a congregation of eight other friends in a series of spiritual call-and-response numbers accented by handclaps and foot stomps, voices resonating from the rafters.

Haverty and his bandmates in Bruce Peninsula weren't at the church that night as a part of its normal Anglican services. During the week, St. George's doubles as the Music Gallery, home to folkies and freaks of every stripe. It's a venue that every member of Bruce Peninsula has haunted since they moved to Toronto individually from various surrounding suburbs and towns.

On this night, it's the ideal space to record vocals for their debut album. Haverty serves as the scruffy-voiced centre of the band, though it was founded by guitarist Matt Cully and lead female vocalist Misha Bower. Cully urges him to "rip your voice apart on this one." After a take, Haverty humbly asks the assembled choir, "Am I coming through too 'urrrrgh' for you?" Choir-girl Katie Stelmanis responds, "You can never be 'urrrrgh' enough for this song."

The morning after, a pesky EYE WEEKLY reporter hauls Haverty (whose writing also appears occasionally in these pages) and Cully out of bed at 9am, scant hours after they retired from festivities the night before. Despite a lack of caffeine, Haverty and Cully are remarkably articulate while discussing the document they'd just made.

"We were humbled by the space, and that added to the performances," says Cully, who – unlike Haverty – did grow up going to church. "Everyone was a lot more focused and willing to work. Hanging out in that space, sitting in church pews and hearing other people sing is different from hearing Misha do a great job in an isolation booth while we're eating nachos on the street or something. It's what I'm going to remember the most about making the record."

Cully is also part of the popular DJ duo Goin' Steady, spinning vintage soul music. But after immersing himself in Alan Lomax's field recordings of traditional American music, Cully enlisted his friend Bower to play some of those songs, and Haverty joined for their second show, in August 2006. A snowballing roster of members now includes Casey Mecija of Ohbijou, and solo artists Stelmanis and Isla Craig – all of whom are playing larger roles.

"On all the new songs we've written, we're working towards less of a lead-and-follow and more of a group," says Cully. "[On] the last song we wrote there are three leads and a constant group presence."

"Bruce Peninsula sounds this way now," adds Haverty, "but with nine people who are as creative as they are, I think we have four or five records planned that are not this."

"This" is a visceral yet modern take on traditional forms, focusing on the full vocal possibilities of a choir with elemental percussion, and driven by primal rhythms that draw indirect lines to First Nations or African music. The spiritual element is paramount in every note, whether or not there are direct religious references in the lyrics.

When asked whether they themselves get right with God, Haverty says simply, "Whether we believe in God or not, we believe in the energy of those songs."

Heaven can wait when it comes to the finished recorded product, which might arrive as late as next spring, depending on various circumstances – including the fact that Bower commutes to Toronto from Moncton for gigs and recording sessions.

"We're all such music geeks who fetishize records," says Cully. "So if we're going to make a record, it has to be the one that goes above the mantelpiece and that we're really proud of and have no regrets."

Haverty adds, "Because we're all friends, it's important to look at it as a yearbook, so that when we're 70 years old – whether this band implodes right after the record or lasts 10 years – this is the last year and a half of our lives and it's going to be in glorious surround sound."

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CHROMEWAVES : LIVE REVIEW
( August 2007 ) ( link )

I'd been meaning to see the Bruce Peninsula a few times this Summer but hadn't gotten the chance till now. Comprised of a slew of Toronto musicians who split their time amongst numerous other gigs (how novel!), Bruce Peninsula stood out for how they utilized most of them - rather than hand everyone a guitar and jam it out, the five ladies in the band acted as a choir, though not of angels - more like ghosts. When combined with the raw field holler of bandleader Neil Haverty, they evoked a blend of deep gospel and blues and Southern Gothic that was unexpected and mesmerizing. They're working at committing their songs to wire recorder and play next at the Tranzac on September 5.

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THE HIPPODROME.ORG : INTERVIEW
( August 2007 ) ( link )

Think for a second about the number of times you’ve asked an artist what their biggest influence is. Now think about the number of times you got Alan Lomax (a storied ethnomusicologist who traveled the American south collecting field recordings) as an answer. “We’ve always wanted the Lomax influence to be just a piece of what we do,” says Neil Haverty, who sings and plays guitar, snare, and metalophone in Bruce Peninsula. “It showed us a lot about what it takes to be really good singers and gave us an authentic alternative to some of the more contrived, affected singing that happens in indie rock.”

Judging by what’s come my way, Bruce Peninsula seems to deliver one of the most authentic vocal performances I’ve heard in quite a while. All eleven members — Matt Cully, Misha Bower, Neil Haverty, Andrew Barker, Steve McKay, Isla Craig, Katie Stelmanis, Casey Mecija, Kari Peddle, Maya Postepski, and Leon Tahen contribute to the choir. The band has begun work on their first record which I predict will make some serious waves, pun half intended. Haverty tells me it’s being recorded all over Toronto, most recently at St. George the Martyr, a huge Anglican church.

Even with quite a smaller budget than Canadian cohort’s The Arcade Fire’s church project, also known as Neon Bible, there’s reason to believe that this record will have some serious soul. This notion is reinforced not only by one of Final Fantasy’s engineers (Leon Taheny) manning the knobs and contributing musically, but also by the painstaking construction of the dense vocal parts that the band takes such pride in.

Understandably reluctant to pigeonhole themselves in any stylistic niche, Haverty, under duress, suggests a similarity to pop experimentalists like Smog, The Dirty Projectors, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. “I was once told that we sound like Will Oldham fronting an aboriginal women’s choir,” Haverty says.

I can’t imagine that could be taken as anything less than a compliment, especially for this culturally fascinated super group, although I have trouble hearing it. I suppose its not hard to believe when you consider that BP has been playing Washington Phillips and Vera Ward Hall covers since day one, which have also been covered in recent years by Mr. Oldham himself.

“We’ve been careful not to play too much,” Haverty says, “because a band that plays any gig that comes their way is either going to burn out really fast or make people sick of them.” This maturity is rare in bands who haven’t even dropped their first record, and speaks volumes about these Canadians who may soon make every hipster in North America add Alan Lomax to their record rotation.

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MONDO MAGAZINE : LIVE REVIEW
( July 2007 ) ( link )

The members of Bruce Peninsula walked from the back of the pews onto the stage, sporting various percussion instruments. I can't describe Bruce Peninsula's music with reference to any single pre-existing musical style in particular, and I can't imagine better praise for a band. Clearly, the four female vocalists were singing in a style redolent of American folk and labour songs, hence the "Lomax" thing (Alan Lomax being the United States' pre-eminent folk-musicologist of the 20th century). And yet, their vibraphone pulled the band in another, jazzy direction, while the electric guitars pushed Bruce Peninsula into the instrumental indie of, say, The Advantage. Sometimes even the vocals switched into more of a pop music mode, recalling Fleetwood Mac more than The Carter Family. Add seamless transitions in-between songs and some sweet call and response and you have BrucePeninsulamusic, and it's wonderful.

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EYE DAILY : LIVE REVIEW
( June 2007 ) ( link )

Neil Haverty's newest gospel-pop-folk incarnation, Bruce Peninsula, followed with a jaw-dropping show that was still being raved about well into the next day (and shouldn't be missed at their upcoming Music Gallery show) The whimsical banners of the stage set made me think for a moment I was at the Nimus Festival, and it was not unlike being present at the initiation rites of a new religion, whose tenets were as yet unclear. Impeccably rehearsed and beautifully arranged, the vocal parts of the five exceptional women singers wove in and out of — and sometimes marched through — the gorgeous and fully-realized guitar melodies of Haverty and company. No easy musical comparisons come to mind, though the unabashed joyfulness was somewhat like Danielson Famile without the self-consciousness, and when the band (after inadvertently trashing the stage) joined the audience in the grass and led a gospel singalong, the love-in was consummated.

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RADIOFREECANUCKISTAN : LIVE REVIEW
( June 2007 ) ( link )

Helen Spitzer has a full run-down of the [Track and Field] events in today's Eye Daily here.

As she points out, the highlight for many was Bruce Peninsula, a new Toronto band that's evolved over the space of ten gigs in the last year. Rooted in traditional spirituals and blues, the rugged gospel vocals are shared by a female choir and guitarist /marimba man Neil Haverty, with a dextrous rhythm section behind them that have obviously been schooled by the Thrill Jockey roster while simultaneously soaking up the Alan Lomax collection.

But the specifics aren't as important here as the effect it had on the audience. There's an inherent joy in seeing a family band such as this: mixed gender, choral vocals, and melodies meant to uplift and offer some glimpse of salvation. The staging helped, as well: an ever-so-slightly-sloped tiny natural ampitheatre, where the stage was set in a beautiful orchard; one had to peer through tree branches to see some band members.

Because of the size of the band (approx. nine or ten, if my sunstroked memory serves correctly), they obviously had many friends in the tightly knit audience. But for everyone else, it was one of those moments where with each successive song, you could feel everyone around you falling deeper in love and losing themselves in the joy of the moment. Applause and enthusiasms increased exponentially after each song, with some even moved to tears. These are the moments that every music fan lives for, the kind that are all too often spoiled by hype machines both macro and micro. Even writing about this now seems to sully the special moment.

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