Based in Toronto, Ontario, the group, led by songwriter/vocalist Tony Dekker, emerged in the early 2000s with a succession of heavily atmospheric albums recorded in old silos and rural country churches. The music developed in that pastoral warmth, performed and recorded in acoustically unique and historical locales with a revolving cast of personnel. They are renowned for their homespun folk and lush, intimate Americana in their live set.
Great Lake Swimmers celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2023 with Uncertain Country, an album where doubts are followed by discovery, demos end up as finished tracks, and themes of new beginnings, rear-view reflections, and ruminations on the fluidity of time form the basis of the eleven new songs. It follows a prolonged period of collective anxiety. Recorded in different locales —and with a variety of musicians — a theme of questioning runs throughout. Even before the world turned upside down, Dekker felt mired in uncertainty: from the climate crisis to the ever-changing political landscape. The “uncertain country” chosen as the album’s theme is not a specific place. Rather, it’s a territory we, as humans, inhabit in the 21st century — a world that, more often than not, is confusing, unfamiliar and unsettling.
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