Music became a thing when the first recording was made, and music ever since has tended to become more thing-like and less situational. A studio recording that feels like a situation is truly a rare entity, and eventful in the fullest sense of the word.Music as situation requires rules, and a shared approach, but also demands enough freedom for sounds to find their way to the places where they need to be. In a word, it needs to be porous, and that's a joyous state indeed on the best tracks of this fourth album from the Toronto-based ensemble The Henrys.

Don Rooke, the group's main writer and lead guitarist, has a soft spot for front-parlour roots music. But he's equally drawn to a kind of cool abstraction that creeps up on his old-seeming tunes, and subjects them to an analytic, postnostalgic fondling.

The rough outlines of the method will be familiar to anyone who has heard a few Bill Frisell records, though the tone and the temper are quite different. Frisell mainly plays electrics, but Rooke's core instruments in The Henrys are the kona, the Weissenborn and the National Steel. These are all vintage acoustic guitars, and they provide him with a range of throaty, atmospheric sounds, and the basis for a meditative slide style. The Henrys love thick natural sounds like those of the pump organ that clacks and surges at the start of the title tune, and juicy old electronics such as the Mellotron, the Theremin, and the Arp synthesizer.

The density of the timbres allows for a kind of short-hand that suits the group's brainy, yet sensual, style. With just a few chords on the Weissenborn, Rooke can open a deep blues space in VF61,the opening track, then follow the groove into a strange pentatonic octave unison with bassist David Piltch, while trumpeter Michael White peppers the scene with distant aphorisms. It takes only a few acid guitar chords and a hustling rhythm line to set the stage for the drawling bluesy arioso that Mary Margaret O'Hara drops into One Body. This track feels like the antithesis of the neatly made studio number, though only on the groove-based Li'l Ms Demeanor did O'Hara (who contributes to six tracks in all) apparently wing it straight to tape.

There are two covers: Maria Elena,a genuinely old and sentimental tune from the thirties, and Charles Mingus's Goodbye Porkpie Hat,in a version so brilliantly understated as to make virtually every note a poem. Almost everything here works on first hearing, and works even better after that.

Joyous Porous is available at http://www.maplemusic.com

Situation Joyous

Globe and Mail, Toronto

Disc of the Week
Rating: ***½

ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN

**** 1/2
Ottawa XPress
Steve Baylin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fRoots, U.K., October 2002
Ian Anderson

 

Those with a reasonably intact memory will recollect the Henrys' excellent earlier albums (ref fR158/9 and fRoots 6 CD). They're an intriguing Canadian output mixing progressive rootsy sort-of-acoustic sounds centred around various slidey things played by Don Rooke (Weissenborns, Konas, Nationals, lap steels etc.), and always including some vocalisation by the enigmatic and reclusive Mary Margaret O'Hara.

Well, if you do, and if news of another - their fourth, and first since 1998's Desert Cure - tickles your fancy, then you'll be very pleased to know that this one could be their best yet. What the Henrys do is put across the ambience of roots music without actually playing trad. Indeed, O'Hara's singing manages to give the impression that she's singing some torchy country blues without, quite often, actually uttering a conventional word (who needs language to communicate anyway, as any fule world music fan kno?).

It's deep into virtuoso textures on slides, acoustic bass (now David Pilch), trumpet, pump organ, violin, kalimba, drums, mellotron, theremin and all sorts - mostly original compositions (apart from Mingus' Goodbye Porkpie Hat and the old standard Maria Elena), and all beautifully recorded. If you're looking for musical fellow travellers, then probably Bill Frisell or David Lindley would be your nearest points of reference, but in all honesty, this group's pretty much in a compartment of one. Telling you that it's among the few records that would be equally at home in fRoots and The Wire might also give you a pointer, but then so's Shirley Collins. hmm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Henrys are at it again. And it's glorious.

In a world full of wannabe slide people (yuk!) and instrumental crapola, Don Rooke and company have again distinguished themselves as one of the most outstanding and original outfits we've ever heard.

Why is it so hard to find music this original? Because it takes talent, first of all, and because it's damn hard to make a living when you're this musically fearless. God bless the Toronto Arts Council (and the Music Section of the Canada Council for the Arts), what a civilized country that is. I swear, half of the great music I hear anymore is coming from Canada.

"Recorded at Cellars and Spare Bedrooms," Joyous Porous finds our sonic heroes in outrageous form. As you might have gathered from our previous review of this stellar band, The Henrys are essentially comprised of slide master Don Rooke (yo!), trumpetist Michael White, and bassist David Piltch. The unbelievable guest melodies and vocals of Mary Margaret O'Hara send chills right up my spine every time, Lord Almighty!

The compositions are as good as the playing is, and that's saying an awful lot. On top of that, the renditions of Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and the 30s classic "Maria Elena" are right outta this frickin world. These folks are deeply whacked and profoundly talented.

I'm not kidding. Get this album, it will help you open up your mind and your spirit. Most records today will not do that. They're conceived with too many parameters and expectations in mind. I don't get the impression here that there's anything necessarily hanging in the balance of the CD's acceptance, and the unique beauty of the work is, on the other hand, unmistakable.

Don Rooke's tone on the kona makes me wanna cry, it's so pure. It's an antique instrument from the 20s made of koa wood and played with a steel bar. I love The Henrys, and wish there were more groups like them around. Instead of all these knuckleheads.

 

 

 

www.PureMusic.com
October 2002
Frank Goodman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW Magazine, Toronto
RAting: NNNN

Matt Galloway

 

When they're on their game, the Henrys sound like no one else. After establishing and refining a sound over four albums, largely built around Don Rooke's woozy slide guitar, the Toronto group are now happy to gurgle away in their own peculiar language. In its best moments, Joyous Porous's mix of twanging steel, wheezing pump organs and Mary Margaret O'Hara's elastic vocals is completely disorienting. A cover of Mingus's Goodbye Pork Pie Hat only reveals itself a few minutes in as the riff peeks out from behind a haze of guitars, while more straightforward moments, like the O'Hara-driven Strangel, verge on pure pop. Utterly alien but oddly familiar at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buscadero Magazine, Italy
Rating: ****
Junior Bonner

 

The Henrys, il progetto del canadese Don Rooke, sono certamente una band unica nel panorama attuale. Mischiano il suono di Ry Cooder con le ricercatezze di Bill Frisell. Il risultato è un collage, in parte strumentale, di musica solare e sperimentale al tempo stesso. E poi, come ciliegina sulla torta, c’è la dolce Mary Margaret O’Hara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thrust Mag

This is a quiet record, one to be savoured, caressed and carefully digested.
Thank me later.

 

John Maslen, UK

Perhaps `Porkpie` is the 8th wonder of the world..it`s a phenomenal piece of interpretation ...if it is a string being moved across the bridge or slipping out of its groove on there, whatever, it`s one of many highpoints of the track....the cd is seamlessy organic yet musically focused.....reality...
simplicity...beautiful communications."

 

Jon Coales

A fantastic attention to everything about playing music.

Either The Henrys see the eerieness of their world through a haze of nostalgia, or they see nostalgia through a haze of eerieness; either way, their music has a strangely timeless feel. The group weaves webs of sound around Don Rooke's spidery National Steel and Weissenborn guitar lines. Often, beguiling patterns emerge as melodies and rhythms jump out; elsewhere, quirky atmospherics get stuck into cobwebs. Fans take note: Mary Margaret O'Hara appears on six tracks, the best of which, "Strangel," will induce Miss America flashbacks.
Mike Doherty, Eye Mag ***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are more winks than wrinkles in this music – it could have been alt-country, except that Don Rooke's Hawaiian slide guitar, perhaps understandably, keeps sliding from the ’30s Midwest into ’50s lounge. Mary Margaret O'Hara's appearances may be the album's heart, but it's one that skips beats and wanders, unsettling rather than centred. The Henrys are obviously less interested in crumbling and weathered authenticity than in unsettling Lynchian weirdness, and they manage it very well. Nine musicians play twice as many instruments – from the Kona guitar and mellotron to the quarter-tone trumpet, prepared piano and baritone violin (standard tunings are for wimps) – but the sounds remain sparse, threadbare. Joyous Porous is like a country and western answer to Weird Nightmare, Hal Wilner's twisted tribute to Mingus (and not just because Joyous Porous features a cover of Mingus's "Goodbye Porkpie Hat"). Although O'Hara's contributions are few, short and (as ever) bordering on incoherent, fans of the very different Miss America (on which Rooke also played) will still find Joyous Porous a more satisfying follow-up than the recent, under-produced Apartment Hunting. Fans of the Henrys (and there must be some) should feel very proud.

****
FFWD Mag, Calgary
Timothy Heck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Barclay, Exclaim!

 

 

Don Rooke is a master of two distinct sounding guitars: the Weissenborn and the Hawaiian Kona. From both he extracts sweeping and exquisite beauty, and he's best known for doing so on Mary Margaret O'Hara's recordings (she returns the favour by vocalising with The Henrys). Past Henrys records have been intoxicating rainy day records, even if they occasionally ventured into CBC musical segue territory. Joyous Porous, however, finds the Henrys taking a leap into considerably more experimental waters, where it's all about languid texture and much less about traditional song structure. It makes Friends of Dean Martinez sound like Blueshammer. In the cinematically capable hands of Rooke and company, including O'Hara, bassist David Piltch, violinist Hugh Marsh and others, just about anything is possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy Joyous Porous