{"id":9118,"date":"2014-06-17T16:19:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T16:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9118"},"modified":"2014-06-17T16:19:31","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T16:19:31","slug":"bidiniband-the-motherland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/06\/17\/bidiniband-the-motherland\/","title":{"rendered":"Bidiniband \u2013 The Motherland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/2014\/06\/17\/bidiniband-the-motherland\/bidiniband_themotherland_cover2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9119\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9119\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/bidiniband_TheMotherland_Cover2-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"bidiniband_TheMotherland_Cover2\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On the title track of Bidiniband\u2019s third record, Dave Bidini doesn\u2019t pull any punches, as he sneers, \u201cyou might think I\u2019m an angry, radical freak for what I\u2019ve sung\/But when it comes to speaking my mind, it\u2019s only just begun.\u201d<!--more--> He wants to talk about Canada, what it means to be Canadian, and his distaste with what Stephen Harper\u2019s leadership has done to the country. Of course he does. Canada is Bidini\u2019s favourite topic. And Canadians are lucky for that, because his insights regarding the True North are often bang-on, with a love for it behind them that doesn\u2019t wane.<\/p>\n<p>It takes that sort of attitude \u2013 a refusal to give up on the idea that we, as a country, have never drifted too far from the plot that we can\u2019t right ourselves \u2013 to make an album like <i>The Motherland<\/i>. It\u2019s sonically diverse, musically intricate, and leaves no opportunity for the listener to tune it out. There\u2019s the swingy sparkle and crashing crescendo of \u201cThe Grey Wave,\u201d the bizarro heavy metal and spastic guitar solos of \u201cThe Fatherland,\u201d a larger-than-life reimagining of Rheostatics classic \u201cFat,\u201d now with 100 per cent more fiddle, the hazy blues-stomp of \u201cLadies of Montreal,\u201d and the truly gorgeous closer, \u201cSay The Names,\u201d which begins with the late poet Al Purdy\u2019s reading of part of his poem, \u201cThe Necropsy of Love.\u201d And all throughout, Bidini tosses out lyrical gems and barbs, the latter usually in the direction of the big man on Parliament Hill, and probably most ruthless on \u201cAll Hail Canada\u201d: \u201cPower is a deadly fizz\/that burns away the face and skin\/resembling a hideous thing\/whose legacy is just to win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s sprawling and ambitious, and it hits its mark. At his best, Bidini has been able to turn his art and writing into a mirror for the country, showcasing its beauty or deep scars depending on the moment, never shying away from the truth. And <i>The Motherland<\/i> shows us what we might not <i>want<\/i> to see, but <i>need<\/i> to. (Pheromone Recordings, <a href=\"http:\/\/davebidini.ca\" target=\"_blank\">davebidini.ca<\/a>) <b>Matt Williams<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the title track of Bidiniband\u2019s third record, Dave Bidini doesn\u2019t pull any punches, as he sneers, \u201cyou might think I\u2019m an angry, radical freak for what I\u2019ve sung\/But when it comes to speaking my mind, it\u2019s only just begun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[164,239,1056],"class_list":["post-9118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-canadiana","tag-dave-bidini","tag-utn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}