“I get snippy now and then,” says Joel Plaskett.
“He gets kind of snippy now and then,” agrees Joel’s father, Bill, laughing.
“But that’s nothing new,” Joel finishes.
It’s an easy back-and-forth between the father and son, as they sit in Joel’s New Scotland Yard studio in Dartmouth, N.S., and chat about what they learned from each other after recording a full album together for the first time. Last October, after decades spent in their own musical realms — Joel in Thrush Hermit, with the Emergency and solo; his dad steeped in British, Irish and Scottish folk — the father and son spent four weeks recording 11 tracks for their new project.
Solidarity, out Feb. 17, traces the line between both artists’ backgrounds, steering between traditional folk (“We Have Fed You All For a Thousand Years”) and hookier acoustic tracks (“The Next Blue Sky”). It’s the sound of give and take — and of learning how best to work together within the boundaries of an album.
CBC Music set up in New Scotland Yard in late January to capture the duo’s first live performance of the new tracks. Watch the videos below, filmed with a small audience of about 30 fans — and a lot of time for tuning.
Solidarity will be released via Pheromone Recordings. Pre-order it here.
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