The Times
November 22, 2007

A Blast of Canadian Frost

David Sinclair at the Half Moon, Putney, SW15

They made odd bedfellows, Matt Andersen, Jessica Rhaye and Dave Gunning, as they set off on a package tour of Britain under the rather forbidding banner A Blast of Canadian Frost. The three are from Canada, the sprawling landscape that exported such originators of the singer-songwriter genre as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. But to begin with, this trio of fresh talents followed their own ruggedly separate paths as they each performed a short solo set.

Gunning took the classic storyteller route, singing songs from his fifth album, House for Sale, that were freighted with the folklore of his native Nova Scotia. A gifted guitarist and a witty raconteur, he prompted much merriment as he spun the story of a young boy’s Christmas Day, blighted by the mysterious fact that Santa had drunk all his dad’s beer the night before.

Rhaye, whose second album, Short Stories, has been nominated for various awards, was a more introspective performer. Her songs, which hinged on emotional dramas and relationship issues, were delicate constructs that came across as perhaps more brittle than she intended.

There was nothing fragile about Andersen, who was introduced by Rhaye as “Canada’s greatest guitarist”. A man mountain with fingers to match (his website is www.stubbyfingers.ca) he made one acoustic guitar sound like a fully staffed band as he played and sang a string of his own country blues songs, including the autobiographical mission statement One Size Never Fits, with outrageous skill and contagious joy.

The three of them took the stage together for the second half of the show to play a mixture of their own songs and standards, including I Don’t Want to Talk About It and Long Black Veil. But despite the friendly banter and deft harmony vocals, the whole was somehow less than the sum of these three, highly individual parts.