Joel Plaskett is something akin to a national treasure to those who place great value on things like classically-styled, distinctly Canadian-flavoured pop-rock songwriting and Plaskett has hardly been shy about keeping his creative riches to himself. Over a seventeen-year career, reaching back to the first Thrush Hermit EP and through his work fronting The Emergency and under his own name solo, he’s released at least eight proper albums and more EPs, the most recent of which – Three – was a triple-disc set.
And yet for all of the material that he’s released officially, countless more has remained in the vaults – at least until now. Plaskett has just released EMERGENCYs, false alarms, shipwrecks, castaways, fragile creatures, special features, demons and demonstrations, compilation of demos, outtakes and whatnot culled from his post-Thrush Hermit works – those cupboards were cleared last year – that does a good job of reinforcing just how consistent a talent Plaskett is; though the material contained within spans a decade, it all hangs together very nicely and feels far from a collection of cast-offs.
The compilation is available either digitally or in an LP/CD combo package, with the wax providing a home to a dozen tracks and the compact disc containing all those and another eight, and courtesy of Pigeon Row, I’ve got two of these LP/CD sets to give away. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want the Joel Plaskett” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address in the body. Contest is open to residents of Canada and will close at midnight, July 1.
by Frank Yang