Greg Macpherson’s commitment to performance, his power on stage and the integrity of his work have left little mark on a commercial landscape littered with the carcasses of soulless bands and flash bulb entertainers. There are no gold records on his wall, no ‘best of’ awards from the industry and no bought write-ups in the associated press. His music reaches for something better, a quality of life not offered by the contractors or traded when the markets open up in the morning. He flies under the radar, coming up once in a while to touch the hearts of people; to put out a record with artistic vision and originality, to blast through pretense with rock honesty; shatter the thick veneer of marketed consciousness and the fallacy of art made for money.
This is music that has to be heard even if only by those striving for something real. Greg Macpherson is above all an artist, someone who sees the world differently and communicates possibility with sound. The simplicity of his production, a utilitarian aesthetic aligned with the post-rock movements of 90s Chicago and early 80s Manchester stretches not to impress with fantasy but with naked substance. There are a handful of Canadian lyricists writing songs this powerful, few of them are under the age of 50, fewer still offer performances as artistically charged as their writing. In this country Greg Macpherson shares a sparsely populated space saved for musicians who matter.