Bahamas: Pleased To Meet Me

Maybe the name Afie Jurvanen doesn’t ring a bell, but it’s a safe bet you’ve heard the Canadian singer-songwriter-guitarist’s work. Looking for an opportunity to see the world outside of Ontario, his band Paso Mino signed on with Jason Collett, a Toronto-based roots-pop artist and sometime member of Broken Social Scene, who took Jurvanen and band all over the globe in the Aughts. When Collett opened for Leslie Feist, Jurvanen found that sitting in on one song per night soon turned into sitting in for the whole set, then into official membership in her band; you can hear him on her 2007 breakthrough album The Reminder. While continuing to tour and record with Collett, Jurvanen began a solo project called Bahamas, which yielded The Pink Strat in 2009, Barchords in 2012 and Bahamas Is Afie, released this August.

“I’m lucky that I work with my friends; I never really felt like a hired gun or anything,” reflects Jurvanen, calling in on a coffee break between stops on a tour opening for Wilco. “If your goal is to make art and just play music, I think that’s an attainable goal. If your goal is to be a rock star, then you’re probably going to be pretty disappointed.”

Rock star or no, the new album is some of Jurvanen’s best work yet. Today, there’s a surfeit of laid-back folky music that’s sorely lacking personality. While you could conceivably spin the Bahamas Is Afie while you contemplate your chakras, it’s a rare contemporary chill-out record that holds up under closer inspection, with Jurvanen’s authorial voice fitting all the pieces together.

“A lot of people struggle with writing songs, but that’s my favorite part of the whole process,” he explains. “If I feel like I have an idea or an inkling of an idea, I just give it time. More than anything, that’s kind of all it needs is to stop what you’re doing – don’t go to the bank, don’t open up Netflix, just sit there and let the idea percolate and fan the flames a little bit, and see if something comes.”

One example that hits  close to home is “Little Record Girl,” an upbeat folky ditty with just a little twang, which perfectly captures the experience of falling in love with a record hard and fast, so that it’s a shock to learn that other people have heard of it, let alone love it. “Went to a friend’s and saw her on the shelf/ I thought the whole time/ That she was mine/ I never had her to myself,” he sings with a flare of punk-y anger, before reprising the grin-and-a-shrug ‘Whoa-oh-oh” refrain.

But most of the record is more wistful, a complex suite of emotions that 33-year-old Jurvanen conveys with authority earned through spending much of his adult life on the road. As the jaunty “Bitter Memories” bounces along, his tone betrays just a hint of the sorrow behind the lyrics “If they should ever say/ All your love did was get in my way/ I’ll defend you/ I’ll pretend it’s not that way.”

The production is another key to the album’s ability to cohesively present a variety of styles and moods. Its earthy tones spread out across spacious arrangements, making room for all kinds of melodic twists and turns, while gorgeous string figures, gospel-tinged choirs and acrobatic guitar lines materialize suddenly in what feel like just the right places. For the first time, Jurvanen recorded without his touring band and waited until the mix stage to bring in producer/manager/former roommate Robbie Lackwitz. The core performances are a collaboration between Jurvanen and drummer/engineer Don Kerr, long-time associate of the great singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith.

Pushing himself out of his comfort zone proved to be the spark Jurvanen needed to keep the performances fresh and the textures inventive. “You’re not settling into an old routine, you’re defining a new routine with a new person,” he says. “In a way you’re more present and you’re working a lot harder, and in many ways it’s a healthy thing for your other relationships. I realized I’ve got to put in more effort into those other relationships, because I don’t want them to go away, I want them to get stronger.”

While writing is Jurvanen’s first passion, this project has added to his toolkit and whetted his appetite for the next opportunity to take on the role of producer. He’s been in that chair a few times before, most recently on an acoustic cover of The Human League’s synth-pop hit “Don’t You Want Me” for last fall’s The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty soundtrack album.

“I think my favorite part is allowing someone else’s songs to do all the heavy lifting and finding a way to just sort of support that thing,” he says. “It sounds easy but it’s actually really hard; most people sort of see themselves as producers, myself included, and when you’re working with most artists, they often have ideas about how the song should be. It’s about challenging those ideas to make sure they’re the strongest ones out there.”

This article appears in our November/December 2014 issue. Subscribe here.