New Music: The Way You’ve Aged by Jonathan Becker

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Photo credit: Blair Smith (http://fivetreesatonce.tumblr.com/)

Photo credit: Blair Smith

Jonathan Becker (Dead Weights/The North Fields) just released a new solo EP The Way You’ve Aged.

The EP is more North Fields and less Dead Weights – but 100% Jon Becker. Four songs straight from the heart by a man with a raspy voice and his acoustic guitar recording in a back room with a Crown Royal bag as a microphone shield. If you are sick of the heat and want the return of sounds of fall and winter than you are in luck with this one. If that fall and winter aren’t what you are looking for, The Way You’ve Aged also transports you to a dimly lit bar where smoking is still allowed and Becker is sitting on a chair on a small riser playing to the regulars.

The title track sets the tone for the EP with lines like these: The difference is where we become untied and the things we use to help us stand upright / We’ll still smoke cigarettes in the park on Dundas West / We’ll lay in the dead grass and I’ll close my eyes, picture you painting looking your best, as November purrs in the soft light /  I love the way you’ve aged.”

The next three songs follow the themes of relationships, bad habits and growing older, which makes them very relatable.

The album was engineered by Dead Weights bandmate Steve Robillard at Capital Rehearsal Studios and mastered by Dean Watson at Gallery Recording Studio, both in Ottawa.

Turn the lights down low, crack a beer and a smoke (if you’re into that kind of thing) and sink your teeth into The Way You’ve Aged (streaming at Exclaim) on a late night where you feel like deeply connecting with a total stranger. You can also catch him playing Thursday Sept. 22 with Fire Next Time and Jordan & Watts at Bar Robo, info here.