Three days before the completion of his latest album, Aidan Knight was reviewing the new songs. While trying to put a name to the work, he stumbled upon a short film by Eliot Rausch titled What I Have To Offer.
Featuring candid images of visual artists, musicians, and athletes doing what they do, the video showcased excerpts from a BAFTA lecture by legendary screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind, Adaptation). The screenwriter's thesis: courage, vulnerability, and honesty are what separate art from commercial entertainment. Inspired by Kaufman's words, Knight found a title that perfectly expressed the songs on his sophomore album Small Reveal.
Aidan Knight
Small Reveal (streaming until Oct. 23)
tracklist
As Knight put it in a conversation with CBC Music, Kaufman's mantra described Knight's own approach to the new album:
What [Kaufman] is saying is that you need to share these parts of yourself that might not even be known to you. Maybe they're dark and uncomfortable, and they make you maybe unlovable. You want to be liked, but it's imperative that you reveal this part of yourself... I just wanted to work that idea into the smallest phrase possible to give some meaning behind this album. In my own backhanded way, I might have made it too Canadian. I should have made it Big Reveal.
The title is apt. There is a large dose of emotional turmoil on Small Reveal, which explores themes such as the human desire for connection, belonging, and the inner life of a songwriter. Those who know Knight for his campfire-friendly brotherhood anthem "Jasper" are in for a surprise. Every song on Small Reveal is dark and deeply affecting. Though Knight is often compared to fellow west coast singer-songwriter Dan Mangan, a better comparison might be Bon Iver.
Like Justin Vernon's process during Bon Iver, Knight and band mates Olivier Clements, Julia Wakal, David Barry, and Colin Nealis retreated to a cabin in the woods to write and work out the songs for their record. Setting up on Protection Island, BC was no easy task. "[We were] heading over on a passenger ferry with 1000 pounds of studio gear," recalls Knight, "then wheelbarrowing it to this cabin in the woods that had no running water. We had to walk a half kilometer to find water so we could cook and brush our teeth."
The band's retreat from the distractions of the modern world yielded more than enough song ideas for the album. After five months of fine tuning those songs, the band began work on recording the album in May 2012 with producer and engineer Jonathan Anderson, who previously produced Knight's 2010 debut Versicolour. Instead of recording in studio, the songs were captured in several locations including family homes, the cabin on Protection Island, and a church that was later converted to a music shop. "We probably spent about as much time setting up and tearing down gear as actually recording."
The finished product displays Knight's evolution as a songwriter, with songs exploring those "dark, uncomfortable" thoughts and feelings coming to the forefront. Several of the songs on Small Reveal are a reflection on what it means to be a songwriter, including the transparently-titled "Singer-Songwriter" and "You Will See the Good In Everyone". Others tracks, like "Creatures Great and Small" and "Margaret Downe" tell stories of failed and faltering relationships. The emotional heft of Small Reveal is balanced by the dreamy, autoharp-laden songs "A Mirror" and "Skip", as well as the three musical themes woven into the entire album.
While Knight says he felt pressure in the run-up to writing and recording the legendarily-challenging sophomore album, the musician credits a lack of restrictions for allowing him to see it through:
Making music, and making art, it feels like if you start from a place where there are no ground rules, nothing in place to stop you from what you want to do, then you'll start navigating toward the thing you want to express.
You can stream Small Reveal on CBC Music until October 23rd. The album will be available on October 23 on Outside Music.