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Tales from Downtown West

Tales from Downtown West

Product Details

A brand new EP from multi-award winning artist Colleen Power.

Watch the video of Colleen Power - Broken Mirror on Colleen's Youtube Page:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujscOOk7xWk

Join award-winning Newfoundland and Labrador singer/songwriter Colleen Power as she explores all that her home province has to offer in the new miniseries, "Sing Me Home", airing exclusively on Bell Fibe TV, Channel 1 starting on April 11th, 2022.

Colleen visits some of the province's more oddly named towns to explore the stories and characters behind the names. She hangs out with residents, digs into history, and writes and performs a song for each community. Don't miss this six-episode mini-series where the Bay girl turned Townie bard visits Dildo, Cupids, Lawn, and more!

CD

  • Name
    Cost
    Select
  • Tales from Downtown West
    $10.00

Downloadable Items

  • File Size
    Price
    Select
    Previews
  • 01 Broken Mirror
    10.90 MB
    $1.99
  • 02 Presque bilingue
    8.15 MB
    $1.99
  • 03 Purple Aster
    5.09 MB
    $1.99
  • 04 Downtown Grouse
    4.04 MB
    $1.99
  • 05 Strange Bit
    6.52 MB
    $1.99
  • 06 NL Sea Shanty
    4.88 MB
    $1.99
  • cover
    1.26 MB
    0.00
  • lyrics and notes
    13.58 KB
    0.00
  • back
    1.57 MB
    0.00

Review 

Here's another use of Covid down time. St. John's mainstay Colleen Power took the RPM Challenge in February. That's Record Production Month, and the goal is to make an entire album by yourself, from songwriting to finished product. Power managed just that, coming up with six strong new ones, and doing all the playing and producing herself. That includes vocals, guitar, bass, dulcimer, drum programming and editing, ukulele and accordion. 

You get a bit of everything Power is about in these tracks. There's Newfoundland whimsy, trad, biting wit, social observation, punk attitude, Francophone, grass roots and modern folk. In the sharpest bit of commentary, she uses the tiktok trend of sea shanties to skewer the socio-political climate of her own province. "NL Sea Shanty" chides the province for being "Half an hour later b'ys, and fifty years behind." Power isn't pulling any punches with this one: "While the world is wielding windmills, we're bawlin' out for oil/Join me in this sea shanty, pretend you're Alan Doyle." On a softer note, her "Purple Aster" is a ukulele charmer, maybe the first song tribute to that hardy flower. Her downtown St. John's street cred comes through solidly on "Spell For A Broken Mirror," with "Bad luck, bad luck, enough to fill up a dump truck."

The pandemic has curtailed the usual St. Patrick's Day shenanigans in St. John's, but not the music, and Power is doing her bit of celebrating on Facebook Live. Join her at 8:30 PM NST (which is 8 PM Atlantic, 7 PM Eastern, etc.) at www.facebook.com/ColleenPowerNL. And to pick up a copy of Tales from Downtown West or any of her other releases, go to www.singsonginc.ca. -- Bob Mersereau's Top 100 Canadian Singles Blog: Music Review of the Day, 16 March, 2021

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