Chris Warren

Soft, iridescent folk-pop from one of Toronto’s most conspicuously clever lyricists. Chris Warren’s second full-length record sounds more mature, more varied, and ultimately more successful than 1997’s Crazy Wisdom. While no one has doubted his consummate skill with metaphor and verse, it has remained to be seen whether Warren’s lyrics could find their match in a set of good melodies. Thankfully, apart from a few unfortunate forays into white-guy folk-funk, it would seem that they have. Beautiful Ruins these are not—there is a polished grace to many of these tracks. Largely acoustic, and coloured by Warren’s sometimes fragile, sometimes nasal, always comforting voice, the best of the songs betray a litany of uber-cool influences which any fan of art-folk should enjoy sussing out. From the Nick-Drake-meets-Judy-Collins splendor of “Something (that feels) New” to the long outro of “Hole on Bloor Street” to the “Mother Nature’s Son”-infused picking of “Yaffa’s in Her Twilight Years”, Warren’s favorite music is here mined for ideas. While he remains too successful a mimic for his own good (hear the near-parodic channelling of early Leonard Cohen on the title track), one can hardly criticise his choices of artistic lights to guide his journey. There are worse things than to aspire to become the next Nick Drake. But, if you are taken by this record, it may not be the music alone that carries you away. Warren’s lucid, engaging writing is stronger here than ever. And it manages to accomplish that rare feat: it reads even as well as it sings. Thoughtful, graceful stuff indeed. - Stuart Henderson, umbrellamusic.com

Chris Warren has the soul of a poet (maybe Leonard Cohen’s) and the eclectic tastes of an adventurer (maybe Sir Edmund Hillary’s). He does it all, and does it deep, digging great songs from the mineshaft of eternal truth. He can get away with pretty much stealing the melody and acoustic fingerpicking of The Beatles classic “Blackbird” for a song about his cat, “Yaffa’s In Her Twilight Years,” because of the utter, sweet simplicity of the arrangement, and the charm of lines like “She’s lost her fangs but still retains her grace.” When he goes for a pretty, jangly-guitar-and-trumpet, pure-pop song like “Hole on Bloor Street,” the hooks stay in your head for days. I was singing the unlikely line, “If your life’s like a thin membrane that’s stretched around some chaos” for days, and the way he sings “We’re busy, we’re busy, we’re busy” will resonate with anybody who’s ever worked in an office for more than three months. The “Dubious Elegy,” for a troubled, near-pathetic rock ‘n’ roll junkie ghost, is a slow, droning, stutter-beat tune with a sing-song melody that also rattled around in my brain-pan for days on end. The drop-dead punch of “Beautiful Ruins” bears a sparse, spooky witness to war, specifically, in the Middle East: It’s timeless, haunted, and riding on some of the fastest, cleanest string-plucking I’ve heard in years. And Warren can rock like a maniac, too -- just listen to “Outside Time” when it kicks in. Really, there’s nothing in the ruins that’s not worth examining. Go buy it. - Howard Druckman, umbrellamusic.com

This album is one of those fortuitous discoveries that fills you with utter pride, followed by a sudden urgency in which you can't let one more second pass without telling someone about your latest and greatest find. Beautiful Ruins, the second album from Toronto's Chris Warren, is a magnum opus from start to finish. The poignancy of his lyrics, the style and softness of his voice, the delicate finger-picking of his guitar, all recall a young Paul Simon--and the eclectic amalgamation of sound is an echo of The Beatles' Revolver or Magical Mystery Tour. Just listen as the trumpet comes in on "Hole on Bloor St." and tell me it's not like hearing "Penny Lane" again for the first time. Every song is so wonderfully crafted it really disheartens me to have to pick songs, so I'll stop. --Evan James - American Songwriter Magazine

Chris Warren is hard to fully describe. He sometimes sounds like Paul Simon and sometimes sounds like the jazz/rock fusion of Edie Brickell. But what sets Chris Warren apart from others who attempt this style is that he has brilliant lyrics, which he seems to effortlessly and perfectly fuse with sometimes intricate and sometimes simple melodies [the song "Yaffa" is simply beautiful]. There are so many artists that have only one or the other: great lyrics or memorable melodies - Chris has both! After repeated listens I went to his website to download the lyrics (they aren't in the CD) and developed a new appreciation for the songs. "Thanks…and Sorry" asks the question, "is man really more superior than animals?" My favorite song on the CD is the catchy, "Outside Time", which has "hit" written all over it! It also has the brilliant lyrics, "I used to be the kind of man that would laugh at a man like me." It's good to see that great lyrics can still be written. **** --Scott H. Platt - Ear Candy (December)

Soft, iridescent folk-pop from one of Toronto’s most conspicuously clever lyricists. Chris Warren’s second full-length record sounds more mature, more varied, and ultimately more successful than 1997’s Crazy Wisdom. While no one has doubted his consummate skill with metaphor and verse, it has remained to be seen whether Warren’s lyrics could find their match in a set of good melodies. Thankfully, apart from a few unfortunate forays into white-guy folk-funk, it would seem that they have. Beautiful Ruins these are not—there is a polished grace to many of these tracks. Largely acoustic, and coloured by Warren’s sometimes fragile, sometimes nasal, always comforting voice, the best of the songs betray a litany of uber-cool influences which any fan of art-folk should enjoy sussing out. From the Nick-Drake-meets-Judy-Collins splendor of “Something (that feels) New” to the long outro of “Hole on Bloor Street” to the “Mother Nature’s Son”-infused picking of “Yaffa’s in Her Twilight Years”, Warren’s favorite music is here mined for ideas. While he remains too successful a mimic for his own good (hear the near-parodic channelling of early Leonard Cohen on the title track), one can hardly criticise his choices of artistic lights to guide his journey. There are worse things than to aspire to become the next Nick Drake. But, if you are taken by this record, it may not be the music alone that carries you away. Warren’s lucid, engaging writing is stronger here than ever. And it manages to accomplish that rare feat: it reads even as well as it sings. Thoughtful, graceful stuff indeed. - Stuart Henderson, umbrellamusic.com

The first thing that hits you when listening to this tape [BONE] is the nasal, Dylan-on-helium not-quite-singing vocals of Warren. Then one discovers that the words are wonderful—clever, poignant, offhandedly funny. Really engaging. After that, one realizes that the music, which initially appears to be bare-bones generic acoustic accompaniment, has as much complexity and colour as the lyrics themselves—spare, like the Modern Lovers, but beautiful and coherent. Piano, clarinet, melodica, and the pretty, gently stated back-up vocals of Kathryn Rose, Mia Sheard and Jane Miller combine to produce the perfect musical backdrop for Warren’s skewed, outlandishly well-written tales of boy-girl things ‘n stuff. Everything’s very casual and unhurried. As a whole, Bone is a deeply satisfying effort, and represents the arrival of an absolutely original songwriter. - Martin Tooke, Exclaim!

The first thing that hits you when listening to this tape [BONE] is the nasal, Dylan-on-helium not-quite-singing vocals of Warren. Then one discovers that the words are wonderful—clever, poignant, offhandedly funny. Really engaging. After that, one realizes that the music, which initially appears to be bare-bones generic acoustic accompaniment, has as much complexity and colour as the lyrics themselves—spare, like the Modern Lovers, but beautiful and coherent. Piano, clarinet, melodica, and the pretty, gently stated back-up vocals of Kathryn Rose, Mia Sheard and Jane Miller combine to produce the perfect musical backdrop for Warren’s skewed, outlandishly well-written tales of boy-girl things ‘n stuff. Everything’s very casual and unhurried. As a whole, Bone is a deeply satisfying effort, and represents the arrival of an absolutely original songwriter. - Martin Tooke, Exclaim!

Warren is a philosophical bard, dissecting the inner workings of spirituality, love, human potential, all on a deeply personal level. To read the lyric sheet is to get a glimpse at a poet who is not bound by meter and common phrase length; nor do the lyrics submit to the standard meaningless, anti-literary drivel that is 95 per cent of pop/rock. The unconventional lyrics, at times Absurdist in humour, are clearly paralleled in the surprising twists in melody and modulation which at times move unpredictably like a weighted ball. The arrangements show a painterly concern for colour, employing a wide array of instruments (label mate Dan Bryk contributes keys throughout, in case you’re interested) playing in pure consonance. A romantic without gushing mush, Warren lays down a very palatable model for what adult pop could and should be more like. - Ernest J. Agbuya, RHIG Magazine

Warren is a philosophical bard, dissecting the inner workings of spirituality, love, human potential, all on a deeply personal level. To read the lyric sheet is to get a glimpse at a poet who is not bound by meter and common phrase length; nor do the lyrics submit to the standard meaningless, anti-literary drivel that is 95 per cent of pop/rock. The unconventional lyrics, at times Absurdist in humour, are clearly paralleled in the surprising twists in melody and modulation which at times move unpredictably like a weighted ball. The arrangements show a painterly concern for colour, employing a wide array of instruments (label mate Dan Bryk contributes keys throughout, in case you’re interested) playing in pure consonance. A romantic without gushing mush, Warren lays down a very palatable model for what adult pop could and should be more like. - Ernest J. Agbuya, RHIG Magazine

Only in the loosest sense roots music, Toronto songwriter Warren’s eccentric and arresting pop-folk opus is nonetheless a fine expression of an independent musical spirit and a poet’s heart. Quirky, meandering melodies, a slightly distanced, effects-treated voice, improbable and dissonant instrumental intrusions and off-kilter harmonies occasionally detract from an immediate appreciation of Warren’s wonderful lyrics, keen observations of the minutiae of urban living, of friendship, love and isolation. It’s a mannered delivery that’s…idiosyncratic and self-assured. I suspect Warren has listened a lot to Leonard Cohen, which is not to suggest any similarity other than sensibility. Beautiful Ruins is fascinating, avant-garde world music with retro-pop inflections and a serious literary intent. - Greg Quill, The Toronto Star

The best adjective to describe Toronto singer/songwriter Chris Warren might just be "idiosyncratic". He has an original and oft off-beat worldview and sound, and that makes Beautiful Ruins a refreshing listen. It is just his second full-length album, and it surfaces seven years after his debut, Crazy Wisdom, a record that drew praise from peers like Ron Sexsmith and Mary Margaret O'Hara. Warren has played his share of local folk clubs, but the musical and lyrical sophistication on display here can't be easily contained within the folk label. Instruments as varied as accordion, bassoon and flugelhorn are used to add subtle colourings on the songs, and such accomplished players as Maury Lafoy, Tom Bona and Sarah McElcheran are featured effectively.

Warren is a published poet, and his strengths as a lyricist are considerable. One sample: "Intolerable pain cracks your face like lightning over a clear night sky" (Memory is Water). Topics here range from his aging cat to the death of a junkie indie rocker of his acquaintance. The album is dedicated "to our siblings, the great apes, now standing on the brink of extinction," and man's abuse of the planet and other species is explored in All of You Hairless Apes and Thanks...and Sorry. The evocative title song has something of an Al Stewart feel, and is an album highlight. Beautiful Ruins is one strong piece of work. Let's hope its creator doesn't take so long on his next one. -- Kerry Doole
- Penguin Eggs

The second full-length release by local musician-cum-poet Chris Warren is far headier fare than your average singer/songwriter disc. Drawing on themes ranging from evolution and extinction to regret and mortality, Warren aligns the microcosmic and macrocosmic with deft arcs of mystical lyrics that recall Gwendolyn MacEwen’s poetry. He frames his words with sophisticated, layered arrangements—hints of beat poetry, chamber and klezmer accents mesh with mature pop songwriting, backed by the superb horn playing of Sarah McElcheran and folks like the Supers’ Maury Lafoy. While his reedy voice sometimes comes up short against such sculpted backdrops, Beautiful Ruins is a solid effort. NNN (out of four). - Sarah Liss, NOW Magazine (Toronto)

Really there is nothing with more beauty than a ruin — it preserves the memory of its venerable past and offers a new transformation as an ever-changing nature-worn art installation. Chris Warren understands this and, on his sophomore record, examines the beautiful ruins, and the ruined beauty, surrounding his own life. Warren has eulogised in song everything from specific characters on Toronto's streets ("Hole on Bloor St.") and his cat (“Yaffa's in Her Twilight Years") to the entire human race ("All of You Hairless Apes"). But don't go thinking this is a grave affair. Warren's storytelling agility and experimental ear keep things light and exciting. His voice, a sort of older and higher pitched Kyp Harness (indeed, some may call it a beautiful ruin), is matched by a worldwide array of instrumentation, sometimes reminiscent of Bruce Cockburn's Breakfast in New Orleans era. Let's hope Chris goes on to ruin more songs. - Exclaim! Magazine, March 11, 2004