FIVER

It’s getting confusing to be a fan of Simone Schmidt, but trust me when I say the effort is worth it.

Fiver is Schmidt’s pseudo-solo project, a vessel for songs that don’t fit tidily within the genre or traditions of her other bands. However, the lineup on this debut album is identical to that of cosmic country heroes the Highest Order – Schmidt, guitarist Paul Mortimer, bassist Kyle Porter and drummer Simone TB – which is itself a reshuffling of the now-defunct One Hundred Dollars.

But no matter what configuration Schmidt’s playing in, there’s one common standout element: her show-stopping voice. It’s husky, confident, haunting and vulnerable in equal measure, and directs attention to her poetic lyrics, which have the gritty, elegant simplicity of classic country music and American storytelling.

Lost The Plot is their greatest spotlight yet, a collection of nine powerful, rewarding, delicately dense spins on the classic themes of love, loss and longing. If you’re looking for an introduction to Simone Schmidt, this is a good one.

Top track: Undertaker - NOW Toronto

Fiver is the solo project of Toronto-born and raised singer and songwriter Simone Schmidt, known for fronting The Highest Order (a band that just released its debut album, If It's Real, back in March) and the acclaimed country outfit One Hundred Dollars. No matter which name she is performing under, two strengths of Schmidt’s that immediately arrest you are that voice – awesome and haunting, strong as oak but sanded with sublime vulnerability - and the palpable Dust Bowl-thick instrumental air that fleshes out the mood of every song. Each is so commanding that it’s a testament to her gifts for bleak, poetic firepower and sure-handed nuance that neither crumbles under the magnitude of the other.

The songs of Lost the Plot translate to mysterious forces akin to the spirits of Cormac McCarthy’s blood-soaked landscapes and purgatory-trapped lives within his timeless "Border Trilogy" or Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 masterwork of death in the heartland, Nebraska.The wonder of Schmidt’s voice cutting through the red-dirt-and-tar-black mood is how it can simultaneously evoke a funeral hymn for the newly dead sung over a dried-up riverbank, as well as an angelic beacon leading you away from all the imminent danger and heaviest of hearts. That show-stopping instrument calls to mind unforgettable voices as varied as Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star, Mark Kozelek, Stevie Nicks and Emmylou Harris, while her stories mine starker terrain populated by the ghosts of characters penned by Dylan, Lou Reed or Raymond Carver, amongst the McCarthy-hued atmosphere. Not bad for a Toronto-based songwriter and performer who, according to CBC, initially had her sights set on screen-printing and speech facilitation rather than music.

Schmidt’s fellow players (Paul Mortimer on guitar, Kyle Porter on bass, Simone Tisshaw-Baril on drums, and Toronto-based analog guru Stew Crookes contributing electric bass and handling the album’s excellent production) also make up The Highest Order and One Hundred Dollars in varying degrees. On Lost the Plot they barb Schmidt’s songs (tunes Schmidt brought to Fiver because she has amassed a strong collection of songs that were too dynamic to comfortably fit under more the more classically country or psych-country tags of her other bands) with just the right mix of ominous, spaghetti-western edge and clang and Badlands-wide space that allow Schmidt’s incredible voice to slice through the taut textures. They can rock with fiery precision (as on “Gone Alone” and snaking, jangling “Oh Sienna,” the ethereal spellbinder that served as the A-side to the outfit’s 2012 debut single, Two Songs from Fiver, and appears here as the lead-off track that draws you into Fiver’s world without reservation) and they can conjure mood and catharsis as the aural equivalent of smoldering ash and star-streaked, midnight-black skies (“Dayton,” “Undertaker,” “Lonesome in This Graveyard,” “Smoke and Steam”).

Lost the Plot is a revelatory music achievement that transcends ephemeral space and time and cuts to bone with commanding regularity. Fiver’s debut has the perfect amount of spirited grace and haunting atmosphere to be the western yin to the yang of Mount Moriah’s more Appalachian, kindred gem Miracle Temple, another of my favorite records this year.

There’s no simple way of relaying the black magic Fiver has put to two-inch tape on Lost the Plot without absorbing it into your daily life. No one can say whether your burdens will feel heavier or lighter once you do, but the true beauty of Lost the Plot lies in discovering that for yourself. - No Depression

Fiver is the solo project of Toronto-born and raised singer and songwriter Simone Schmidt, known for fronting The Highest Order (a band that just released its debut album, If It's Real, back in March) and the acclaimed country outfit One Hundred Dollars. No matter which name she is performing under, two strengths of Schmidt’s that immediately arrest you are that voice – awesome and haunting, strong as oak but sanded with sublime vulnerability - and the palpable Dust Bowl-thick instrumental air that fleshes out the mood of every song. Each is so commanding that it’s a testament to her gifts for bleak, poetic firepower and sure-handed nuance that neither crumbles under the magnitude of the other.

The songs of Lost the Plot translate to mysterious forces akin to the spirits of Cormac McCarthy’s blood-soaked landscapes and purgatory-trapped lives within his timeless "Border Trilogy" or Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 masterwork of death in the heartland, Nebraska.The wonder of Schmidt’s voice cutting through the red-dirt-and-tar-black mood is how it can simultaneously evoke a funeral hymn for the newly dead sung over a dried-up riverbank, as well as an angelic beacon leading you away from all the imminent danger and heaviest of hearts. That show-stopping instrument calls to mind unforgettable voices as varied as Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star, Mark Kozelek, Stevie Nicks and Emmylou Harris, while her stories mine starker terrain populated by the ghosts of characters penned by Dylan, Lou Reed or Raymond Carver, amongst the McCarthy-hued atmosphere. Not bad for a Toronto-based songwriter and performer who, according to CBC, initially had her sights set on screen-printing and speech facilitation rather than music.

Schmidt’s fellow players (Paul Mortimer on guitar, Kyle Porter on bass, Simone Tisshaw-Baril on drums, and Toronto-based analog guru Stew Crookes contributing electric bass and handling the album’s excellent production) also make up The Highest Order and One Hundred Dollars in varying degrees. On Lost the Plot they barb Schmidt’s songs (tunes Schmidt brought to Fiver because she has amassed a strong collection of songs that were too dynamic to comfortably fit under more the more classically country or psych-country tags of her other bands) with just the right mix of ominous, spaghetti-western edge and clang and Badlands-wide space that allow Schmidt’s incredible voice to slice through the taut textures. They can rock with fiery precision (as on “Gone Alone” and snaking, jangling “Oh Sienna,” the ethereal spellbinder that served as the A-side to the outfit’s 2012 debut single, Two Songs from Fiver, and appears here as the lead-off track that draws you into Fiver’s world without reservation) and they can conjure mood and catharsis as the aural equivalent of smoldering ash and star-streaked, midnight-black skies (“Dayton,” “Undertaker,” “Lonesome in This Graveyard,” “Smoke and Steam”).

Lost the Plot is a revelatory music achievement that transcends ephemeral space and time and cuts to bone with commanding regularity. Fiver’s debut has the perfect amount of spirited grace and haunting atmosphere to be the western yin to the yang of Mount Moriah’s more Appalachian, kindred gem Miracle Temple, another of my favorite records this year.

There’s no simple way of relaying the black magic Fiver has put to two-inch tape on Lost the Plot without absorbing it into your daily life. No one can say whether your burdens will feel heavier or lighter once you do, but the true beauty of Lost the Plot lies in discovering that for yourself. - No Depression

A churnsome dirge, a grindish blues, distended swing from the woman who sings for One Hundred Dollars and the Highest Order. Simone Schmidt writes songs by manipulating smoke in the air, seeing where it falls and rises. But she sings in a plainer way, intoning the words, loosing them right and left, as though she's laying the groundwork for a more elaborate song. Canadian music that feels like American music - drier than Alberta, more haunted than Manitoba. Fiver is laying the foundation of a ghost town, and she doesn't even know if the damn spirits will move in. [buy - it's very great] - Said the Gramophone

A churnsome dirge, a grindish blues, distended swing from the woman who sings for One Hundred Dollars and the Highest Order. Simone Schmidt writes songs by manipulating smoke in the air, seeing where it falls and rises. But she sings in a plainer way, intoning the words, loosing them right and left, as though she's laying the groundwork for a more elaborate song. Canadian music that feels like American music - drier than Alberta, more haunted than Manitoba. Fiver is laying the foundation of a ghost town, and she doesn't even know if the damn spirits will move in. [buy - it's very great] - Said the Gramophone

FIVER at the Silver Dollar, Friday, June 29.
In her role as frontperson and lyricist for Toronto country heroes One Hundred Dollars, Simone Schmidt has proved an intense, mesmerizing singer and performer. Her new project, Fiver, features songs she’s written alone, unbound by the rules of country, roots and folk.
Not a far cry from her primary project, they still explore character perspectives and modern folklore (including one about wrestler The Undertaker) but were given a rock punch on the Silver Dollar’s rough-hewn stage. The live lineup shrinks and grows depending on the setting and on this occasion featured the full four-piece Blue Sage band. Schmidt held down crunchy, distorted rhythm guitar while lead guitarist Paul Mortimer (also of One Hundred Dollars) showed off his chops, impressing on a number of nimble, psychedelic solos.
Fiver aren’t a huge leap outside Schmidt’s comfort zone, but are promising nonetheless.
RICHARD TRAPUNSKI - NOW Weekly, Toronto

Simone Schmidt, the steel-wool-throated singer for One Hundred Dollars and Fiver, once told me that reviewers never listened to her lyrics. Which is a shame, because Schmidt is everything Saul Bellow should’ve been: She’s a rival literary talent (yeah, I went there), but unlike Herzog, Schmidt’s working-man characters suffer without an ounce of entitled conceit, banal humour or ivory-tower smugness. OHD’s Forest of Tears felt authentic right down to its soiled mattresses; Songs of Man, on the other hand, was a gut-punch of realist writing. Her old-country songs are, in effect, Herzog for the poor, the destitute, the invalid. And they’re devastating.

Which brings us to Fiver, Schmidt’s newest project. Backed by members of OHD and Tropics, it’s a stripped-down affair — gone are Songs of Man’s sweeping arrangements, placing Schmidt’s ragged storytelling in the spotlight. Side A, “Oh Sienna,” describes the addict’s plight with a complexity few songwriters could muster: When her protagonist is left bruised, battered, loveless and paranoid, Schmidt judges not. Rather, it’s countered with empathy: “You torched my youth,” she warbles, then later, “If I ain’t dreaming, am I dead? Your poetry still runs my head.” No, Schmidt doesn’t make addiction political, but she certainly makes it feel very, very real.

Side B, “Calm and Collected,” is the sunnier of the tracks, but is no less grim in its content. The heartbreak here sounds familiar — it’s the story of a family torn apart. Boo fucking hoo, right? Not quite. Schmidt’s tale grows darker with each passing lyric: Told from the perspective of a drug-addled, incarcerated single mother, listeners learn of an absentee husband. A vicious act of assault that leaves the man nearly dead. And between it all, the empathy: We discover that these crimes are delivered lovingly, to protect a daughter “with eyes like mine.” It’s true: easy-bake morality never came easy to Schmidt.

But her commitment to genuine suffering — and remarkably complex character-building — is what makes Schmidt one of Canada’s finest, and fearless, writers. And Fiver is a project every bit as worthy as OHD. - Fast Forward Weekly, Calgary

One Hundred Dollars - Songs of Man
Outside
Published May 12, 2011 by Mark Teo in CD Reviews

When a ceiling-gazing Simone Fornow painted a pallid, sexless sex scene — all limp legs and colliding guts — on the opener of One Hundred Dollars’ debut, Forest of Tears, she announced herself as Canada’s next lyrical force. The country songs that followed proved no less effective, but it was neither due to her lilting croon nor the rock-solid efforts of co-songwriter Ian Russell or indie-celeb producer Rick White. Rather, it was Fornow’s ragged poetic chops: Frank, melancholy and keenly observational, hers was an ability to transport listeners to a place, a time and a mood, all with jarring specificity.

Accordingly, that One Hundred Dollars managed to pull off a wide-reaching, ongoing regional 7-inch series — setting to capture topics ranging from work shortages in Newfoundland to Alberta’s dirty gold — came as no surprise. Neither, too, is it surprising that Songs of Man, recorded at Blue Rodeo’s Woodshed Studios, is a dramatically moving sophomore effort.

Here, the requisite growth is evident: Now a sextet, One Hundred Dollars has added reverb-laced dream-roots (“Fires of Regret”), piano-led downers (“Brother”) and even a dash of Rumors (“Waiting on Another”) to its downtrodden arsenal. This should be noted, but the core of these songs still revolves around Fornow’s remarkable ability to humanize struggle — and rightly so.

Opener “Ties That Bind” — one for the dead-eyed city dwellers, though it’s much more crushing than the Weakerthans “Letter of Resignation” — is a song of pure alienation: Industry strips its subject of youth, while cancer finishes the job. “Where the Sparrow Drops” has lovers wrenched apart by financial insecurity; set in an airport, its protagonist prepares to be shipped to overseas trenches. Stunning closer “Black Gold,” a live staple and perhaps the finest song Fornow and Russell have penned, immerses itself in the “sick VLT glow” of Fort McMurray, where company men are forced to leave women in favour of both literal and figurative crude: “In our arms she bluffs the lovin’ of our wives, left out of sight / Cuz us workin’ men need workin’ girls to work us through the night.” Songs of Man doesn’t concern itself with protest songs — these are matter-of-fact death marches. With no skip tracks, no fat, no pretension.

Quite realistically, One Hundred Dollars makes no distinction between life, love and labour — an irrefutable injustice, but nonetheless, these are songs of, well, man, not politics: Here, Fort McMurray and the Middle East aren’t issues. They’re occurrences. They’re workplaces. Indeed, when Fornow declared that “hell’s a place on Earth,” it was neither a lie nor a metaphor.
- FFWD Calgary

4. One Hundred Dollars Songs of Man (Outside)
The production might be cleaner this time around, but there's plenty of grit within Songs of Man, the best record yet by country purists, One Hundred Dollars. Led by primary lyricists Simone Schmidt and Ian Russell, the Toronto band continue to write deep, pointed songs about people and how they relate to one another. An undercurrent of punk activism informs Schmidt's perspective, writing for and about under-represented, marginal voices with a purist's ear for artful storytelling and subtle politics. Beyond her rich, impassioned voice, One Hundred Dollars' songs are presented with this loyal musical acumen that's respectful of stormy, emotive country styles, subtly scratching out the "alt-" that so many independent country bands get saddled with. Free of fashion, Songs of Man will prove to be a timeless document of truly thoughtful, uncompromising songwriting that panders to no one.
Vish Khanna - Exclaim

One Hundred Dollars

SONGS OF MAN

Outside Music

They may not be as showy or stylish as some of their peers, but on their sophomore album, Toronto country crew One Hundred Dollars demonstrated some of the finest writing you’ll find on any album released this year. Singer and songwriter Simone Schmidt has a documentarian’s eye for narratives, a dramatist’s ear for distinct voices and a country ’n’ western veteran’s knack for spinning memorable, lyrical yarns. Her Songs of Man are stories of real-life characters—a repentant addict, an immigrant worker carrying guilt and grime from the tar sands, a lovable lothario who can’t speak—that bristle and breathe, buoyed by her seasoned band. - The Grid T.O.