Mark Berube and The Patriotic Few

Media Quotes for Mark Bérubé and his band The Patriotic Few:

“Church chimes, crackling percussion and poetic turns of phrase entangle themselves in whirling keystrokes, building upon each other as if heading towards a chaotic collapse.... a fearless expression of beauty... seamless mix of raw exuberance.” exclaim! (Canada Nation-wide)??

“Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few create a brave and rich lyricism in songs that ride on a current of contagious melody.” Beatroute (Alberta / BC)

“The tender, introspective tunes that Montreal chamber-folk singer/songwriter Mark Berube pens wouldn’t normally be described as “funky.” But that’s exactly what he pulled off with his Afrobeat-inspired single My Me Lady from his new album, June In Siberia. While the swooping string sections are gone, the songs retain a large, lush sound, each instrument and voice captured in pristine detail.” NOW Magazine (Toronto Entertainment Weekly)


“Mark Berube’s orchestral jazz-folk recalls other instrument-happy musicians of the last few years like Beirut and La Strada, but the music goes beyond the orchestral sound. Rounded out by Berube’s elegant piano and drifting voice, June In Siberia sparkles” The Coast (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI)

"Some of these new songs feel very old, like folk ballads whose melodies have been arranged for unconventional pop quartet (piano, cello, bass, drums). But the overall tone is urban, sophisticated and a bit mysterious” The Globe and Mail (Canada Nation-wide)

??“June in Siberia is quite possibly the band’s most intimate, immediate and heartfelt outing to date.” Uptown (Winnipeg)

"Musically, lyrically, instrumentally, emotionally he's found the perfect balance with his new collection of engrossing chamber folk, which mixes a more Ron Sexsmith singer-songwriter approach with the grandiose Arcade Fire style of fey, pop classicism". Calgary Herald (Alberta)

"C'est surtout sa voix chaude et la poésie riche de cet artiste qui nous incitent à réécouter ses pièces". Elle Magazine

"Une magnifique voix dont les envolées rappellent parfois celles de Jeff Buckley." La Liberté (Switzerland)

"L'adéquation entre musique et texte marchent parfaitement". Express (Switzerland)

“a very strong and promising artist, very confident, and equally charming behind the piano or a cappella” ADNSOUND (Paris, France)
- Canada Wide Media

Montreal singer/songwriter strips away the layers and discovers that smaller can deliver a bigger sound
By Benjamin Boles

The tender, introspective tunes that Montreal chamber-folk singer/songwriter Mark Berube pens wouldn’t normally be described as “funky.” But that’s exactly what he pulled off with his Afrobeat-inspired single My Me Lady from his new album, June In Siberia (Aquarius).

With an urgent groove reminiscent of Nina Simone’s See-Line Woman, the song takes his folk sound in a brand new direction yet still fits nicely into the album.

“I realized toward the end of the sessions that I wanted to have one song that was more upbeat,” recalls Berube as his tour van rolls through the Maritimes. “My drummer, Pat [Dugas], and I started grooving on something and recorded it the very next day.

“I’ve always loved songs that start with a groove and then impose a vocal melody on top. I want to explore more of that now. It’s funny how these little gifts come to you from out of nowhere and can spark a different trajectory.”

Berube adds that he and his Patriotic Few don’t usually write in the studio, since it’s too expensive. The rest of June In Siberia was written beforehand to take full advantage of recording to tape. The medium is preferred by many for its warmth, but recording on old equipment isn’t as cheap or as easy as going digital.

“Digital recordings can get pretty darn close in terms of sound quality these days, but there’s also the psychological effect of recording to tape. You have to concentrate more. You get two or three takes and that’s it. I love that. [With digital] there’s a tendency to kill songs by going into Pro Tools and ‘perfecting’ them too much.”

The smaller number of collaborators also contributes to the album’s pleasing immediacy and warmth. Unlike on previous recordings, Berube kept the embellishments and cast to a minimum, focusing on the four-person lineup he takes on tour. While the swooping string sections are gone, the songs retain a large, lush sound, each instrument and voice captured in pristine detail.

“Live, the songs transfer well. They pretty much sound like they do on the album. Sometimes it’s better to go smaller than bigger. You get a stronger presence in the songs, which was basically the goal.”

The added intimacy suits Berube’s songwriting style and highlights the skill of the Patriotic Few. As he’s done for the production, he’s pared back his lyrics, focusing less on big issues and politics and more on “domestic” narratives and everyday stories. Sometimes smaller really is bigger.

benjaminb@nowtoronto.com - NOW Magazine March 3, 2011

Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few perform Saturday at the Ironwood.

Call it Mark Berube's Goldilocks record.

The reason being that June in Siberia, the Manitoba-born, Montrealbased artist's latest release with his backing trio the Patriotic Few, is a whole lot of just right.

Musically, lyrically, instrumentally, emotionally he's found the perfect balance with his new collection of engrossing chamber folk, which mixes a more Ron Sexsmith singer-songwriter approach with the grandiose Arcade Fire style of fey, pop classicism -a blend that Berube discovered through trial and error.

"Going back two albums, I did What the River Gave the Boat (in 2007), which is a very scaled-down sort of pop-folk album with a string quartets and stuff," he says, while sitting in a passenger seat of the band van as it makes its way out of Winnipeg. "And with What the Boat (Gave the River in 2008) it was trying to be a bigger sound, an indie band out of Montreal sort of thing.

"Just doing those two albums I learned a lot and found that the sound we really wanted was halfway between the two. And that's essentially what we ended up focusing on.

"Sometimes you've just got to go out there and take an idea to the nth degree and actually finish it, to figure out what it is you want to do," he continues. "I think Siberia is a very natural conclusion, if anything, of those two albums."

And that natural conclusion -a dozen raw but wonderfully refined acoustic offerings of the earthy and ethereal -emerged from a natural process.

The album was recorded in Montreal's Hotel 2 Tango, with Berube and his Few -Kristina Koropecki on cello, Patrick Dugas on drums, and Amelie Mandeville on bass -in one of the studio's large rooms performing around a Steinway Grand piano. The predominantly live, off-thefloor process, coupled with the fact it was recorded in analogue, lent to the organic feel of the album, which was recorded and mixed in a relatively quick 11-day period, and features friends and guests including Dan Mangan and Hattie Webb.

Helping, too, was how the tracks for Siberia took shape, with Berube composing the songs, before assembling the band for a handful of shows a year ago last January in small bars and clubs in different neighbourhoods in Montreal.

"That was probably the best preparation, I think, that we've done for an album," he says. "They were just little informal shows in small music venues all around Montreal. It was awesome."

As for the material, itself, which Berube and Co. turned into June In Siberia, they've also managed to find another perfect equilibrium, both of mood and meaning.

The songwriter used his more literary lyrical skills -Berube was once heavily involved in Vancouver's spoken-word scene and performed at last year's Word-Fest at the invite of outgoing director Anne Green -to help him lift songs that seemed weighed down by a darker, musical tone.

"That brings up the title," he says. "When I was writing most of the tunes, there was a darkness, as you could say. I don't call it a sadness by any means. But the lyrics are very satisfied. It's probably the most satisfying lyrical thing I think I've written, just in terms of not being uber-positive but not negative and very happy with day-to-day life," he says, noting the contentment was more grounded in the realization that things aren't always going to be great.

"Siberia at least inhabits for us, living in the Western world, a very harsh mystique to it, with respect to the environment and of course the Gulags and the Russian history. But of course there's still June there. And you go on the Internet and you look at some of the coastline or around Lake Baikal in southern Siberia and it's gorgeous.

"June is more the lyrical content of the album and Siberia is more of the dark, foreboding quality of the music."

And now that Berube and his band are out on the road for a cross-Canada tour, which includes a stop at the Ironwood Saturday, it seems that even those songs when performed live are finding their own spot in the ongoing Goldilocks theme.

"We've got them to that great place," Berube says, "where it's a new tune that feels like an old, good one."

mbell@calgaryherald.com

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Goldilocks+album+just+right/4421865/story.html#ixzz1IabihZWW
- Calgary Herald March 11, 2011

By Nereida FernandesMark Berube's flair for rhyme, rhythm and repetition has won him comparisons to Leonard Cohen, and his heartbreaking vocals to those of Rufus Wainwright. But as stunning as his last few records were, Berube and his Patriotic Few collaborators were just warming-up. Their latest release, featuring contributions from Dan Mangan, among others, is a fearless expression of beauty, an intrinsic one that flouts external approval, as if June in Siberia knows all too well its worth. Church chimes, crackling percussion and poetic turns of phrase entangle themselves in whirling keystrokes, building upon each other as if heading towards a chaotic collapse. If these ambitious arrangements don't knock you flat then an undertow of groaning strings and Berube's heaving accordion will. June in Siberia's seamless mix of raw exuberance ("My Me Lady" and "Tailored to Fit"), along with more textured, meditative tracks like "Gone Clear" and "Side of the Road," are sure to please live music fans and headphonauts alike.
(Aquarius) - Exclaim magazine March 2011

Nina Simone's baritone brother - - Kevin O'Brien, Echo, Guelph, Ontario

"He can put together a good pop and jazz combination, has got some excellent throaty
projection and is one of the only artists I know that can throw chaotic improvisation
into the middle of a catchy tune."
- Geordi Dent, Jazzonen, 104.1FM, Bergen, Norway

"His combination of skill, clarity, and ambition is impressive."
- Alexander Varty, Georgia Straight, Vancouver, Canada

"Vancouver based Berube is...a total orginal in the tradition of exceptional
Canadian singer songwriters."
- Vancouver Province, 2004

Press Quotes from previous release What the River Gave the Boat (2007):


"Vibrant and outspoken...The detail Berube incorporates into his lyrics makes it hard not to see what he sees, and if What The River Gave The Boat can be so alluring, I can't imagine that his next album, What The Boat Gave The River, would be any less spectacular." EXCLAIM


"There is a deeper quality to people with a range of experiences, a bedrock vein of self-awareness, compassion, strength and insight. It's a quality that Vancouver songwriter Mark Berube embodies..." FFWD, Calgary, AB


"One of the best of the year...folk music without going on about it. Rare and raw and perfect. " EDMONTON SUN, AB


"Berube matures with every album and this might well be his breakout to a wider audience." THE RECORD, Guelph, ON


"...heart wrenching and simply gorgeous." A and E Vibe, 4.5 Stars


"What the River Gave the Boat is his fourth album and it serves as a good example of how to blend intelligent lyricism, interesting musical arrangement (not your typical boring folk bullshit), and effectively understated delivery into something even some redneck from Manitoba might pay attention to." NERVE MAGAZINE, Vancouver


"It's not just the choice of his words, which he does stunningly, but the salt and grit of experience and empathy in his voice that makes What The River Gave The Boat enough to sprain whatever existential muscle it is that ties the heart to the soul." ANY GIVE TUESDAY, Internet Music Review Zine, Baltimore, MA


"Its adagio-like string-fuelled poignancy so stirring it could be renamed the Berber Shop." DURHAM NEWS, Oshawa, ON


"Does anyone else feel that lump in their throat miraculously leaving as the final strains of strings and pounding drums take us to the end of the album, and Mark Berube shuts off the tape, and we are left alone again? SCORE: 8.9 / 10 , Two-way Monologues, Toronto, ON


"His good luck streak continues with elegant string arrangements, sympathetic production and a soaring voice that reminds us what Rufus Wainwright and Hawksley Workman would sound like if they weren't such drama queens. MICHAEL BARCLAY, EYE WEEKLY, Discovery of the Week, Toronto, ON
- Canadian Media

Album Title: Sketches from the Sidewalk
Release Date: January 2004
Rating: 4 1/2 stars
Genre: Pop/Rock

"Anyone who can make the accordion sound hip (“Puffed Candy”) and place the clarinet and upright bass side by side on an indie rock record MUST be a swing leader reincarnate. Berube’s soaring, warm vocals add an extra element to the vintage tones of his music, and when all the pomp is stripped away, his voice can obviously carry the album on its own if need be." - Jaclyn Arndt

- Soulshine - Canada's essential guide to new music

SKETCHES FROM THE SIDEWALK
MARK BERUBE
(KWALU) Rating: NNN


[Sketches from the sidewalk] "makes you feel like you've been hit in the face with a cream pie after finding out that your wife of 17 years has been cheating on you." - Jason Richards - NOW - Toronto's Entertainment Weekly