Great Lake SwimmersGreat Lake Swimmers

Capturing light is not easy: ask any outdoor photographer. In order to capture the perfect shot, one has to be ready for fragmentary shifts in illumination. In that spirit, Caught Light is Great Lake Swimmers ninth album, and perhaps their most nimble: be prepared, dont overthink, act fast.Founder Tony Dekker has always been akin to a wildlife photographer, often choosing to make records in unique surroundings with a connection to Ontario history. This time, he holed up in the Ganaraska Forest, between Peterborough and Port Hope, with producer Darcy Yates (Bahamas) and engineer Jimmy Bowskill (Blue Rodeo). Their goal was to tap the warmth of early 70s folk/pop/rock, whether it be the cozy sonic sweater of Gordon Lightfoots classic work, or the gentleness of underrated American songwriter Dory Previn. Dekker made everyone listen to John Martyns 1971 album Bless the Weather before the session.For the first time, Dekker ceded control to a producer, albeit one who had once been the bassist in Great Lake Swimmers (2007-08). Yates chose the studio and the backing band, which included veteran drummer Gary Craig (Bruce Cockburn, Jann Arden), who Dekker calls the Jim Keltner of Canada. Tracking was completed in three days, Nashville-style, with only two days of overdubs, including Colleen Browns backing vocals. Compare that with 2023s Uncertain Country, which took three pandemic-stricken years to make.Caught Light was captured in the shortest amount of time Dekker had ever spent making a record, and its likely to be the one with perhaps the longest impact. Thats because Caught Light is not just the most fully realized Great Lake Swimmers album in years, but it also leads off with two of Dekkers strongest singles.One More Dance Around the Sun is an open-window, summer-driving song to accompany a golden-hour trip through the backroads of your childhood hometown. Dekker himself moved back to the Niagara area during the pandemic, with his partner and two young children. I spent the first half of my life trying to get out of the small town where I was born and raised, and Im spending the second half getting back there, says the songwriter who lived in Toronto his entire adult life until now. Its an ode to the familiarity and the joy in that and the repetition of seeing the same faces and places, knowing all of that very well. Its also important to feel grounded in community, to feel the power of that in a specific place, keeping ones moral compass fixed in the right direction.