Must be the season, but this week we’re awash in heartfelt love songs and social evaluations. A BC artist now based in Toronto, Wes Carroll and his band Confabulation have released their second studio album Elephant in the Sea. Much like their critically liked debut Off Empire, this one features five vocal tunes and five instrumentals. Genre-wise it messes with modern jazz, hip hop, soul and balladry.

Guitarist, vocalist, rapper and songwriter Carroll honed his craft at Vancouver Island University’s jazz studies program (2014) and is currently doing a master's in jazz performance at the University of Toronto. He walks a virtual tight-rope delicately balancing detailed arrangements with the power of spontaneity. He creates topical songs about issues including social justice, surveillance, mental health, climate change and the requisite love songs. In five years, while maintaining its jazz base, the band has stretched out to include hip-hop grooves, soul and electronica.

With the DNA of a rock’n’roll road dog in his genes, no surprise that Devin Cuddy’s all ready to take the band on its second cross-Canada tour this year, supporting current cookie Kitchen Knife. So it’s all stops in between Halifax to Vancouver on a tour that began on October 3. “It’s very important to us to bring this show to the doorsteps of Canadians everywhere”, says Devin Cuddy. “So come on out”.

Young Cuddy’s got something dif to offer in his rootsy country rock in that he passes on trends in favour of getting close to the sources of original rock’n’roll, honky tonk style country, barrelhouse piano, blues and jazz. So far it’s working out for the boy, having scored him a Juno nom for Roots / Traditional Album of the Year for his first record, Vol 1.Cuddy has said that Kitchen Knife was more of a ‘studio’ album that the debut, so checking how it translates live’ll be a bonus.

http://www.devincuddy.com