****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
If Canada's Ian Tamblyn is known at all south of the border, it's for his fine all-instrumental releases, including Over My Head and Antartica, which fuse Tamblyn's field recordings of wildlife and other natural sounds with acoustic folkish music that verges on ambient. But for more than two decades he's also been among Canada's first rank of singer-songwriters, with a gift for gorgeous melodies and spare, often wry lyrics. Even in a career of great consistency and integrity-much like that of fellow Canuck Bruce Cockburn-A Body Must Travel stands out. A near flawless collection, it punctuates songs about the road and its destinations with brief snippets of field recordings-the likes of Inuit throat singers etc. The production is lean and tasteful, with Tamblyn's superb acoustic guitar and expressive, slightly world-weary voice dominant. A deeply felt, often-moving release, this is a perfect introduction to an artist who receives too little attention even at home.
