The term Western Canada often brings to mind iconic images such as Lake Louise, the Rockies, or a Mountie on a horse framed by Lake Louise and the Rockies... but shift a tad east to the heart of the west, Saskatchewan, and you'll find flat plains and huge vista skies. This is the Canada of Andy Shauf, a criminally ignored singer/songwriter whose audience deserves to be much, much bigger. Beginning with his debut full length, 2008's Darker Days, and followed by 2012's The Bearer of Bad News, Shauf with his multi-instrumental ability and singular voice (like a young boy with downcast eyes and a big heart) has inched ever closer to perfection in the wide open fields of indie folk pop. Actually, Baroque pop can also describe the songs of Andy Shauf, what with the classy piano figures and creamy blue clarinets found throughout his minor chord gems. After countless demos, bedroom/basement recordings, EPs and full lengths Shauf has worked his songwriting to a fine point which would be hard to ignore. And now after touring and playing the best songs of his career—from the four-year-in-the-making The Bearer of Bad News—Shauf is likely once again in a dark corner of Regina, Saskatchewan, surrounded by guitars, mandolins, drums, and clarinet (also banjo, piano, etc.) piecing together the jigsaw of another 'musical' broken heart... all for our benefit.
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