The Art of Surfacing: Great Lake Swimmers Rise Above with 'Lost Channels'

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IT'S EASY TO ASSUME that gentle folk sound made by the Toronto indie buzz band the Great Lake Swimmers was forged from years of listening to all those fantastic folkies from north of the border. The group's thoughtful, literate songs wouldn't sound out of place alongside works by Joni Mitchell, Ian and Sylvia or even Neil Young in his more acoustic moments.

But ask the Swimmers' singer-songwriter Tony Dekker what inspired him to pick up a guitar and you get an unexpected answer. "That came from the punk rock world," he says by phone during a tour stop in New England. "The Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Minor Threat. Bands along those lines are the first ones that impressed me musically."

The high school-age Dekker thrashed it out in punk rock outfits until he split for the University of Western Ontario to study literature. Bringing only an acoustic guitar along to college, he began to "write songs with open chords" and found his voice as an artist.

"I feel like I came back around to the old school country music that I heard as a kid," he explains. "It was sort of in my bones, but not necessarily inspiring for me to make music. It took something with a lot more energy and passion to hook me in musically."

The band's real breakthrough has come this year with the release of their fourth full-length CD, "Lost Channels." The record's super-catchy lead single, "Pulling on a Line," became a substantial stateside college radio hit.

"Overall, I was trying to be more concise in the songwriting, so that I wouldn't waste any space or words in the medium," Dekker says of the CD. Almost like punk rock.

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with the Wooden Birds and Sharon Van Etten; Thu., Oct. 1, 8 p.m., $13/$15; 202-667-7960. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Tony Sclafani
Photo courtesy Candace Meyer