Edgar Breau
ALBUM REVIEWS:
- February 3, 2005 - Scene, London ON by Richard Moule
It's been more than a quarter century since Breay disbanded the legendary psych-garage band, Simply Saucer. In the interim, he abandoned the electric guitar, picked up the acoustic and used the time to perfect his finger picking and songwriting. On Canadian Primitive, Breau draws from high culture sources like W.B. Yeats and Hillaire Belloc and low ones like the sordid murder tragedy of Lorraine. Breau has a chameleon-like vocal style that ranges from the monotone of Lou Reed and the light aching flights of Robin Williamson and Syd Barrett. Likewise, the music veers between pastoral British folk and North American country and blues. In other words, somewhere between Merle Travis, John Fahey and Bert Jansch. - January 20, 2005 - Coast Magazine, Halifax NS by Sean Palmerston, Sonic Unyon
The unearthing of 1970s Hamilton band Simply Saucer was one of the revelations of 2003. The album's warm reception encouraged frontman Edgar Breau to offer up a dozen new songs. One grabber is "I Miss You My Nico," featuring the line "You deconstructionists can all go straight to Hell" and a sweet feedback ending. The sing-songy "Mad River" is dedicated to the Miramachi, making Canadian Primitive likely the first artwork to praise both New Brunswick and The Velvet Underground. - January 2005 - Gary Pig Gold's 2004 Review - COSMIK DEBRIS
Despite the continuing acclaim his vintage-Seventies Simply Saucer recordings invoke (that band made no less than "the best Canadian LP ever," in the opinion of Forced Exposure magazine for one), inquiring ears have oft wondered whatever mothership Edgar Breau has been up to lo this past quarter century since. Now, from the Great Wide land of flaming pink salmon, rainbow trout, and bodies afloat beneath the loons and yellow moonlight comes the answer. Like that other northern primitive Neil Young, Edgar's voice may swoop and scratchily soar as he paints his detailed tone poems, but it should be closely noted that the Breau-composed "Lorraine" encapsulates in a mere four-minutes-forty what it took Neil over an hour to pontificate clear across GREENDALE. Elsewhere, "I Miss You My Nico" not so much eulogizes as celebrates you-know-who as countless others, from Lou Reed on up, have tried but fallen far, far short of. Yes, Bruce Cockburn's darkest side; Leonard Cohen without the ladies; Lightfoot held prisoner in his olde rockin' chair: if you can recognize such a world, then you will be more than comfortable in this musical hiding place right alongside the one, and still only Edgar Breau. - December 2004, - ZOILUS' FAVOURITE CANADIAN ALBUMS OF 2004
Canadian Primitive gets another thumbs-up! ( Honourable mention) courtesy of Carl Wilson of the Globe & Mail. - November 15, 2004 - Hamilton Spectator
Simply Saucer's Breau rejects negativity and power chords to find solace in timeless poets and pop. He graciously nam! e checks Ray Davies and Syd Barrett, singing an unassuming, uplifting collection of folk-pop tunes. - November 14, 2004 - BLOG TO COMM
Spanning the years 1988 to 2004, CANADIAN PRIMITIVE shows just where Edgar has gone since that fateful day in 1979 when he decided to de-tune his electric guitar for good and just go acoustic. (Though the credits list Edgar on electric as well as the old-fashioned kinda guitbox, so who knows?) Those of you expecting the Simply Saucer sound of old will be in for a rude awakening because this ain't the electro-rock a whole lotta you big beat fans are awaitin'. Naw, this is acoustic rock, but not the simpysappy stuff that made mixed-up nature boys wanna run away to Colorado in the seventies...it's acoustic but maybe in the same way the third Velvet Underground album is, or even PARADIESWARTS DUUL even though CANADIAN PRIMITIVE sounds nothing like either of 'em.
» click here to read the whole blog - November 4, 2004 - NOW Magazine, Toronto
You'd never know it from listening to Simply Saucer's thrash and drone blasts, but the songwriting of Saucer commander Edgar Breau was evidently influenced as much by the outsider folk sorcery of Robbie Basho as by Lou Reed. It only follows that Breau's long-overdue solo debut would come off like some lost Takoma label artifact, complete with weird guitar tunings, unsettling off-key warbling and head-scratching flights of cryptic lyrical fancy. It doesn't rock, but at least it's intriguing. The Hamilton hoser needs to work on the whole mystique thing, though - some fur-trimmed robes and maybe a little gold face paint would be a good start. TIM PERLICH - November 4, 2004 - eye Weekly, Toronto
If Hamilton '70s psych-rock voyagers Simply Saucer were the Canuck Pink Floyd, it'd be tempting to peg SS braintrust Edgar Breau as our Syd Barrett, after the lead track on this solo album, "Precincts," has him coming off as an acid-ravaged curiosity doling out head scratching esoterica like "cacophony ratio baloney, oh." Further on, however, Canadian Primitive settles in to more conventional territory with Breau's sprightly ringing folk applied to sincere autobiographical ballads ("Mad River"), Dylan-esque yearning ("Slow Train"), seafaring yarns ("Handsome Sailor") and East Coast beer hoisting songs ("Rockin' Chair"). Yet, spells of Breau's trembling warble continue throughout, lending even the most traditional tales a slightly unsettling bent. RYAN WATSON - November 4, 2004 - Edgar Breau 'Quick Spins' review - Montreal Mirror, Montreal
Simply Saucer dude dazzles on this mainly acoustic outing.
Edgar Breau - Canadian Primitive (2006)After a 25 year hiatus -Edgar Breau re-emerges with a new acoustic collection of eclectic proportions.