![]() ![]() They added further texture to Downie's voice and otherworldly energy at the time, a blast of light that Finlayson hoped wouldn't dim as quickly as it did. Those acoustic takes ended up being more than a keepsake, but something to share with the world. “I wanted it as a document of what the two of us had done.” “At the end of the four days, as Nyles was mixing everything down, I said: `Can you spit out an acoustic version? Just my guitar and Gord's voice?”' Finlayson remembers. Without a structure, Finlayson and Spencer were given room to maneuver with their own ideas. Others dropped in to contribute, including Downie's eldest son, Louis, on the drums and Travis Good of the Sadies who picked up a few stringed instruments. The studio's manager Nyles Spencer engineered the recordings. Downie proposed a trip to the Bathouse to record them. “So I would go over every week for a visit… and the idea of writing songs and playing music, always a big part of our relationship, came about.”įinlayson said they hadn't planned to make a record, but once Downie started recording on his GarageBand music software, it wasn't long before they were holding a trove of songs. “He felt writing the book was a little too isolating,” added Josh Finlayson, a long-time friend and collaborator. Downie had slowed his frenetic pace and centred his attention on writing a book, but his brother said he wrestled with the structure of the story. ![]() He returned to the studio to add the finishing touches to “Introduce Yerself” in February 2017. Those were set to music during studio sessions in January 2016 and eventually became the album “Introduce Yerself.”Īfter he publicly acknowledged his cancer diagnosis in May 2016, Downie embarked on the ambitious final Hip tour that summer, and made another run of performances for his Chanie Wenjack album “Secret Path” in the fall. He started by writing a series of letters to loved ones. “Away is Mine” is a bookend to Downie's legacy, but it's also a culmination of two years of intense creation that began after he learned of his cancer diagnosis in late 2015. “This is Gord at topflight - totally unshackled and not having to worry about polishing up the details.” “I think he really trusted what was coming through him,” Patrick Downie said in a recent phone interview. The double album presents those tracks in fully produced “electric” versions and stripped-down acoustic takes, offering two different perspectives on a vibrant period for the artist. Three months after the tapes stopped rolling, Downie was no longer of this earth.Īt 53 years old, he left behind 10 songs that embraced life's vigour, the connections we make, and the unpredictable beyond that lays ahead. The recordings were laid down over several days in July 2017 at the Tragically Hip's famed Bathouse studio in Bath, Ont. “Away is Mine,” released earlier this month, captures that moment in time unlike any of Gord Downie's other work. Gord Downie always wrote songs to “figure out life's puzzle,” Patrick Downie says.īut as the iconic Canadian troubadour faced an incurable form of brain cancer, his younger sibling believes he was saying goodbye through his music. TORONTO - When Patrick Downie listens to the final songs recorded by his late brother, he hears a man who's found peace.
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