Woolly Leaves

This nine-song, half-hour mini-album by the Guelph guitar and drums duo led by songwriter Will Kidman (who played all the parts on this home-recorded effort) unsurprisingly betrays its creator's good-natured, soft-spoken and understated demeanour. It gradually charms the listener by being at once whimsically tentative and boldly self-assured, a trait Kidman shares in a way with such fellow underground Can-rock hushed strainers as Jim Guthrie and Rick White. In fact, while it may be tempting to initially reduce the Woolly Leaves' sound to a cross between the former's sprightly pop parables and the latter's more laconic riff-rock tendencies, such moments on Dew Dab as the mildly Polvoed-out slide break punctuating "On And Off And Down The Way" or the chopped-up boogie-rock of "Ayr" reveals a decidedly unique and unflashy ability to play with structure that definitely puts Will's own stamp on things. A limited-edition run of hand-printed CD-Rs are available now directly from the band, with a pressing on Die!Venom (having already long been the home of bedroom pop co-conspirator Heidi Hazelton) soon to follow in the coming months. Seek this out.