Jason Collett - Reckon (2012)

Tracklist

CD1
01. Pacific Blue
02. Jasper Johns Flag
03. King James Rag
04. Sailor Boy
05. Ask No Questions
06. You're Not The One And Only Lonely One
07. Miss Canada
08. Talk Radio
09. I Wanna Rob A Bank
10. Where Things Go Wrong
11. Song Of The Silver-Haired Hippie
12. Black Diamond Girl
13. My Daddy Was A RocknRoller
14. Don't Let The Truth Get To You
15. When The War Came Home

CD2
01. Bitter Beauty
02. Blue Sky
03. We All Lose One Another
04. Hangover Days
05. I'll Bring The Sun
06. No Redemption Song
07. Charlyn, Angel Of Kensington
08. Brother
09. Long May You Love
10. Love Is A Dirty Word
11. Every Night

More than a few American songwriters have been weighing in on the troubled state of the nation in the election year of 2012, and Jason Collett (best known for his work with Broken Social Scene) confirms similar anxieties are brewing north of the border in Canada as he takes a long, hard look at North American malaise on his album Reckon. As the Occupy movement poses questions about global economic equality, Collett takes a jaunty but pointed look at the lives of the haves versus the have-nots in "I Wanna Rob a Bank," while the exploitation of Third World peoples for their minerals and jewels is an undercurrent in "Black Diamond Girl," the economic and environmental impact of oil exploration informs "Miss Canada," "Talk Radio" is a brief but affecting look at one man watching the world and the culture he knows crumbling around him, and the troubling state of the world as summarized in "When the War Came Home" and "Don't Let the Truth Get to You." Politics isn't all Collett has on his mind on Reckon, but there are plenty of other signs here of a world where ethics are in short supply -- the unfaithful husband of "Ask No Questions," the oblique musings on patriotism in "Jasper Johns' Flag," the lover's lament of "You're Not the One and Only Lonely One," and a lifetime of disappointment hovering in the air in "When Things Go Wrong." Collett doesn't rant on Reckon, and the subdued tone of this music hardly makes it sound like a call to arms, but he's more than capable of making himself heard without shouting, and the artful dynamics of the music reinforce the intelligent disdain of the music. If Collett sometimes sounds like he's viewing these events from a distance, he sees some details the folks in the thick of the action might have missed, and Reckon is a statement that hits hard (and close to home) if you'll give it a careful listen.

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