Cici Arthur // Way Through LP

カナダ・トロントの音楽家Joseph ShabasonとThom Gill、Chris A. CummingsによるトリオCici Arthurが、2025年2月にアメリカの老舗レーベルWestern Vinylからリリースしたレコードです。

アダルト・ジャズポップ8曲を収録。歌詞インサート付属。

以下、レーベルによる解説です。

"何年も同じ地域に住んでいても、そのレイアウトに驚かされることがある。交通渋滞を避けようとしたり、週末の朝に時間をつぶしてぶらぶら歩いたりすると、子供の頃に住んでいた家の隠し部屋の夢のように、この地区の新しいポケットが現れて、目新しさと戸惑いが入り混じる。突然、見覚えのある十字路が現れると、数秒間は今までの新天地との折り合いがつかなくなる。角を曲がったところに古いランドマークが姿を現し、論理が戻ってくる。この数分間を見慣れない場所で過ごしたにもかかわらず、おそらくあなたは自分の住んでいる地域からほとんど出ていない。

トロントのミュージシャン、クリス・カミングス、ジョセフ・シャバソン、トム・ギルのCici Arthur名義によるコラボレーション・アルバム『Way Through』の背景には、このような道しるべがある。プロデューサー兼インストゥルメンタリストのシャバソンとギルは、カミングスのヴォーカルと作曲を披露する大規模なセットピースを作ろうと、彼らのブランドであるスマートで倒錯したアダルト・コンテンポラリーの美学を、アントニオ・カルロス・ジョビンのミッドセンチュリー・スリンクやフランク・シナトラのロマンティックな華やかさの近くに置いた。『Way Through』では、シャバソンのこれまでの事業の共同体精神をパノラマ的な高みへと導き、ドラムのフィル・メランソン（サム・ゲンデル、サム・アミドン、アンディ・シャウフ）や頻繁にコラボレートしているニコラス・クルゴヴィッチから、有名なアレンジャーでヴァイオリニストのオーウェン・パレットまでが参加し、30人編成のオーケストラを率いている。おそらく最も重要なのは、ヴォーカリストのドロシー・パスが、キャピトル・レコード全盛期のセッションにコア・トリオのテイクを融合させながら、ガラスのようなハーモニーを奏でることだろう。その結果は、ジョセフ・シャバソンの軌道上にある多くの音楽と同様で、人間らしさと脆弱さを中心点として回転し、その最も巨大な要素さえも手の届くところに心地よく配置されている。"

レーベルその他作品はこちら /// Click here to see more Western Vinyl releases available at Tobira. 

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12" black vinyl.

Tracklist:

1. Way Through
2. All So Incredible 
3. Cartwheels For Coins 
4. Stolen Joy
5. Damaged Goods
6. Prior Times
7. Felt In An Instant
8. No Fight Or Flight (So Much Tenderness) 

Western Vinyl:

"Even after years of living in the same area, there can be mind-bending moments of revelation about its layout. An attempt to avoid traffic, or a time-killing meander on a weekend morning gives way to a mix of novelty and confusion as a new pocket of the district materializes like a dream about hidden rooms in a childhood home. Suddenly a recognizable cross street appears, and for a few seconds it’s hard to reconcile with all the new ground that was just covered. Just around the corner the old landmarks take shape, and logic returns. Despite spending the last several minutes in a seemingly unfamiliar place, perhaps you barely left your own neighborhood, if at all.

This kind of pathfinding lies behind the name Way Through, a collaborative album between Toronto musicians Chris Cummings, Joseph Shabason, and Thom Gill under the moniker Cici Arthur. Seeking to create large-scale setpieces to showcase Cummings’ vocals and writing, producer-instrumentalists Shabason and Gill have parked their brand of smartly subverted adult contemporary aesthetics near the mid-century slink of Antonio Carlos Jobim, or the romantic opulence of Frank Sinatra. Way Through takes the communal spirit of Shabason’s previous ventures to panoramic heights, featuring everyone from drummer Phil Melanson (Sam Gendel, Sam Amidon, Andy Shauff) and frequent collaborator Nicholas Krgovich, to famed arranger and violinist Owen Pallet who helms an honest-to-God thirty-piece orchestra for the affair. Perhaps most importantly, vocalist Dorothea Pass winds glassy harmonies through all the moving parts, emulsifying the core trio’s take on a heyday Capitol Records session. The result is akin to so much music in Joseph Shabason’s orbit in that it spins around a centerpoint of humanness and vulnerability, placing even its most colossal elements comfortingly within arm’s reach.

The seeds of the album were sowed in 2020 when Chris Cummings lost his job of twenty years amid the COVID shockwaves. In his early fifties with his Plan A having lapsed, Chris found himself diving into full-time music creation for the first time in his life. The leap of faith inspired his collaborators, galvanizing them to thoughtfully tailor arrangements just for him. “I wanted to make a really big sounding record for Chris, to really figure out a way to call in favors and make this album as grand as I possibly could,” Shabason recalls of Way Through’s Creed Taylor ethos. “I really wanted Chris to sing to fully mixed songs so that it was in the spirit of playing with a full band with all the energy of hearing an orchestra swell behind him with horns blaring,” he continues, “and I think this is the grandest approach to making a record that I have ever embarked on.”

The resulting outsize backdrop sits in poetic contrast to Cummings’ comparatively discreet delivery and intimate lyricism. Steering the Shabason-Gill cruise liner with delicate intonation and quiet introspection, Cummings paints a picture of city lights gleaming in rain puddles, mapping subtle emotional territories within the urban gloom while resigning in a kind of joyous ennui. “If I could be all that once looked so great and grand, I would have died for an occasion to rise to,” he sings through the horn section of ‘Cartwheels for Coins’, “but it’s a gray sky, nothing to say, mixed emotions always get in the way”. Lines like these epitomize Way Through; when the bandstand empties out and the singer finds himself alone on a darkened soundstage, the emotional complexities of life still lie waiting to be confronted. Cummings lends a literary counterweight to Shabason and Gill’s sonic splendor, and in doing so spotlights the inherent tension between pragmatism and ambition. As a film major who was raised by community theater actors before taking up music as his main creative outlet, it’s evident that Cummings has grappled with this polarity in his own life (not to mention the perfect sense this makes out of Way Through’s filmic overtones).

Punctuating the cinematic heft, the decidedly uptempo midpoint ‘Damaged Goods’ bounces and strolls around Dorothea Pass’s doo-wop harmonies giving affirmation to anyone coming out of a troubled relationship, while the successive piece ‘Prior Times’ addresses those very relationships head-on. “Honestly, I was-- and am still-- very affected by romantic relationships I had before I met my wife,” Chris admits, explaining that the track “tells about a time when I was caught in an unhappy situation, looking back on happier times, and being hit with the painful realization that time doesn't go backwards.” With its understated Samba lilt, the song lands Cici Arthur closest to their aforementioned Jobim/Gilberto target and serves as the stylistic centerpiece. The pensive and movielike ‘No Fight Or Flight (So Much Tenderness)’ brings the album to its finale over one of Owen Pallet’s verdant string arrangements, marking one of the fullest realizations of Joseph Shabason and Thom Gill’s production aspirations-- and likely reaching far beyond what Cummings ever imagined when his life completely changed a few long years ago.

Back in 2020, newly careerless and grasping at an uncertain future in a world of uncertain futures, Chris found himself taking exploratory bike trips through nearby suburban areas he’d never been to before. His attempts to avoid the bustle of major roads would lead either to dead ends or completely new ways of seeing the geography of a city he’d lived in for decades, mirroring the joy and heartbreak of life’s circuitous path. “What good are dead ends when I’m looking through a way through,” he repeats on the album’s title track over the crest of a weary and sweet brass section. “When the miracle you’d hoped for never comes it’s hard to take, but it’s your fault for hoping.” For all of Way Through’s orchestral technicolor wonder, Cummings delivers refreshingly honest doses of realism about how dreams unfold across a lifetime. "

Artist : Cici Arthur

Label : Western Vinyl

CAT No : WV269lp