Artiste à découvrir: Alden Penner

For a young man just shy of thirty years old, Montreal musician Alden Penner's musical life story would already fill several weighty volumes of love, life, drama and art. Rising to international indie fame as a teen as one third of the creative lightning strike unit The Unicorns, Penner and co. (fellow British Columbia native, songwriter and guitarist Nick Thornburn and drummer Jamie Thompson) sadly disbanded after their third album in 2004, the amazing Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, a result of growing tensions, endless touring, and general music industry bullshit.
 
Post-Unicorns, Alden Penner did not rest on his laurels, dabbling in solo work as well as scoring a soundtrack for the independent Canadian film 'The Hamster Cage', his path eventually leading him back to working as part of an ensemble. 2007 saw him debut his quirky pop project CLUES, whose Constellation Records release two years later announced a new force to be reckoned with, their flame sadly put out soon after though. Almost immediately, Penner reunited with Unicorns drummer Jaime Thompson under the guise of Hidden Words, greatly inspired by the former’s newfound Bahá'í Faith set to music in the form of their one and only album Free thyself from the fetters of this world.
 
To fully understand the genius of Alden Penner, his recent solo work is where you should be focusing all your attention. Starting with the alone acoustic Malian-guitar strummings of 2011’s Odes To The House E.P., through to the somber folk meets pop meets rock odes we hear on this year’s Precession E.P. and the brand, brand new Exegesis full-length, Penner has almost come full-circle, recapturing the giddy musical excitement of his youth while now inhabiting the body and soul of a man way wise beyond his years, and perfectly encapsulating all of the sights, sounds, and words of his already-veteran career.