TOUS DANS L'MEME BATEAU

Debut album from this combo emanating from a communal art association in Northern Ontario, and quite a pleasant surprise for the proghead looking for progressive folk music. Heavily laced with the rude weather and rough wildlife mixed with a superbly generous hippydom, Cano's music shines in this writer's memories of a happy "teendom". Memories of campfire with girls (and condoms;-), beers (and doobies;-) and guitars (and bongos;-) on a lakeside beach (called Creemore Dirtywater Upheaval;-) with the stereo blasting Harmonium or Rush certainly, but also of Cano. The album came with a superb artwork evocating the old Pioneering days with Fur traders, Canoes and portages, which represent one facet on CANO.

Cano's music certainly reflects the calm pastoral life of the mid-Northern Ontario, where French and English speakers lived alongside with few problems (in later albums Cano will also sing tracks in English), but as mentioned above, the rough conditions. Apart of the stunning 8-min opener (Viens Nous Voir inviting you to jump in their wonderful world), most of the first side is relatively short folk rock (trad folk as main inspiration but with a clear Acadian flavor) tracks, depicting crazy old fools (Mederic - a jig), to boring Sunday Afternoons and getting lost in the big cities (Rues D'Ottawa). The piano playing is sometimes reminding me of the one in Skynyrd's Freebird.

The second side of the album was made of two lengthy stunners with a short interlude separating them. En Plein Hiver, depicting the winter "blah" (Ontarians will appreciate) with this especially beautiful spirit that Harmonium managed on their debut and the Cinquième Saison. As will be usual, Cano start slowly and calmly, taking their time in building a sweet but implacable crescendo, to culminate superbly, and then ending in a short recap of the intro. In some way, if people asked how rush could make so much "noise" being just a trio, one of the most intriguing antithesis of that is how could an octet such as Cano be so delicate? The closing Baie St-Marie (written by Marcel Aymar who also had done the opening salvo) is probably a better tourist postcard than any possible picture could probably: as cymbals, seagulls, creaking wooden boats will gradually lead into an acoustic strumming guitar doubled by an electric piano, bongos, a swinging funky electric guitar, then drums and a superb violin (remember this was an octet), the track is now into a delightful groove with Kohut's violin twirling, swirling, twiddling, circling, flying from one ear to the other. Believe me, you'll want to visit the place that inspired such a great musical moment. In the middle section, the track slows back down to allow a sleepy trumpet answers the seagulls and the dramatic violin underlining the sea-lost father (Acadian hardships are never really far away from the superb lyrics) and a solemn end. I think I found my next holiday destination (once more;-).

Both Cds are now coming with fully translated lyrics. I wonder if these guys actually ever considered their music to be the equivalent in quality of the great folk-prog groups that are included in our beloved Archives, but their more ambitious tracks certainly stand out with the masters of the genre.

''Coopérative des Artistes du Nouvel-Ontario'' was a French-Canadian artistic community based in Ontario,Canada,which included not only musicians,but also sculptors,actors,painters and other people,who devoted themselves to the language of art.Regarding the bunch of musicians around CANO,they were lead by singer/guitarist Andre Paiement,who was also member of New Ontario's Theatre,and wrote most of the material of the band's debut.No less than eight musicians participated on this first effort of CANO,supported by various guest musicians on different traditioonal instruments.Actually the band owned a farm near Sturgeon Falls,where most of the recordings took place.

''Tous Dans L'Meme Bateau'',released in 1976,was a mix of pleasant Folk tunes with more intricate pieces of Folk Rock music,like the dark opener ''Viens nous voir'',featuring beautiful violins and acoustic guitars accompanied by the poetic performance of Paiement.The four short followers are nothing more than Pop-Folk tracks with somekind of a rural edge,based mostly on pleasant harmonica and violin passages along with joyful voices,where I notice the sensitive voice of Paiement's sister Rachel (listen to the nice piano-ballad Les rues d'Ottawa).

Placing side B,I was really a bit dissapointed,expecting musically much more from the almost 10-min. long ''En plein hiver''.About half of the track is covered by intense lyrical music with strong acoustic content and ethereal choirs and you'll have to wait for the middle-section for some fine instrumental music with electric piano battling with bass,congas and even some electric guitar sounds.''Chanson pour Suzie'',sung by Rachel Paiement, functions as a bridge between the previous track and the closer ''Baie St. Marie''.Here the traditional folk side of CANO blends with their Art Rock nature.Wasyl Kohut mixes seagulls' effects with violin solos supported by David C. Burt's mellow electric guitar,before the vocal section introduces the listener to the jazzy side of CANO with some good instrumental playing and a horn section delivering deep funky sounds until the end.

As for the rating this is a hard decision.The truth is that the pure Folk tracks hold no particular interest for the prog fans.Regarding the three longer ones,the opener and closer of the album will leave every prog fan rather satisfied,while ''En plein hiver'' holds some interest for the half of its duration.So my true rating is close to 2.5 stars,but I will have to go with the 2 stars here,as my final taste is that the album heads mainly to fans/collectors of Folk-Rock.Admirers of Classic Prog or more adventuruous listenings will propably be dissapointed by ''Tous Dans L'Meme Bateau''.

CANO is most famous for being one of the most successful French Canadian bands that didn't come from Quebec but the lesser known French Canadian regions of northern Ontario. This band was established in Sudbury in 1970 as the Coopérative des Artistes du Nouvel-Ontario or Cooperative of Northern Ontario which once turned into an anagram became the band CANO which the band adopted as its moniker in 1975. While the band was a musical group, the collective also had many other projects including owning a collective farm in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario where the band did much of its recording.

Once CANO was officially formed in 1975, the group was reduced to eight members along revolving around singer/guitarists André Paiement and Rachel Paiement, violinist Wasyl Kohut, guitarists Marcel Aymar and David Burt, pianist Michel Kendel, bassist John Doerr and drummer Michel Dasti. Focusing on both traditional French folk songs and original material by Aymar, the Palements and the Canadian poet Robert Dickson, the band recorded five albums in its ten year existence with this debut TOUS DAN L'MEME BATEAU ( All In The Same Boat ) which came out in late 1976. CANO was sensitive to the divisive nature of English vs French in the Canadian psyche and was instrumental in bridging the gap by performing live by singing in both French and English although on this debut all lyrics are in the French language.

TOUS DAN L'MEME BATEAU features a unique mix of French-Canadian folk music, folk rock and progressive rock with the three highlights of "Viens Nour Voir," "En Plein Hiver" and "Baie Ste-Marie" all extending past the 8 minute playing time with the rest of the album featuring shorter tracks with varying styles. The diversity of the album is stark as some tracks are soft and lush symphonic folk with female vocals while others are rowdy country-infused songs with more aggressive masculine vocals. The album's polarity is strong with "Le vieux Médéric" featuring high octane rocking tempos and the following "Les rues d'Ottawa" drifting into dreamy acoustic driven folk with piano rolls.

With twelve members and guests performing, the album's sound is lush with guitars, bass, piano and percussion intermingling with Turkish cymbals, harmonica, trombones, mandolin, a clarinet and various percussion instruments including congas. The melodies are quite accessible with the complexities resulting from the sophisticated use of timbres and extended compositional fortitude with extended solos, neo-classical elements and symphonic counterpoints however the progressive tendencies would be ramped up even more on the band's second album "Au Nord du Notre Vie" which emerged the following year. The album's dreamy album cover art pretty much conveys perfectly what you get here, a mostly lush stream of folk based progressive rock with nice experimental touches yet based in traditional sounds.

CANO enjoyed quite a bit of success even on an international scale with its first two albums but band leader André Paiement committed suicide in 1978 and left the band struggling to find its way and although three more albums were released, both the band's musical quality and popularity took a dip. While i wouldn't call this debut by CANO an essential listening experience, it is sure an enjoyable slice of 1970s French prog folk and a historical lesson of French prog emerging from Canada outside the province of Quebec. While the tracks are decently done, there's also none that really stick out as unabashed masterpieces. This is merely a pleasant dreamy album to encounter with a few more upbeat countrified numbers.