Honestly, I do try to like everything I hear as it passes over my desk in the offices of the Broken Pencil Music Department. But, like most folk, my immediate mood affects my outlook on whatever music I’m currently hearing. I was chopping onions and garlic for spaghetti sauce and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life as this CD by nomadic percussionist Morgan Doctor played in the background. Suffice to say, I was in a reflective and inadvertently tearful mood so for the first little while Doctor’s meditative trip hop slipped right under my radar and provided a suitably lambent backdrop to my dour navel-gazing. But when I shook myself to my senses, the limpid ambience of her tracks began to grate. I can only be lulled for so long, at least in the middle of the afternoon, so I had to quiet the good Doctor after one of her more engaging vocal tracks-this one sung by Tamara Williamson-and get on with my day. (Terence Dick)
CD, Aporia Records Inc., 201-181 Carlaw Ave., Toronto, ON, M4M 2S1, www.aporia-records.com, www.morgandoctor.com