Gentle but powerful truth telling
Showcasing the more intimate elements of Hines’ artistry, his first CD is titled Sides. Fourteen tracks were culled from more than thirty he composed over the past several years, when he feels he came into his own as a songwriter –“I’ve done a lot of living, learning and growing in that time,” Justin says. “I made a conscious effort to abandon any trends, I just wanted to do something that was very honest. I wanted to just be Justin, whatever that was.” It was, and is, a classic sounding confessional that reaches out to listeners with songs drawn from life, both highs and lows, that resonate with the bond of shared experience by virtue of his gentle but powerful truth telling.
| every player |
| had their part and each part was |
| important |
The album evolved through Hines’ collaboration with Justin Abedin, one of Toronto’s most respected musicians and producers. Proving himself a master of understated but persuasive production, Abedin also helped assemble an elite group of Toronto-based musicians – Mark Mariash, Drew Birston, Ron Lopata, Kevin Fox, Denis Keldie and Roger Travassos – for tracking sessions at Toronto’s Canterbury Sound. They mixed at the city’s famed Phase One Studios and mastered in NYC with Scott Hull (John Mayer, Steely Dan), capturing the ensemble with pristine clarity. “Our idea,” says Hines, “was for every player to have their part and for each part to be important. We kept it very individual, nothing too over the top or sonically overwhelming.”
The title track “Sides,” from Justin’s soul-searching debut album, is a poetic summation of the “glass is half full” worldview that’s a keystone of Justin’s life and art, something embodied consistently in his music. He conveys it here with lines including, “...here on my side, it’s not the dirt on your soles but the diamonds in your eyes” and “it’s not the sun goin’ down it’s just the moon’s time to shine.” “This song came out of the fact that I’m often told my perspective is a tad unique,” says Justin, “I see a different side of things.”
Hines says the album opener, “There’s Always Next Time,” “was written after coming to the conclusion that a particular relationship wasn’t happening. I’m a believer in amicable partings. I hope I captured the beauty in endings, not the drama.” “April On The Ground,” the joyful, moving first single – for which there’s an equally affecting video companion – is also about reaching a turning point and moving on. “It uses the metaphor of spring being just around the corner,” he says, “and getting past winter to a brighter season.” “For It’s You,” which Justin calls, “a simple song about my faith,” stirs heart and mind with poetry and devotion. Sides’ only cover, Jim Croce’s “I’ve Got A Name,” is “my dad’s all time favorite,” says Hines. “He introduced me to it when I was little, and it was an inspiration.”Hines manages to both channel Croce and make the song his own through his heartfelt connection to it. Justin cites as one of his own favorites the song “Never After,” which he says took him an uncharacteristically long time to write. “I met someone that really had an impact on me,” he says, adding, “it was never a Romeo and Juliet thing, but we had a bond, and still do, that’s really close and I can’t quite explain it. I wanted to try and capture the essence of that.” Songs like “Wish You Well”, provide comfort for our soul as we reminisce the past, present and future of the ones we love now or have lost to the great beyond. The final track, “Another Way To Cry,” a minimalist gem featuring Justin’s vocals backed by only a piano for a song that explores, “how we’re all kind of hurting, and we all show it in very different ways. I want to encourage people to find the beauty in the darkest situations.” |
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