Focused, specific and intriguing stories flow from Canadian Bryce Kulak’s pen, piano and appealing voice. In the tradition of Randy Newman’s quirkiness but without the craggy, raggy rough edges, Bryce finds the humanity in his anti-heroes and shines a light on human folly and foibles. In narrator mode, he has affection for his odd, isolated characters. He sees the hearts hidden or damaged that belong to these oddballs, like nine-year-old masochistic sociopath-in-training “Sad Victoria” or, in “Letters from Sadie,” a woman trapped (maybe) in a life with a lifeless marriage who suspects “there must be more.” Kulak characters might be latter-day Eleanor Rigbys or the quirkiest people from a J. D. Salinger or John Irving novel. Or one just might be you, through the warm haze of childhood memory, as in the title song (covered by D.C. Anderson on a recent D.C. C.D.).

In an interesting juxtaposition, songs exploring life’s minutiae and claustrophobic relationships are dressed with grand, glorious gravitas and elegant flourishes. Some come from his own fine piano work; he was trained in the classics and it shows. Creative arranger-orchestrator Darren Fung shapes things with classical influences and the elegance of solo string players.

These are well-crafted, articulate, literate songs with word choices like “wherewithal,” “skulky,” “aubergine,” but the writer then surprises us with an expletive or just gets fed up with the “sickening charm with mock refinement” of an erstwhile “Friend.” Two versions of a musical setting of poet W.H. Auden’s devastatingly bleak 1940 “Funeral Blues” show further skill. Young Mr. Kulak is as adept at evoking the woes of a pair of lovers as he is at lightly personifying a sadly separated pair of socks—due to careless laundry habits—in mock sock sorrow. The cool Kulak meditates or boldly states—and always captivates.

Rob Lester
Cabaret Scenes
May 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org