Album Notes

‘A jagged and unexpected road’ must be the best way to describe the path that Canadian singer-songwriter Morgan Finlay has marched in the last five years, leading to the release of his second full-length record, ‘Shifting Through The Breakers’ (Sound of Liberation/Brisco Bodai). Here, on his fifth release, it is these miles of unrest, search, and questioning that collide and ring through to listeners… humans, each shifting through their own changes.

This is, of course, the very reason that Morgan Finlay’s international fanbase feels so involved in his career, monitoring his adventures from the beginning on the Canadian campus circuit, to the winding roads of the European continent. With the indie success of 2005’s ‘Everything Will Work Out Right’, which marked a hopeful vision strung together by driving rockers ('zensong', 'Inside', 'In A Perfect World') while hinting at a deeply contemplative sub-surface ('Far Beyond Words', 'Seattle'), his listeners have grown to recognize themselves in the Vancouver native’s songs. The record was well-received by critics, enjoying airplay in Canada, Australia and Germany (charting at several Canadian college radio stations), and kicking open a wave of possibility, including an endorsement from Seagull Guitars, two hundred and twenty shows in four European tours, and strong German management. It is a passionate following that has waited patiently for the sounds of Finlay’s evolution through the whirlwind of action and experience of the last two years, and ‘Shifting Through The Breakers’ delivers; ‘(in)Security’ resigns itself, ‘Night At The Mercury’ muses on loneliness, ‘Sound of Industry’ pounds an answer out of the grey, and ‘Blessing and Burning’ weighs joy and regret, over an epic Western theme. The new record also includes first-ever Morgan Finlay foreign-language singles, the touching ‘Bei Dir sein’, and the confident ‘Mourir d’envie’. Shades of the artist’s life, of human experience, bleed into each story, which further come alive in the personal and genuine settings that Finlay creates from the stage… from the shores of Wales to Berlin, the streets of Amsterdam to Varazdin.

Originally from North Vancouver, and now based both in Toronto and Berlin, Morgan Finlay is a songwriter who has been performing since the age of five, and writes all his own songs. Next on the horizon for Finlay are relentless touring with the new record, a continued pace of writing and demos, and performances further and further abroad.
A visit to his official website (morganfinlay.com) provides information on upcoming shows, perspective through personal journal entries, and popular downloads.