Jun. 30, 2010 - Issue #767: The Bestest of Edmonton 2010

Prevue

Songs in the key of life

Daniel Moir eschews university for a life of music

Already having requested the comfortable chairs at a downtown cafe, Daniel Moir doffs his sandals and settles into the red leather cross-legged, sipping his coffee with all the outward calm of a yogi. But then why shouldn't Moir be relaxed: he's here to talk about what it seems like he was born to do. Though barely into his 20s, and some lazy summer scruff away from looking hardly that age, Moir is a veritable vet, having been playing and recording music since he picked up his learner's permit. The way Moir has it, though, there's little else he could possibly be doing.

"I really don't know how else to put it, but music is what makes me fulfilled as a human being," Moir says with a very appropriate casualness. "I don't really know—like, I never thought there would be any point to going to university or anything. I'd probably just waste my money and flunk out of all my classes. Music is all I can focus on."

So far, that focus is paying off for the young singer-songwriter. His debut EP, Between the Country and the Sea, showcased his bright, earnest and complex folk stylings, and garnered him attention not only across the country but in the United States, too, where one of his songs made it onto television in the form of NBC's Mercy. Though it retains a lot of its classic folk structure, Road, Moir's debut full-length, strips things down a little bit, musically, while also getting into deeper and more complex sentiments, furthering the precociously mature label that many applied to Between.

Road uses its title as a loose metaphor for change, and many of the songs explore the theme to some degree, documenting stories about picking up and moving along after some kind of hardship. Despite his age, though, the mood seems less like the optimism of youth than it does the resolution of age, the hard-won knowledge that shit is going to happen and you have to make the most of it and move on. It's an attitude that seems to come quite naturally to the relaxed Moir.

"I think it's just about remaining optimistic, realizing that you're going to go through some things, but that life would be kind of boring if you didn't," he says nonchalantly. "If that's mature, great, but I just think it's a good way to get through the world." V

Sat, July 3 (7:30 pm)
Daniel Moir
With Darren Frank
The ARTery, $10  vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus