People throw the term "concept album" around indiscriminately, but the new solo record by Broken Social Scene/Do Make Say Think multi-instrumentalist Charles Spearin truly earns that distinction. Part spoken-word collection, part sociological experiment, The Happiness Project is the result of Spearin's interviews with his neighbors in downtown Toronto about the idea of happiness-- recorded responses that he then turned into music. What's fascinating about this collection is not only what the interviewees have to say-- Marisa thinks that being "a good people-person" is what's important, Vittoria likes school on Valentine's Day when they just get to make art instead of work-- but also the way that Spearin spins the cadence of their voices into tunes. Childish temper tantrum "Ondine" ("Not almond butter, Mama. I just want butter") turns an irritatingly high-pitched kid's whine into a sliding violin melody bolstered by a delicate harp-and-piano foundation. And "Mrs. Morris"'s proclamation that "happiness is love" is rendered as a be-bop saxophone ditty that matches the alto tones of her speaking voice with the sax's own cool, deep timbre.
The tunes on the collection appear as if by magic. You hear people talking, and then their speech is transformed into honeyed horn patter (as on "Anna") or galloping guitar arpeggios (as on "Marisa"). "Vittoria", for example, spins a young girl's lazy "like"s and "um"s into percussive, brass- and reed-inflected bachelor-pad music perfect for a late-1960s James Bond chase scene. But the most moving of the collection's eight tracks is "Vanessa", which grows from a spare, reedy dirge into a celebration of twinkling pianos, sweeping strings, and sunburst guitars that mimic the vocal cadence of a deaf woman as she recounts the story of her cochlear implant surgery and its subsequent effect on her hearing and her life. "People often asked me, over the years, 'What do you hear?'" she says at the beginning of the track matter-of-factly with no music in the background to illustrate the silence in her head. "I couldn't really answer because I didn't know what it was like to hear, so how could I compare?" But by the end of the track, as she talks about the implant being turned on after the mandatory four-week waiting period, the instruments come alive beneath her voice, just like the sound that bloomed for her for the first time. The piano line is poignant and giddy as it imitates the mellifluence of her voice. "All of a sudden I felt my body moving inside," she says, describing the feeling of her brain taking in aural information for the first time ever. The track then shrinks back to silence as Vanessa explains that her implant only has a limited battery, and so when it shuts off she actually experiences that lack of sound. "Now," she says, after the last lingering piano note has stopped resonating," I understand the term 'dead silence.'" "Vanessa" may be too fractured to be a pop song, but you'll be hard-pressed to find another recorded track this viscerally affecting.
The stories told on The Happiness Project are moving and ordinary and strange, and the way Spearin makes you hear the music of spoken language by translating speech patterns into notes is truly thrilling. But some of these tracks are better as stories than songs (namely, the noodly guitars of "Mr. Gowrie", which is a nostalgic tale from an immigrant far from his homeland where life was difficult but perhaps richer with family). And even the most moving tracks are still not quite songs. Spearin's experiment is fruitful, nonetheless, helping listeners hear the beauty of everyday speech and appreciate the happiness that comes from life's most commonplace moments.
