TOUS DANS L'MEME BATEAU

CANO is most famous for being one of the most successful French Canadian bands that didn't come from Quebec but the lesser known French Canadian regions of northern Ontario. This band was established in Sudbury in 1970 as the Coopérative des Artistes du Nouvel-Ontario or Cooperative of Northern Ontario which once turned into an anagram became the band CANO which the band adopted as its moniker in 1975. While the band was a musical group, the collective also had many other projects including owning a collective farm in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario where the band did much of its recording.

Once CANO was officially formed in 1975, the group was reduced to eight members along revolving around singer/guitarists André Paiement and Rachel Paiement, violinist Wasyl Kohut, guitarists Marcel Aymar and David Burt, pianist Michel Kendel, bassist John Doerr and drummer Michel Dasti. Focusing on both traditional French folk songs and original material by Aymar, the Palements and the Canadian poet Robert Dickson, the band recorded five albums in its ten year existence with this debut TOUS DAN L'MEME BATEAU ( All In The Same Boat ) which came out in late 1976. CANO was sensitive to the divisive nature of English vs French in the Canadian psyche and was instrumental in bridging the gap by performing live by singing in both French and English although on this debut all lyrics are in the French language.

TOUS DAN L'MEME BATEAU features a unique mix of French-Canadian folk music, folk rock and progressive rock with the three highlights of "Viens Nour Voir," "En Plein Hiver" and "Baie Ste-Marie" all extending past the 8 minute playing time with the rest of the album featuring shorter tracks with varying styles. The diversity of the album is stark as some tracks are soft and lush symphonic folk with female vocals while others are rowdy country-infused songs with more aggressive masculine vocals. The album's polarity is strong with "Le vieux Médéric" featuring high octane rocking tempos and the following "Les rues d'Ottawa" drifting into dreamy acoustic driven folk with piano rolls.

With twelve members and guests performing, the album's sound is lush with guitars, bass, piano and percussion intermingling with Turkish cymbals, harmonica, trombones, mandolin, a clarinet and various percussion instruments including congas. The melodies are quite accessible with the complexities resulting from the sophisticated use of timbres and extended compositional fortitude with extended solos, neo-classical elements and symphonic counterpoints however the progressive tendencies would be ramped up even more on the band's second album "Au Nord du Notre Vie" which emerged the following year. The album's dreamy album cover art pretty much conveys perfectly what you get here, a mostly lush stream of folk based progressive rock with nice experimental touches yet based in traditional sounds.

CANO enjoyed quite a bit of success even on an international scale with its first two albums but band leader André Paiement committed suicide in 1978 and left the band struggling to find its way and although three more albums were released, both the band's musical quality and popularity took a dip. While i wouldn't call this debut by CANO an essential listening experience, it is sure an enjoyable slice of 1970s French prog folk and a historical lesson of French prog emerging from Canada outside the province of Quebec. While the tracks are decently done, there's also none that really stick out as unabashed masterpieces. This is merely a pleasant dreamy album to encounter with a few more upbeat countrified numbers.