By Will McGuirk

Music as highway, music as route, music as place, music as destination, music as escape. Music was the shelter, companion, and solace as Indigenous alt-country artist Raven Reid moved through her life. Born in Yellowknife, NWT, with ancestral ties to the Mikisew First Nation in Alberta Reid takes her lived experiences on her new album ‘Stages of Gold’, and layers over and under some pretty sweet old tyme country, all twang and train beats, chugging bass running but never reaching the bottom much like Reid who is a survivor of the 60s scoop, addiction, domestic abuse and poverty which saw her and her children spend time in a shelter - the titular single tells the tale - but she keeps moving on and her moving on is infectious. I’m reluctant to take something so real and other it but if I must then imagine Mary Margaret O’Hara covering Hank Snow with Neko Case on back-up. But really just imagine Raven Reid. The album ‘Stages of Gold’ is now available.