Live music @ The Hub On Martin featuring-Skinny Dyck

Resist the urge to laugh at Skinny Dyck – the playful performing artistic alias of western Canadian artist Ryan Dyck (or don’t, that’s kind of the idea). Easygoing, the new full-length album from Skinny Dyck, was easily nominated for Album of the Year at the 2025 Western Canadian Music Awards – following hot on the heels of 2022’s Palace Waiting, which “distilled the spirit of wide-cut country,” (Exclaim!).

Marinating in the success of his off-brand twang is a new batch of material that sees the celebrated songwriter stepping further away from a genre defined by its traditions. It’s a sound underwritten by the richness of time that’s been unmoored by a wandering eye of creative expression. A sort of Mac Demarco meets Merle Haggard mishmash, like a second mezcal negroni before dinner. Following steady Canadian and European touring, Easygoing sees Dyck moving a few steps further away from the country music environs he once wholly inhabited, but fear not, twang fans: rather than replacing that sound wholesale, he and his studio collaborators have instead created their own hybrid approaches.

Mixed by Mark Nevers (Lambchop, Bonnie Prince Billy), it seems representative of a small retreat from country music – an extended stay at the outdated lake cabin that leaves you wondering if you ever want to come back home. Or, as Dyck puts it, “I still like to collect my mail at the old shack off the highway, but I no longer want to live there exclusively.”

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