Daydreams for Night

Seven very short stories from acclaimed musician John Southworth will tweak your mind and peak your imagination. Meet the boy with grey hair, who spends his days on a cargo ship peeling potatoes, a strange man who keeps a Ferris wheel in his backyard, and a whale that lives in a manmade lake on the top of a faraway hill. Chock-full of details in their brevity, they beg to be mused over. Equally intriguing and unusual black and white illustrations by David Ouimet bright the strange, bizarre characters to life.

Like songs, these stories and the accompanying illustrations are evocative without limiting, and beg to be replayed.

John Southworth is one of Canada’s most distinctive and iconoclastic music artists, a song maker with a meticulous sense of craft and seasoned individual vision, respected for forging ahead with his own unique brand of music-making, while garnering high praise for his inimitable contribution – from both critics and contemporaries alike. His next project, the upcoming cabaret-operetta Easterween, is a 21st century metaphysical fertility tale set to 19th century psychedelic gypsy songs, featuring arrangements by Andrew Downing. It marks John’s first work outside the traditional singer-songwriter role, and will premiere at Toronto’s Lower Ossington Theatre in April 2012. John’s previous albums include last year’s elegiac Human Cry (“will renew your faith in music” – Tom Power, CBC Radio), 2009’s feverish pop album Mama Tevatron (“has to be heard to believed” – Michael Barclay, Radiofreecanuckistan), the surreal ballady of 2007’s The Pillowmaker, and his signature orchestral debut, Mars Pennsylvania, hailed by Exclaim Magazine as “the most original debut by a Canadian artist since Mary Margaret O’Hara’s Miss America”. Outside of his native Canada, his records have been released in the U.S, U.K and Japan. His songs have garnered cover versions by such prestigious Canadian artists as Sarah Slean, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Veda Hille and Martin Tielli. Recently John has contributed a song (Bcc) for Buck 65's new record 20 Odd Years, as well for recent Hawksley Workman and Jully Black records. He continues his rave-winning collaboration with Toronto’s Art of Time Ensemble, appearing in the past three Source & Inspiration and Abbey Road concerts. He has directed all his videos. www.johnsouthworth.ca

David Ouimet is a New York-based Artist and Musician. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989 he worked on a number of independent films, while scoring music soundtracks for documentary, feature, and short films. In the early 1990's he quit the film business to concentrate on music, recorded and appeared on numerous records and performed throughout the world. In the mid 90's Ouimet decided to focus on his artwork, and began working in the book business. He has illustrated several children's books, and most recently has been experimenting with 19th century medical and scientific illustration techniques to create fine art.