{"id":99284,"date":"2023-06-15T10:31:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T14:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/?post_type=records&p=99284"},"modified":"2023-06-15T10:31:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T14:31:41","slug":"jason-lang-handled-with-care","status":"publish","type":"records","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/records\/jason-lang-handled-with-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Lang \u2013 Handled With Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a bid to pay tribute to Penny Lang, the influential Canadian folk musician who passed away in 2015, her son Jason Lang has recorded Handled With Care<\/em> featuring reimagined versions of her best music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His renditions never feel like they overstep his mother\u2019s original visions, which is most noticeable in the first song on the album, Firewater<\/em>. For a song about the death of Penny\u2019s alcoholic parent, it\u2019s quite upbeat; her voice in the original recordings is rugged, with a restrained but snappy spoken word style that requires a quieter performance from the bluesy instrumental melodies. Jason, by comparison, sings more melodically, incorporates more harmonies, and includes more instruments. He also goes to much higher registers, but his gentle voice against the soft guitar still captures the original song\u2019s tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plumb Tuckered Out<\/em>, on the other end of the spectrum, <\/em>is Jason\u2019s biggest departure from the source material \u2013 it\u2019s more than double the original runtime, and it features several new solos written and performed by Jason, including an acapella trumpet solo. But the history behind the transformations makes them feel well within the spirit of his mother\u2019s music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of 12, Jason asked his mother for his social insurance number to start his first paper route, only for her to confess his legal name was not Jason Lang, but John Geremhia Angelo Donato Taddeo. According to Penny, the priest who baptized Jason put his own name down on the birth certificate, believing it was wrong for the child to be born out of wedlock. An adult Jason later filed handwritten paperwork to the Quebec government to change his name, but they misread the document, falsely adding \u201cJason Lang” onto the previous name and misspelling Geremhia as \u201cGeremlira.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jason\u2019s solos start, he calls out his middle names as though cueing in band members, and he occasionally makes fun of the performances. He\u2019s taking the absurd and exhausting moment in stride, much like how Penny\u2019s chipper attitude in Firewater <\/em>and Plumb Tuckered Out <\/em>mocks the unfaithful partner and father parent she\u2019s frustrated with. Not to mention, Jason\u2019s exaggerated performance style combined with the focus on themes of family and love makes it feel like he\u2019s looking at the positives \u2013 celebrating Penny\u2019s life rather than mourning her death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album\u2019s faithful adaptations and ambitious experimentations show that Jason is in fact handling her music with care, just as Penny once handled him with care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n