Bodies and Minds is the second album by Canadian folk rock

Folk rock

Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...

 group Great Lake Swimmers

Great Lake Swimmers

Great Lake Swimmers is a Canadian band built around the melodic folk rock songs of singer-songwriter Tony Dekker. Originally from Wainfleet, Ontario, the band is currently based in Toronto....

, released in 2005.

Bodies and Minds was recorded in a lakeside church in rural southern Ontario, continuing the emphasis on atmosphere from the debut album Great Lake Swimmers

Great Lake Swimmers (album)

Great Lake Swimmers is the eponymous debut album by the Canadian folk rock band Great Lake Swimmers.The album was recorded over several months in an abandoned grain silo in Southern Ontario....

.

The album features gentle, thoughtful compositions and understated instrumentation

Instrumentation (music)

In music, instrumentation refers to the particular combination of musical instruments employed in a composition, and to the properties of those instruments individually...

, while also moving fluidly into alt-country pop territory with sweet harmonies, light orchestration

Orchestration

Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...

, and even a few up-tempo numbers. The record includes songs about manic depression ("Various Stages"), the sense of a higher power ("Song for the Angels") and finding spirituality in nature ("I Saw You in the Wild").

Guest musicians appearing on the album include Sandro Perri

Sandro Perri

Sandro Perri is a musician and producer from Toronto, Canada. His music has been called post-rock, electronic, experimental, ambient, folk among others....

 (of Polmo Polpo), Almog Ben-David on Wurlitzer

Wurlitzer

The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....

 piano and Colin Huebert on drums.

Bodies and Minds was released internationally in 2005: on March 15 on weewerk

Weewerk

Weewerk, stylized as ', is an independent folk, roots, bluegrass, country record label and artist-management company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 2002 as an art-and-music salon series in the apartment of Teenage USA Recordings partner Phil Klygo and artist-curator Germaine Koh...

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

; on April 4 on Fargo Records in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

; in October on Speak N Spell in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

; and on October 11 on Misra in the USA.

Track listing

1. "Song for the Angels" - 5:19
2. "Let's Trade Skins" - 5:24
3. "When it Flows" - 3:34
4. "Various Stages" - 4:11
5. "Bodies and Minds" - 3:48
6. "To Leave it Behind" - 4:05
7. "Falling into the Sky" - 3:05
8. "Imaginary Bars" - 2:23
9. "I Saw You in the Wild" - 3:47
10. "I Could Be Nothing" - 5:16
11. "Long into the Evening" - 5:44