Description

Juno Award nominated, Polaris Prize short-listed, ECMA-laden musician Tim Baker returns with a new album, Full Rainbow of Light. The record consists of twelve new songs, written by Tim – except for one blistering cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” – and recorded in his hometown of St. John’s, Newfoundland. To call it a Christmas album is to cheapen the depth of the songwriting – these are masterful, original compositions that are set in the big feelings and high emotions of the holidays.

Inspiration for this album stems largely from Tim’s connection to Newfoundland and the unique and deep way December hits there each year. In Tim’s own words, “Full Rainbow of Light is the first record I’ve made that really centers around a single concept throughout: the warmth, the nostalgia and the goodness of being home at Christmas. Through many themes and stories and sounds, these songs keep pointing back there, to my people and places and past, in Newfoundland & Labrador – to all the tradition and the change of it, the warmth and the winter, the hardship and the hope of it.”

This album is the follow-up to 2022’s The Festival and its 2023 companion EP Along the Mountain Road. Those releases sent Tim on extensive international touring, both with his full band, All Hands, and as a solo artist, selling out some of Canada’s most acclaimed venues, including Massey Hall in Toronto. In many ways, Full Rainbow of Light is a bridge between his long love of expansive full-band energy, and the vulnerability, purity and maturity of his recent solo performances. While there is an obvious specificity to the album – set as it is at Christmas, in Tim’s own home and history, complete with traditional Newfoundland instrumentation strewn throughout – the authenticity of the work is something that transcends the specific and shines a warm welcoming light for everyone, everywhere.