Games We Play

The Shiners are very excited to have released their second full-length record, Games We Play, on February 10th, 2018 at Burdock in Toronto. This second record, which contains twelve original songs written by Jen Schaffer and arranged by the band, was recorded over a period of one and a half years at Canterbury Music Company and their own studio. Produced by Simon Law, it was mixed by Jeremy Darby at Canterbury and mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios in London, UK!

All the songs on Games We Play reflect on the manipulations and machinations of human behaviour – defiant, delusional, dysfunctional, contemplative, fearful or foolish in love! But always a hint towards redemption

The Games We Play booklet , which comes with every physical order of the album, contains 20 pages of lyrics, credits, photographs and original artwork by Martha Townsend and Tina Sher.

For more details….

On February 10th 2018 Jen and the Shiners release their second full length album Games We Play. The album contains twelve original songs written by Jen Schaffer and arranged by the band. It was recorded over a period of one and a half years at Canterbury Music Company and their own studio, Studio Wolfrey. Produced by Simon Law, it was mixed by Jeremy Darby at Canterbury and mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios in London, UK.

 All the songs on Games We Play reflect on the manipulations and machinations of human behaviour – defiant, delusional, dysfunctional, contemplative, fearful or foolish in love! But always a hint towards redemption. Cases in point…

“Garnet Strand” – the opening track. A jeweller’s daughter’s take on transformative love.

“Lament” – one of the earliest tunes on the record, written in 2009, is the awakening plea of a mother to her distressed daughter.

“Blood of the Lamb” – This song explores the consequences of gun culture. I wrote it several years ago after hearing about the death of Christina Taylor Green, the 9 year old girl killed during the mass shooting that targeted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon, Arizona in 2011. That this young girl was born on ‪9/11 and died in this tragic way inspired the song. Musically it’s an homage to The Band featuring horn arrangement by Gary Barnacle reminiscent of Van Morrison’s St Dominic’s Preview/Moon Dance era.

“Gone” – The underlying story of this song is of a young girl’s rejection of the confines imposed by her extreme religious sect. The very struggles that inspired this song are those experienced, for example, by the “yotzes” or young ultra orthodox Jewish women in Israel. This phenomena was more recently explored in the documentary One Of Us and in Deborah Feldman’s book Unorthodox. Jen also drew inspiration from Linda Grant’s book about contemporary and contradictory Israeli life, People On The Street. She says, “At the very least, I had to write a song about those ‘awkward squads’!”

“Games We Play” – The essence of this tune is captured by the self-damning lyric “can I call your bluff, having never called your name.”

Special guest artists on Games We Play include: Lain Gray of UK bands Soul II Soul, Wookie and Nu Colours. He also starred in London’s West End hit musicals We Will Rock You and The Harder They Come. Lain is Simon’s longtime songwriting partner and is featured vocalist on the song “Jerusalem Fields.” The idea for this collaboration was born when Lain performed with Jen and Simon in the UK in the summer of 2017 (on Jazz FM and BBC Radio London) whilst promoting Simon’s solo album Look To The Sky ( a UK soul chart no 1 album)

We are also honoured to have Simon’s good friend and long time collaborator Gary Barnacle join us. Gary is one of the leading UK musicians of his generation and adds dazzling brass arrangements and his masterful playing to two tunes on the album: “Blood of the Lamb” and “Ominous Change.” This is the first time The Shiners have added horns to their music and its a thrill to hear how Gary’s powerful playing adds fuel to the fire! Toronto master musician

Denis Keldie joins us on accordion, Hammond and Lowrey Organ. The gorgeous accordion playing on “Lament” and “Games We Play” infuses new and beautiful flavours to the Shiner sound. The driving B3 part he plays on “We Had Our Time” injects the song with jubilant power. And on “Gone” he plays full on ska style Lowrey organ to this klezmer/ska mashup!