Kathryn Calder is the other female voice filling out The New Pornographers and prior to that she spent a good chunk of her early career singing with the haunting band Immaculate Machine; but Kathryn Calder is more than the sum of the cool bands she’s played in. On her first solo album Calder recounts with deep honesty the two years she spent caring for her terminally ill mother. Do not be fooled by the melancholy of the subject matter, Calder herself acknowledges that Are You My Mother? is not a eulogy. It is instead a celebration of life and loving someone so much that their death can cause your heart to implode. It is an album full of joy, deep deep sadness and a little bit of cheeky humour. Listening to this album for the first time it may be easy to write Calder off as another sad Canadian indie rock girl with a piano but to dismiss her so completely would be a disservice to this stunningly beautiful record.