Released in 2018, RIGHT HERE has Mark Perry’s signature style of exploring characters and emotions while taking us on a journey through his rural Canadian homeland. The album is threaded with songs of change and hope, celebrating Perry’s beloved mountains, rivers, backroads and bluebirds while reflecting on relentless wildfires, missing First Nations and historic events. By inviting us into his own introspections, Perry taps into things that resonate with us all.

The album opens with Perry’s rich voice on top of some sweet accordion, pedal steel and fingerpicking in Mountain Bluebird whose arrival signals Spring in the Pacific Northwest. It’s followed by a cheerleading Go Cubs Go – a salute to the local First Nations baseball team of Perry’s youth. The players LOVED baseball and played home games above the rugged Moricetown Canyon. Blue gets more intimate as an honest reaching out from a down place and is aptly supported with a heartfelt bass and warm pedal steel. It’s aptly followed by a violin-spported Backroad Wave, a thoughtful journey down an isolated rural road where it can be a long time before you see another car…and when you do, you wave. It’s a friendly relief to see another human sometimes. Perry’s soundscape journey through his rural BC then takes us into a raging forest fire with This Fire, accented by van Zanten’s steamy slide guitar. We wrestle with heartbreak and are comforted by violin in a captivating piece called Leaving the North and the adventure picks up again with Unique, a cheerful and high-energy tribute to the non-conforming people who inspire us. Perry takes us downstream to the Big Skeena in a lively call-and-response that celebrates the historical significance of a huge river running though Northwest BC. Missing, carried by multiple guitar lines, ruminates on the many First Nations in Canada who go missing and whose cries seem lost. We get a chance to laugh with the candid and humorous Right Here, a forthright statement that sometimes we simply need to let people know we’re here for them, eh. From there, listeners climb Mountain peaks and gain new perspective on life, then contemplate some of BC’s history with a glimpse of life growing up in Port Essington, a former Japanese internment camp a few hours from Perry’s home. Finally, the album returns us from a 13-song sojourn with a hopeful lightness in the change of season, Fall – Perry’s favourite time of year.

RIGHT HERE was produced by Jordy Walker at Stackwall Sound in Whitehorse, Yukon and Northern Sky Studios in Perry’s hometown of Smithers, BC. All songs were written and performed by Perry on acoustic guitar, beautifully blended with the sounds of his talented musical pals including Walker (percussion), Tobin Frank (bass/accordion), Mark Thibeault (pedal steel/electric guitar), Rachelle van Zanten (slide/electric guitar), Kiri Daust (violin), and peppered with vocal harmonies by van Zanten, Ian Olmstead, Colleen Eccelston and Perry’s daughter Mip of Toronto’s Mip Power Trio.