Becoming Basia Bulat
Basia Bulat can’t remember exactly when she started taking herself seriously. But at some point (“Maybe three or four years ago?” she figures. “No, three? Three and a half?”), the 24-year-old Ontarian went from being “that girl with the guitar outside, playing the Ghostbusters theme song,” to that girl laying down tracks with Howard Bilerman at his Hotel 2 Tango studio, to that girl with the Rough Trade debut album. Oh, My Darling is a collection of songs Bulat penned in her teens and early 20s and recorded in spurts over the last few years. It’s a spry, wistful jaunt through late adolescence, and—though green—her backwoodsy chamber pop boasts dazzling potential. For that reason and the following, we’re happy to wait three, four or however many years ’til the promise pays off in full.
She’s an indiscriminate instrumentalist.
After cutting her teeth on the ivories, Bulat arrived at her current mainstays—guitar and autoharp—via upright bass and saxophone. And then came the ukelin. “It doesn’t look like a ukulele or a violin, but they claim it’s a cross,” she says. “I find all these misfit instruments at garage sales or on eBay that no one else can play or wants to play. And I can’t play them either, but they look really cool.”