"‘Singer-songwriter’ as a tag is essentially meaningless," Trevor Tchir declares. "I see that more like a job title. I’ve never consciously used it as a musical designation."

It would be hard to pigeonhole Tchir–who does indeed sing and write songs, as well as play guitar, banjo, mandolin, and harmonica–as a solo act on his third album. Wooden Castles Fall features 17 other talented musicians adding texture and heft to Tchir’s haunting, melodic roots-folk.

Even when he strums alone, Tchir is surrounded by people. His lyrics are populated with characters who are both universal and intimate: poets who waitress, not-even-exes wondering why love never got a foothold, and grandparents building a nation and a place in it. In Tchir’s hands place, time and relationships become characters, too, with their own agendas and idiosyncrasies.

Like Bob Dylan or James Taylor, Tchir’s velvet-and-smoke voice sounds the same indefinable age throughout all his recordings, which seamlessly weave ’70s Tapestry sounds with bluesy-country touches; his allegiance is to the time-honoured art of evoking emotion through storytelling.

Tchir is used to sliding between generations and situations. The St. Albert boy recently returned to live in Edmonton after seven years in Ottawa where he split his time between federal government jobs (Parliament page, Peace Tower elevator operator), his poli-sci and Canadian studies degrees, and, um, hardworking singer-songwriter/open stage host. He had a particularly successful stint co-hosting Café Nostalgica, a poetry and music night that evolved into a mainstay of Ottawa’s lit-folk scene. Nostalgica regulars appear on Tchir’s album alongside old Alberta friends and Tchir’s younger brother (who currently backs him up on stage).

"Wooden Castles Fall was as much a ‘home-leaving’ as a ‘homecoming’," he relates. "I knew when I was getting ready to make it that I was moving back to Alberta, and it would be my last hurrah crystallizing my experiences in Ottawa."

Though all of Tchir’s albums were recorded in Ottawa, he spent summers back home, so they reflect his life in both cities. He admits to consciously trying to create a more Albertan aesthetic on this latest release, noting, "I like how there’s the stamp of both places on the new one, but there’s lots of ‘Alberta’ songs. There’s a thematic thrust to the album."

Many tunes on Wooden Castles Fall celebrate Tchir’s family’s Western Canadian heritage. A photo in the liner notes shows his granddad and granduncle wielding an accordion and a fiddle outside of a freshly-built homestead house.

"It’s about the building of history–personal and bigger–and about preserving our connections to the past. The ‘wooden castles’ in the title are grain silos, and the phrase is from the first track, which is about my grandparents on their farm."

He laughs, "Not to sound hokey or anything, but this is as close to a concept album as I’m going to get."