Let’s get one thing out of the way: Basia Bulat doesn’t live in a château. The property at the heart of the songwriter’s new studio album is at once her apartment, her jam-space - and the inside of her head. 'Basia’s Palace' is a place festooned with love and memory, bad wiring; it’s a paradise that comes alive in the wee hours of the night, at a time that’s suited to video games and Leonard Cohen records, when you sit in all that richness, taking in all the mess we inherit.

Reuniting with co-producer Mark Lawson, she found herself moving through a dreamworld of whispers, synths and early Eurovision tunes, Cohen’s 'I’m Your Man' and Air’s 'Moon Safari', her great uncle’s gauzy Maryla Rodowicz LPs. The result feels like an album that was concealed behind the backings of Bulat’s childhood photos - tracks like 'My Angel', where mystery and romance mingle over squelchy synths + drum-machine, with a soaring string arrangement by Drew Jurecka (Dua Lipa, Alvvays), or 'Laughter' - which was mixed, like all tracks on the record, by legendary engineer Tucker Martine (Beth Orton, Neko Case, The National) - that takes a quiet domestic scene and sees it build to a deafening sublime. 'Disco Polo' is a track Bulat’s been threatening to make forever - a folk-song named for a genre of trashy Polish dance music that was beloved of her father - whereas 'Baby', which took years to finish, makes an elegant dance number out of an oh-too-familiar predicament: “Baby, baby, baby,” Basia sings, “I don’t learn!” At some moments there are shades of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s 'Bonnie and Clyde' or Charles Aznavour’s 'Emmenez-Moi'; at others it’s the silicon-shiny sweetness of The Cardigans’ 'Lovefool' or Air’s 'Moon Safari'.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Angel
2. Baby
3. Spirit
4. Right Now
5. Disco Polo
6. The Moon
7. Daylight
8. Laughter
9. Curtain Call

As told by Patrick Watson. 

This album is about negotiating a world where you don’t know what’s real anymore. 

I really spent a lot of time reading to improve my lyrics for this record. I was very inspired by Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson, The Waves by Virginia Woolf and Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. The lyrics are a collection of little thoughts that were pacing in my head. We worked hard on rebuilding the tones of our arrangements and we brought a bigger electronic component to the music. With the addition of modular synths, we were able to find a warmer and more touching approach to the electronics, that feel as acoustic as the rest of the instruments and move like liquid. Basically, I went back to school for the last two years to be able to bring something new ha-ha. Andrew Barr from the Barr Brothers joined us on drums for this record, it’s a pleasure to play music with such a great musician.  

TRACK LISTING

1.Better In The Shade
2.Height Of The Feeling
3.Ode To Vivian
4.Little Moments
5.Blue
6.La La La La La
7.Stay

Introducing The Garden: a strings album and a retrospective from a room in Montreal with the windows open, and the wind moving, and the leaves changing, and a spring-coloured secret on the tip of Basia Bulat’s tongue.

The band made it in a pandemic. Bulat and her old friend Mark Lawson, with whom she recorded the Polaris- and Juno-nominated album Tall Tall Shadow. Bulat and her husband, Legal Vertigo’s Andy Woods. Bulat and her friends Ben Whiteley, Zou Zou Robidoux, Jen Thiessen, John Corban and Tomo Newton, four fifths of whom form a string quartet, because did we mention this is a string album? Not a greatest hits but a re-configuration: a chance to record anew some songs that Bulat didn’t fully understand when she originally composed them, five or ten or fifteen years ago. As she first sang in 2006 — and again last fall, in that second-storey apartment: We gave away our hearts / before we knew what they were.

The Garden gathers fourteen string arrangements by three different arrangers (Owen Pallett, Paul Frith, and Zou Zou Robidoux), revisiting material from all five of Bulat’s studio albums. There’s Pallett’s interpretation of 2010’s “Heart of my Own,” calling back to the Béla Bartók compositions that marked Bulat’s high-school career as an upright bassist. There’s Frith’s “Infamous,” which turns 2016’s prickly kiss-off into something open-facing and generous. And there’s Robidoux’s reimagining of “Are You In Love?” — released just last year — which here becomes a whirling ballroom dance, full of discovery.

Bulat performs throughout, finding new feelings for old lines. Distance teaches; distance reveals things. “I sing the songs differently now,” she says. “It’s the gift of time.” Not just that: at the time of recording, Bulat had just found out she was expecting her first child. (Her daughter was born in April 2021.) She admitted it to her collaborators only in the midst of recording, down a wire from the vocal booth. “Hold it up to the light and let it grow,” Bulat sang once – and again that fall, as her body changed shape. “Tell me you’re always my only.” A song can change shape too — turning new leaves, growing new blooms, in unexpected seasons. You can play a record once; you can play it again. The Garden won’t wear out. It’s alive.

TRACK LISTING

1.The Garden
2. Infamous
3. Heart Of My Own
4. The Shore
5. I Was A Daughter
6. Go On
7. Tall Tall Shadow
8. The Pilgriming Vine
9. Windflowers
10. Fables
11. Already Forgiven
12. Love Is At The End Of The World
13. Lupins
14. In The Name Of
15. Are You In Love?
16. Good Advice

On the day Plants and Animals recorded the title track to their new album, it was one of those increasingly rare moments when everyone seemed to be watching the same thing at the same time. A judge was on trial. So they watched too, on somebody’s laptop in the front room of the building where the recording studio is. It was addictive and galling.

When you walk into the studio itself, sound sucks down into nothing because the walls are carpeted and you’re reminded for a split second that a river of thoughts has been flowing through your mind your entire life. The din fades in again.

They came to try and solve an old song that they had written for their last album but couldn’t get right. Warren punched a beat in on an 808. He picked up a bass, Nic picked up a guitar and they played the changes over it. Woody put down a motorik beat. Adèle Trottier-Rivard was with them that day. She sang and tried out different shakers running through Nic’s guitar pedals while he manipulated them in real time with his right hand while holding their baby in his left. Things fell into place. They wrote the words on the spot. The judge snaked his way in.

Plants and Animals work on instinct. They’ve been playing together for 20 years, so they basically started as kids. They were a big part of the mid-’00s Montreal music renaissance, when you couldn’t walk through the neighbourhood at 4pm on a Tuesday without spilling your coffee on the fitted jeans of a who’s who. They ran around sweaty all night and blew bubbles from the roof over Parc Avenue when they finished their first album. They became known for a ferocious live show and still are. They have just finished their fifth album. They’re parents now, and have been so for long enough to move beyond euphoria into anxious realness and bigger love. The world is a different place than it used to be.

“The Jungle” starts with electronic drums that sound like insects at night. A whole universe comes alive in the dark. It’s beautiful, complex and unsettling. Systematic and chaotic. All instinct, no plan. Voices taunt, “yeah yeah yeah.” This tangled time in which we find ourselves reflected back in shadows.

Every song is such a landscape. The first one grinds to a halt and you become a kid looking out a car window at the moon, wondering how it’s still on your tail as you speed past a steady blur of trees. You watch a house go up in a yellow strobe that echoes the disco weirdness of Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer and David Bowie. You get pummelled by a rhythm then set free by a sudden change of scenery—the wind stops, clarity returns. You’re under a streetlight in Queens, soft-focus, slow motion, falling in love. You speak French now too, in case you didn’t already. Bienvenue.

These are personal experiences made in a volatile world, and they reflect that world right back at us, even by accident. “House on Fire,” came from Warren’s haunting feeling that a friend who was taking too many sleeping pills might forget to turn his stove off. It was written before Greta Thunberg made the expression a rallying cry.

There’s one song Nic sings to his teenage son who was dealing with climate change anxiety and drifting into uncharted independence. The band carries it out slowly together into a sweet blue horizon. Warren wrote the words to another shortly after losing his father. It’s about the things we inherit not necessarily being the things we want. In a broader sense, that’s where a lot of people find themselves right now.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. The Jungle
2. Love That Boy
3. House On Fire
4. Sacrifice

Side B
1. Get My Mind
2. Le Queens
3. In Your Eyes
4. Bold

'Inland finds Vollebekk baring his soul and achieving a deep poignancy [and] effortlessly transcends the singer-songwriter paradigm'. - EYE (Canada****).

For fans of: Patrick Watson, Joanna Newsom, Devandra Banhardt. A visit to his Plateau apartment in Montreal reveals an endless collection of records from Bob Dylan to Ray Charles. An avid fan of vinyl, Leif wrote half the songs for his own, "Inland", while studying Icelandic and Philosophy in Reykjavik, Iceland. The other half were written upon his return home to Montreal, Canada, where he recorded and self-produced the debut album a short time later at Montreal's Breakglass studio (Wolf Parade, Patrick Watson, Besnard Lakes). Arranged and orchestrated entirely by Leif, "Inland" is primarily centred around Leif’s acoustic guitar and story-telling, featuring string quartets on occasion, piano at times, and splashes of harmonica and drums. Vollebekk, a multi-instrumentalist, is often seen performing solo, playing the violin on stage, using loop-samplers for accompaniment and then switching to electric or acoustic guitars to create a sound similar to the album, but an entirely different experience

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Morning
2. You Couldn’t Lie To Me In Paris
3. In The Midst Of Blue And Green
4. Michael Robartes & The Dancer
5. Quebec
6. Northernmost Eva Maria
7. A Dozen Mares
8. 1921
9. Don’t Go To Klaksvik
10. Ladyland

Hailing from Ottawa, Canada, Leif Vollebekk is a multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter known for his somber, melancholy pop songs that capture the themes of yearning, long-lost love, and adventure. During his childhood and teens, he discovered the music of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Lou Reed whilst also discovering a connection with the writings and works of Beat Generation authors Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski. Having tried his hand at a multitude of instruments, he was initially interested in composition and shaping a song, rather than the lyrics; that is, until he heard Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate." With a newfound obsession for illustrating stories and images with words, he sought to expand upon his creative abilities and headed to Iceland to discover his Nordic roots

TRACK LISTING

1. Southern United States
2. Off The Main Drag
3. Cairo Blues
4. Photographer Friend
5. At The End Of The Line
6. A Wildfire Took Down Rosenberg
7. Takk Somuleidis
8. Pallbearer Blues
9. When The Subway Comes Above The Ground
10. From The Fourth

Leif Vollebekk, the Montreal singer songwriter and multi instrumentalist had hit a wall. In the midst of endless touring Leif found himself retreating to his lonely hotel rooms after shows and listening to Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ alone in the dark. His own songs didn’t sound right and he felt the bright spots in his sets were the covers he’d end with: songs by Ray Charles or Townes Van Zandt. In this deep blue mood he booked a secret show at a Montreal dive bar, only playing covers with a band that rehearsed once. The experience led Leif to change his approach to songwriting: explore the ideas that came spontaneously to him, and let the songs shape themselves. Soon the songs came pouring out of him. This approach is what created the lush, freewheeling and often devastating ‘Twin Solitude,’ out February 24 on Secret City Records.

"By the time the last notes die away, all that's left should be you," Leif says. "And I’ll be somewhere else. And that’s Twin Solitude.”

Leif’s third album, features 10 delicate and expansive original songs, with lyrics that pour out of this singer songwriter that are often compared to Jeff Buckley. Leif’s words lay on a bed of elastic instrumentation full of piano, synthesizer, guitar, rich electric bass and strings.

Several songs on the album came to Leif and were written in one sitting. 'Into the Ether' came to be while he was exploring a Moog synthesizer. ‘Elegy' is a bedside soliloquy, of love slipping through fingers and came to Leif while he was riding his bike through Montreal. The meditative ‘Michigan' was written on a half-tuned guitar and fully written as he was about to go to sleep. Other songs on the album capture the countless hours Leif has spent on the road, crisscrossing North America. 'Big Sky Country' recalls a trip to Vancouver with his family when he was young, never forgetting the expanse of Montana and listening to Ian Tyson’s song 'The Gift' in the car over and over again.
‘Twin Solitude’ features Olivier Fairfield from Timber Timbre (drums), Sarah Page from the Barr Brothers (harp) on ‘Rest' Shahzad Ismaily of Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog and SecretCheifs3 (bass) on several tracks and the string duo Chargaux throughout the album as well. It was engineered by Dave Smith and recorded at his Breakglass Studios in Canada. Produced by Leif Vollebekk.

Vollebekk made his album debut in 2010 – and since then has performed at the Newport Folk Festival, and shared stages with Daniel Lanois, Beth Orton, Sinéad O'Connor, Patrick Watson, Coeur de Pirate, William Fitzsimmons and Sam Amidon. His debut ‘Inland’ was described as “beautiful, memorable and moving” by NPR and “timeless and monumental” by The Independent.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vancouver Time
2. All Night Sedans
3. Elegy
4. Into The Ether
5. Big Sky Country
6. Michigan
7. Road To Venus
8. East Of Eden
9. Telluride
10. Rest

Bulat teamed-up with friend and collaborator Jim James of My Morning Jacket on the album’s production, driving 600 miles from her home in Montreal to La La Land recording studio in James’ hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Bulat originally met James backstage at the Austin City Limits music festival; the two reconnected when she toured with him in the summer of 2013 and became friends. Good Advice is a departure from Bulat’s previous work, with her voice backed up by drums, bass, electric guitar and keys. James plays electric guitar, synth, saxophone and bass on the album; further Louisville guests including members of Houndmouth, Twin Limb, Seth Kauffman of Floating Action and more also join Bulat.

“Pop songs can take all those big statements and those big feelings that you have,” Bulat says. “You don't need to necessarily have everything so detailed because everybody understands. Everybody understands those feelings.” “Basia has something truly unique,” says James. The duo recorded the album over several visits Bulat made to Kentucky. “I knew immediately that it was the exact right place to be,” says Bulat. “To go so far from home, then to find that it felt like home.”
Of the sessions, James recalls, “The entire process was so amazing. Hearing her voice just exploding out of her soul brought us all to tears in the control room. Watching Basia come out of her shell with great power was an extraordinary thing to witness.”

Good Advice follows Bulat’s critically acclaimed Juno and Polaris Music Prize-nominated 2013 release, Tall Tall Shadow, which The Line of Best Fit calls “a brilliant and engaging pop record” and the Austin Chronicle praises for its “lovely, spectral musing that balances indulgence with homespun tendencies.” In the two years since, Bulat has played shows across North America and Europe with Sufjan Stevens, Destroyer, Daniel Lanois, Bahamas and more.

Since the release of her debut album, Oh My Darling, Bulat has shared the stage with artists including Arcade Fire, The National, Nick Cave, St. Vincent, Beirut, Andrew Bird, Tune-Yards, Sondre Lerche, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Head and the Heart, Owen Pallett, Devotchka and many more. Known for her talents on little-known instruments including the autoharp and charango, Bulat has also been tapped for tributes to Leonard Cohen and The Band.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: ‘Good Advice’ is a breath-taking album which is filled with heartache. It begins with her deep soulful voice, it’s bold and resolute then the end of the album shows us an enchanting whimsical finish (the song Someday Soon especially) It’s very emotional; you need to listen to it!

TRACK LISTING

1. La La Lie
2. Long Goodbye
3. Let Me In
4. In The Name Of
5. Time
6. Good Advice
7. Infamous
8. Fool
9. The Garden
10. Someday Soon

Emilie & Ogden is Emilie Kahn along with her harp, Ogden. Emilie discovered the harp when The Barr Brothers harpist, Sarah Pagé, played along with her school choir, driving her to find an instructor on Craigslist the next day. Emilie explains, “I had never felt this way toward an instrument.” Lithium Magazine further adds how Emilie makes the harp “seem like an extension of herself rather than an instrument.”

Emilie wrote all the lyrics and music for 10 000, then teamed up with longtime accomplice and producer Jesse Mac Cormack and her drummer Francis Ledoux to finalize the songs’ construction. The music was recorded in Studio B-12 nestled in the woods of Valcourt in Quebec, CA. 10 000 includes two deconstructed and reconstructed tracks, Babel and Long Gone, from her previous EP, in addition to completely new compositions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blame
2. Ten Thousand
3. Closer
4. White Lies
5. Nothing New
6. Babel
7. Long Gone
8. Go Home
9. What Happened
10. Hold Me Down
11. Dream

"La La Land" is the sophomore album from Montreal trio Plants and Animals. They first gained recognition in 2008 with their first full length, Parc Avenue, which Pitchfork describes a as a collection of “expansive, genre bending symphonies” that “crackles with warmth and intimacy,” and which many praised as one of the years most promising (if overlooked) debuts. "La La Land" represents a more cohesive and concise effort on the bands part, showcasing their unmatched ability to conjure all the sonic analog power and spirit of the best Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix recordings, while still sounding fresh, innovative and contemporary, alongside local peers like Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade.

Paste magazine points out that 'While the songs are shorter and punchier than the seven-minute marathons of Parc Avenue ... they’re complicated and gorgeous and feel as innate as desire itself'.

Canada’s national daily The Globe and Mail says the album is 'psychedelic, amplified and momentous … songs are multifaceted, with a sense of Radiohead importance, Arcade Fire intensity and très cool dirty-basement rock and roll ("American Idol" gets my vote as the missing link between Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street).'

TRACK LISTING

01. Tom Cruz
02. Swinging Bells
03. American Idol
04. Undone Melody
05. Kon Tiki
06. Game Shows
07. The Mama Papa
08. Fake It
09. Celebration
10. Future From The 80s
11. Jeans Jeans Jeans