September 2nd, 2010 / 0 Comments
On today’s flight from Calgary to Glasgow, I found myself sat next to Sarah (from Australia) on my left and Alistair (from Dundee) on my right, all three of us proud gingers. We named our row Team Ginger and spoke for most of the flight about food, politics, and chasing love around the world. Shortly before breakfast, I fell asleep for an hour or so and had a repeat of a dream from childhood, the one where I’m flying through the air over glowing cityscapes at night (which reminded me of this little demo that came out on a children’s compilation last year that I lost track of somewhere along the line). Getting off the plane in Scotland felt like coming to a home I’ve been away from for far too long.
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May 16th, 2010 / 0 Comments
The festival is over, and last night’s party lasted until some point this morning. While everyone slept, I took a bicycle along the coast, riding through small Swedish villages along the seaside. Swans the size of my bike swam in the water and the air cleared my lungs. I bought a sunflower and some baking. Back at the house in the early afternoon, everyone was waking slowly, and it was time to pack up bags and make the boat. Now there are very few of us left — tomorrow, we’ll all have returned to mainland Sweden, to Stockholm and Göteborg. Adieu, Visby.
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May 14th, 2010 / 0 Comments
The annual Ljudvågor festival in Visby premieres new classical works by the students of the Tonsättar Skolan on the harbour. Not only is the city filled with the sound of music (Notes? Who needs them! Tuned instruments? Over-rated!), but each flat seems stuffed with musical instruments on every surface. It matters not if you can really play them, and each room of the house (we’re staying in one built in the 1300s, previously a monastery — when renovated, they discovered children’s corpses underneath) is typically bursting with different songs simultaneously. Here then, a sample listen to the sounds of Hampus Norén’s place.
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May 13th, 2010 / 0 Comments
When you tell a Swedish person you’re going to Gotland for a week, their eyes widen and they speak of the island that awaits you in hushed tones. A security guard at the train station even put me first in the queue when I told him where I was going — he was born here, and was adamant that it was still the “most beautiful part of Sweden”. I’m here in Gotland (in the capital of Visby) for a new music festival, in which my friend Hampus Norén is premiering new works. Last night we heard his beautiful first composition in a grand old church. This morning we walked along the town’s medieval walls, came back, and played the piano (this piece performed by the amazing Christine Everö). If the best way to start a tour is in an Icelandic hot spring, surely the most perfect way to end it is with escape to Gotland.
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November 20th, 2009 / 0 Comments
Everyone in Montreal seems to be perfectly in love. It’s a city of pairs, strolling happily hand-in-hand, cooing bilingually. It’s a city of endless possibility, but even then it seems all the best ones are already taken.
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November 19th, 2009 / 0 Comments
It seems that somehow, without fail, I make my way to Montreal each November. The annual trip, repeated so often, starts to feel like deja vu, and I think of the old things that lay forgotten. Of the first songs I ever recorded. Of the lost songs left behind in rehearsals. I fret there’s not enough time to remember them all, but little bits and melodies sometimes pop into focus.
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November 5th, 2009 / 0 Comments
Our 2 week stay at the Banff Centre has come to a close, and tonight’s the final performance, the final recording. Early this afternoon our gear was loaded up and taken from the hut where we’ve spent so many hours the past 14 days. One last play at the piano, one last song. (This one’s for Analog Bell Service, The Witchies, and Basia Bulat, to the great producers we worked with, and to all of the audio engineers who laughed at us when we asked for bottles of water, but would always go and get them for us anyway).
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November 4th, 2009 / 1 Comment
FOON: This is the first song of my song cycle, The Mes, The Mys, and The Swimming Pool. After hammering out some lyrics, I dashed over to Hut 10, and Mark and I recorded this song at 2 in the morning. We stayed up till 4 making more beats – if you are in Calgary for the High Performance Rodeo in January, come see my song cycle at the Midway. Otherwise, catch it as the opening act for Woodpigeon’s CD release.
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October 28th, 2009 / 1 Comment
Late last night, I wandered from the studio after recording FOONYAP’s amazing ‘Me + You’ and stopped in my tracks, encircled by elk. They grazed and I watched, both of us calm, eventually parting ways — me towards bed, and them down the road down into Banff township. I’m sure the animals here think these surroundings are just as beautiful as we do.
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