| LIGHTS | Spirit of the West | Joel Plaskett |
LIGHTS
When electro-rock sensation Lights first hit the music scene in 2008, she was just a songwriter with a synth and a dream. Her name may have been pluralized but Lights Poxleitner was a one-woman show who played and programmed her own instruments and sang her own lyrics.
This admirable self-reliance is rare in pop—in fact, Lights, signed a publishing deal at 16 and began writing songs for other artists—but after her 2008 self-titled debut EP (precocious enough to earn her a best new artist Juno) and gold-selling full-length follow-up The Listening, Lights was ready to open herself up to collaborations on her unexpectedly experimental album Siberia. And by choosing such leftfield collaborators as live electronic outfit Holy Fuck and rising rapper Shad, she also opened up her sound.
“It’s a huge step,” she readily admits. “For a year after my first record, I was confused and searching. I was writing all over the place and not finding anything that was essentially different. But after tour last year I was turned onto dubstep.”
The genre’s grimy beats and sonic minimalism influenced the creation of Siberia, if not necessarily shaping the music itself (though she does pay homage with a dubstep drop on “Fourth Dimension.”)
Rather, dubstep led Lights away from the “perfection” of her past work. “Everything was tuned and timed just right. The new stuff is raw and gritty but still pop with a focus on the melodies. It’s the marriage of those two that make it really different and unlike anything I’ve ever done before.”
This dirtier direction came from collaborating with Holy Fuck, a fellow Juno-winning, electronic-influenced Canadian act who she met when both played the dance stage at last year’s Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK. Impressed by their “grime and grit,” she decided to see what might happen when she infused her pop sensibilities with their experimental tendencies.
“I went over to Brian [Borcherdt’s] house with Graham [Walsh] and we just started jamming until something started to form, as opposed to the last record which was more structured and less live feeling. We wired old synths and toy synths through all these pedals and machines from their junk table,” she laughs. “They’re straight-up mad scientists.”
Her other main collaborator was Shad, who she knew through a mutual friend. “He’s so humble and so intelligent,” she says, “and I knew he’d kill it.” Indeed, Shad drops his typically articulate knowledge on the crunchy, soiled “Everybody Breaks a Glass” and “Flux and Flow,” which Lights describes as “the perfect marriage of this sweet melody and the hardest beat ever. It’s about how that applies to life because you have to be soft and you have to be strong.”
Lyrically, the album is light years from her last, which was written when the singer, who spent much of her childhood travelling to places like the Philippines and Jamaica with her missionary parents, had left the nest and landed in Toronto. “A lot of those songs came from a sad but hopeful place. I was alone and pondering a lot. I’m a lot more aware of the person I am now and each of these songs is about an experience I’ve gone through,” she says. “This record came from a very happy place.”
Then why is it called Siberia? “It’s based on something that was said to me, that we could be happy even in a place like Siberia. It was such an inspiring thing to say, because Siberia is cold and a little daunting and represents unfamiliar territory.” That last bit is particularly sticky for Lights, who left her safe pop haven for these unexplored sonics, though the metaphor carries even further because despite being an infamous land of ice and exile, Siberia is epically beautiful and so is Siberia.
The dividend from her early award-winning success—not to mention her sprawling online footprint which includes over a half-million Facebook fans and over a quarter-million Twitter followers, not to mention a cult fanbase amongst the Comic-Con set—is her current artistic freedom.
Her up-for-anything experimentations with Holy Fuck produced an astoundingly eclectic album that belies its snow white title. Siberia’s diversity leapfrogs from the hip-shaking dance-pop of “Toes” and the arms-up anthem “Banner” to the singer-songwriter-y romantic ballad “Cactus in the Valley,” written on an acoustic guitar, and the nine- minute instrumental album closer “Day One” which sounds crafted by a rusty, lovesick robot—but that didn’t make recording her sophomore album any easier.
“For the first one, nobody had any expectations for what I was supposed to sound like. You write your first record only for yourself. You don’t have fans yet and there are no preconceptions. So I had to reinvent myself all over again, rediscover myself as an artist and remember I can do whatever I want.”
Siberia‘s beats skitter and thwack, the retro electronics fire like decomposing lasers and the analog synths dirty up her trademark pretty melodies, propelling Lights’ emotion-soaked but still-cute croon into her sprawling, imperfect new sound.
Call it anti-electro, dream-step or perhaps even grit-pop. Whatevs. Just rest assured that it’s the same bright Lights; she’s just built herself a bigger city.
Joel Plaskett
Canada has produced some of world’s most enduring songwriters and Joel Plaskett is hailed as one of the best. With countless awards to his credit, thousands of tour dates, and numerous recording and producing projects under his belt, Plaskett remains one of the most innovative and prolific artists on the scene today.
The year 2012 started in high gear. Out of the doldrums of another long Canadian winter, Joel and The Emergency worked around the clock, sending weekly volleys to fight off the seasonal blues: a brand new song – recorded, mixed, mastered, and released – every single week for ten weeks, accompanied by snippets of video documenting the process in-studio. It was an epic undertaking,which came together in the physical release of his eighth recording, Scrappy Happiness. The album garnered outstanding reviews and Joel Plaskett and The Emergency have been touring steadily since its release.
Scrappy Happiness is the follow-up to Joel’s hugely successful triple record, Three, which garnered overwhelming media response and caught the attention of international audiences. Where Three is a thoughtful solo record that offers up gems that range from pure pop to soul stirring folk, Scrappy Happiness is an epic melodic rock record powered by stellar songs and a sense of urgency.
In addition to his eight recordings, a DVD and a retrospective LP, Plaskett still has the creative energy to work on outside projects. He masterminded a reunion Thrush Hermit Tour and Box Set, has produced recordings for Sarah Slean, Al Tuck, David Myles, Steve Poltz, and most recently, buzz act Mo Kenney. In 2010 Plaskett started a boutique record label (New Scotland Records) and has already produced and released a 12-part 7” vinyl singles series featuring artists ranging from Jeremy Fisher to Ana Egge.
Whether it’s touring in Canada, the US, Australia or the UK; with his rock band The Emergency, or more intimate shows as a solo artist, Plaskett consistently excites and inspires his audiences. As a writer, performer or producer, Plaskett will to continue to influence the music scene for many years to come.
Spirit of the West
Spirit of the West began as a Folk trio called Evesdropper in Vancouver nearly 30 years ago. Thirteen albums later, they have achieved status as one of the most beloved ‘Legacy Artists’ in Canadian history, having proven themselves to be road-worthy, durable, having toured Canada, the US, UK and Europe consistently, building a dedicated following of fans from all over the world. They have been inducted into the Halls of Fame / Lifetime Achievement Categories by the Western Canadian Music Association and the Society of Composers and Music Publishers of Canada, and have used their inestimable charms to wheedle complimentary pints out of barmen in at least 9 countries. With four gold and two platinum albums to their credit, Spirit of the West are responsible for such songs as: ‘(And if) Venice is Sinking’, ‘Five Free Minutes’, ‘Save This House’, ‘The Crawl’ and ‘Home For a Rest’, the song that has been called Canada’s honorary national anthem: ‘Spirituality: A Consummate Compendium’, a double CD album on Rhino Records, is the band’s most recent release and is a look back at the first 25 years of their career.
