Monthly Archives: November 2016

BILL AND JOEL PLASKETT ANNOUNCE SOLIDARITY; FATHER AND SON COLLABORATE FOR NEW ALBUM OUT FEBRUARY 17

When Bill Plaskett and his son Joel Plaskett get together to write songs the result, as Bill describes it, is “a touch of the traditional mixed in with the new, and a lot of the unexpected, arrived at through experimentation.” The result is Solidarity, an album that welds Bill’s traditional folk leanings with Joel’s long and acclaimed history in the Canadian rock landscape.

While Joel is a nationally adored, JUNO Award winning songwriter, the foundations of his talent began at home with his father Bill, who is an accomplished musician himself and co-founder of the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival. “My father has certainly been one of my biggest musical influences,” says Joel. “I grew up around him playing guitars and his love of folk music, particularly music from the British Isles and Ireland is something I’ve inherited from him – artists like Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, and Paul Brady. Conversely, I have introduced him to some of my favourite records by artists like Those Bastard Souls, Led Zeppelin, and Gillian Welch.”

Bill and Joel’s converging approaches to songwriting left lots of room for both to help shape each other’s songs. Bill says the pair spent a lot of time “figuring out what to play, and what not to play, listening critically to each other, and talking about the results. And then figuring out themes, motifs, and connections.” The result of which is “a complementary but different melodic sense that creates a guitar weave that is unique to us,” says Joel. “Between the 6 string, tenor and tiple guitars, the bouzoukis and mandolas, there are a lot of ringing strings on this album. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Set for release on February 17 via Pheromone Recordings, the title track, “Solidarity” is a great summation of their collaboration, both lyrically and sonically. “I wanted a song Dad and I could sing together that connected our individual journeys and our personal politics,” says Joel. “The word ‘solidarity’ came to mind and didn’t leave.”

Both Bill and Joel’s tracks on Solidarity arrived here from many different eras, sources, and stages of life. Bill wrote “No Sight Compares” in the early 1970s about a troubled relationship and signs from nature that everything would work out fine, while Joel’s “The New California” was written this past summer at a hotel in Yellowknife where “the Alpine trees and perpetual sunlight on the Great Slave Lake made me think of some magical part of California I dreamt up,” claims Joel.

While “We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years,” “Jim Jones,” and “On Down the River” are older songs, each heard many times on the Plaskett family tape player and now revisited by father and son together, other tracks on Solidarity pay homage in a less direct manner. Both “Dragonfly” and “Up In The Air” give a nod to some of Bill’s guitar heroes, Bert Jansch and Richard Thompson, and one of Joel’s favourite songwriters, Al Tuck.

Not all the cuts on Solidarity required as much forethought though. “Help Me Somebody Depression Blues” was recorded spur of the moment with Bill on acoustic guitar in one of the studios and Joel on drums in the other. Divided by a window but connected through headphones, the two hammered out the track, VU meters in the red throughout “in one take, or was it two?” wonders Bill.

Beginning March 15, Bill and Joel will embark on the Solidarity Tour across Canada, performing their collaborations and other songs from Joel’s vast catalog. Peterborough fuzz-folk duo Mayhemingways is also along for the ride as opening support and performing with Bill and Joel. Full tour dates can be found below, with more tour dates to be announced shortly.

SOLIDARITY TRACK LIST
01 Dragonfly
02 The Next Blue Sky
03 We Have Fed You All For 1000 Years
04 Blank Cheque
05 Help Me Somebody Depression Blues
06 Up In The Air
07 Jim Jones
08 The New California
09 No Sight Compares
10 Solidarity
11 On Down The River

THE SOLIDARITY TOUR

Mar 15 – Truro, NS – Marigold Cultural Centre
Mar 17 – Montreal, QC – L’Astral
Mar 18 – Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre
Mar 22 – Winnipeg, MB – West End Cultural Centre
Mar 23 – Regina, SK – WA WA Shire Centre
Mar 24 – Saskatoon, SK – Broadway Theatre
Mar 29 – Kelowna, BC – Mary Irwin Theatre
Mar 30 – Nanaimo, BC – The Queens
Mar 31- Victoria, BC – Alix Goolden Performance Hall
Apr 1 – Vancouver, BC – Vogue Theatre
Apr 5 – Waterloo, ON – Starlight
Apr 6 – Waterloo, ON – Starlight
Apr 7- Hamilton, ON – The Studio at Hamilton Place
Apr 12 – London, ON – Aeolian Hall
Apr 13 – London, ON – Aeolian Hall
Apr 14 – Stratford, ON – Avondale United Church
Apr 20 – Halifax, NS – Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
Apr 22 – Port Hawkesbury, NS – Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre
May 4 – Paris, ON – Dominion Telegraph
May 5 – Bayfield, ON – Old Town Hall

ALEJANDRA RIBERA ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM, THIS ISLAND

ACCLAIMED SONGWRITER REVEALS SOPHOMORE ALBUM, DUE OUT JANUARY 27 VIA PHEROMONE RECORDINGS

CANADIAN TOUR DATES BEGIN FEBRUARY 23

Alejandra Ribera has been writing about the unexpected places we find light since the release of her critically acclaimed debut album La boca. In her sophomore release This Island, the award-winning songwriter continues her exploration of luminescence – this time leaving the depths of mythological waters and delving firmly into the experience of the human heart. She cites some unlikely influences as inspiring her approach to this recording – a speech by actress Tilda Swinton at the Rothko Chapel, a documentary about performance artist Marina Abramović and studying movement in Paris with one of Pina Bausch’s earliest devotees.

“There is this infinite potential that lies in that moment between suspension and release,” says Ribera. “I wanted to put a sonic microscope on that moment and invite the listener into that intimate space normally reserved for those who create the music.”

“Higher” continues the themes of intimate and infinite. The song “was based on a very funny story that Billy Connolly once told about his theory on God, the nucleus, and the solar system. He says we’re looking at the whole thing through the wrong end of the telescope. In the end he finds out one of the women he’s been talking to is a nun. It’s sort of a joyful, light-hearted song about faith.”

Due out on January 27 via Pheromone Recordings, This Island was recorded at a studio in rural Ontario where she and the band lived and recorded in the depths of winter. “Thirty-five centimetres of snow fell on our first night. I’d often be singing facing the lake which was completely frozen over through the window.” That vast Canadian landscape is audible from the opening track and woven throughout much of the album. Reminiscent of early Damien Rice in its delicate and spacious arrangements we also hear the influence of contemporaries like Rufus Wainwright and Fiona Apple in This Island’s sophisticated melodies.

Ribera’s reputation for raw and emotive vocals has brought repeated comparisons to Tom Waits from the critics over the years. In “Blood Moon Rising” she harnesses that palpable intensity right to the hem with an almost athletic ability that leaves hairs standing on end.

This Island also brings us Ribera’s most accessible and up-tempo songwriting to date, perhaps the feature that most distinguishes it from her previous work. “After my first year of living in France I found myself writing little hymns of gratitude and hearing anthem-like choruses in my head. I think it was a subconscious way of lifting my own spirits when I was feeling homesick. When it came time to record those songs I wanted to have as much fun as possible. Exploit the joy! That’s why I asked Bryden Baird (Feist) to write the horn arrangements – he has this magic touch, it makes you grin.”

“Carry Me,” “Will Not Drown,” and “Led Me To You” (which runs seven verses deep and reads rather like a Leonard Cohen poem set to a bluegrass jam) are probably the best examples of this new-found unabashed levity. And then there are her trademark heart-breaking lyrics that cut to the quick with love songs like “The Undertow” and “Undeclared War” – ‘The words you left metastasized, I cannot breath my hands are tied…’ swelling and subsiding in lush waves of strings, acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies.

There’s a timeless approach to the production which Ribera entrusted mixer Trina Shoemaker (Sheryl Crow) and engineer L. Stu Young (Prince) to help her achieve. “I wanted to make a record that sounded classic, simple and unencumbered by the production trends of the day. I knew it would take courage to strip everything down and so I needed a very particular team that would push me every step of the way.” Equal parts subtle and nourishing, all these elements were carefully crafted with her long time collaborators and Montreal-based band Jean-Sebastien Williams and Cédric Dind-Lavoie. With their talent in tow Ribera has created This Island, a place she invites us to visit, to dream and to celebrate that light that she is seeking wherever she goes.

THIS ISLAND TRACKLIST

01 Russian Plates On Michigan Avenue
02 The Undertow
03 Carry Me
04 Higher
05 Led Me To You
06 Will Not Drown
07 Blood Moon Rising
08 Undeclared War
09 Soft Place To Land
10 I Am Orlando

ALEJANDRA RIBERA TOUR DATES:
Feb 23rd – Quebec City, QC – Théâtre Petit-Champlain
Feb 24th – Jonquières, QC – Côté Cour
Feb 28th – Montreal, QC – Club Soda (MTL en Lumiere)
Mar 4th – Sutton, QC – Salle Alec & Gérald Pelletier
Mar 9th – Sorel-Tracey, QC – Marine Cabaret
Mar 15th – Toronto, ON – Trinity St. Paul’s
Mar 16th – London, ON – Aeolian Hall
Mar 17th – Ottawa, ON – NAC Studio
Mar 21st – Berlin, Germany – Grüner Salon
Mar 24th – Wawern, Germany – Synagoge
Mar 25th – Freiberg, Germany – Jazzhaus
Mar 26th – Landsberg, Germany – Stadttheater
Mar 28th – Vienna, Austria – Sargfabrik