Hailing from the tiny logging town of Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada, 20 year old Stef Lang is perhaps at first glance an unlikely troubadour. But the unique combination of her mixed heritage coupled with growing up in the remote working town of 7500, provided just the right atmosphere to fuel Stephanie’s youthful pursuit of truthful expression and self-knowledge.
This drive to achieve her ultimate expression eventually caused her to pack up her guitar and walk away from small town life at 17 and relocate, on her own, to Vancouver, a city of over 2 million, to chase her songwriting dreams and locate kindred spirits.
An extremely prolific writer and performer, Stephanie now works closely with many diverse and talented musicians in the vibrant Vancouver songwriting scene. She has done vocals on Calgary’s killer’esque indie boys The Dudes and a co-writing credit for “Dust In Gravity” which will appear on Delerium’s upcoming album. She is also a participant in the respected weekly songwriting circle known as Hipjoint Throwdown, of which she has become a core member.
Stef recently penned a publishing deal with Nettwerk/H-Songs and was approved for a VIDEOFACT grant for her song “Straitjacket.”
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More information on Stef Lang:
http://www.myspace.com/steflang
Bodies rolled in sleeping bags…darkness on the dance floor. 6am and the band is serving breakfast. These are self-promoted all-ages all-night shows in unlikely places…art galleries, community halls and circus spaces. Earlier…swirling lights, pylons and projected images hover above a dancing crowd. Assemblies of acts take turns on stage as people and band members mingle and munch grilled cheese sandwiches. Some may stop to buy a Spiral Beach t-shirt carefully burned with a hot iron…. an evening collectible baring no band logo. At the entrance kids wander in from the winter snow and throw coats onto a towering pile. Their hats and scarves, furry sweats and headbands follow them to the dance floor. The show begins…and never seems to end.
“Everything the band does is very visual – we always think about the whole experience, so audiences feel like they’re a part of what it going on. We try to make each show feel like full-on sensory overload – there’s a LOT of energy coming off the stage, and every show is a chance to get an audience worked into a total frenzy… we’ve run a lot of our own shows that will go all night or into the next day, so there’s also an element of delirium involved,” says Drummer Daniel Woodhead about the performances. “Some of our biggest parties in Toronto have been at the Centre of Gravity, which is an old vaudeville/circus theatre, so we’ve taken that as our inspiration – we like to create an atmosphere that suits the music, so playing all-ages events in community centres and lofts where we can use the space to make something fun and interactive is the best.”
With the Canadian release of “Ball” in the fall of 2007 the buzz on the band became deafening. They had already graced the cover of Toronto street rag “NOW” and ruffled feathers when they unexpectedly invited fans in crazy costumes up on stage to join the broadcast of their performance on Canada’s MTV-LIVE… The band toured extensively throughout Canada and was invited to tour with both Sloan and the Hidden Cameras in the U.S. as well as opening up for like-minded acts such as the Go! Team and Tokyo Police Club. By the time all the members of the band turned 20, they had already been twice across the continent!
In the spring of 2008 dazzling reviews of their album “Ball” from bloggers and mainstream press started to appear. A live performance on XM’s ‘The Verge’ was rated as the show’s Top Performance of the Year and the band was nominated for “Best New Indie Band” at the Casby Awards. Canada’s most important media outlets like Much Music and Toronto’s The Edge radio station began to champion the band. They spent the summer performing at festivals across Canada, including Toronto’s Virgin Festival, and took their incomparable live show to the UK and US, where Tommy Boy/ADA released the album.
The band are taking it all to the next level this September with their new album “The Only Really Thing.” The album perfectly captures the jubilant frenzy of the band, filling out the kaleidoscopic pop sound they had already developed with intricate arrangements and unconventional instrumentation, including metal chains and a cell phone! Daniel says, “We had a pretty clear vision of what we wanted to achieve; to make a Bollywood-influenced multi-layered color collage kind of modern pop album, with songs that were good enough to stand on their own but put into this whirlwind of different sounds and textures. Once you’re there, you just kind of jump in!”
“The Only Really Thing” will be released on September 22 by Sparks/Tommy Boy.
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More information on Spiral Beach:
http://www.myspace.com/spiralbeach
Emma-LeeFrom the opening strains of “Bruise Easy”, the introductory track on Emma-Lee’s debut album Never Just A Dream, you feel like you’ve stumbled on a star. Brimming with that ’special something’ of stars like Feist, k.d. lang, Madeleine Peyroux and Norah Jones, the March 3, 2009 release of Never Just A Dream heralds the arrival of an artist with the power to reshape our definition of pop.
At times playful, at others wistful, Never Just A Dream is a collection of songs inspired by the sort of heartache that is universal to anyone who has lived a life worth living. Co-produced with Mitch Girio, the sound slips seamlessly from swingin’ jazz to dreamy 50’s pop, with hints of folk and blues tied together by vocals as rich and sweet as a red velvet cupcake.
Armed with a voice that transports you, Emma-Lee chose not to rest on this strength alone. She instead put a sincere focus on becoming a great songwriter and the results of her efforts are fully evidenced throughout Never Just A Dream. Her weakness for a great pop melody turns out to be one of her greatest strengths; on Never Just A Dream spectres of AM oldies radio mingle effortlessly with childhood influences like Joni Mitchell and jazz great Ella Fitzgerald, creating a hauntingly beautiful musical landscape at once complex and yet familiar.
Saucy and sweet, pensive and pure, Never Just A Dream offers a candid peek inside the romantic heart. Whether it’s on the epic “Flow”, which chronicles a girl who sublets the apartment of her globe-trotting ex-boyfriend and renders herself at the mercy of his memory, or the soaring “That Sinking Feeling”, with its sting of realization, or in the ragtime bounce of “Jealousy”, which cheekily suggests you get what you deserve for snooping, Emma-Lee deftly captures the many dimensions of love and loss.
And yet Never Just A Dream is so much more than an anthology of youthful heartbreak. It delves into the pleasures of May-December relationships, suggests regret for past mistakes, and calls out for understanding on tracks like the Dusty Springfield tinged “An Older Man”, the cinematic “Until We Meet Again” and the album’s darkly delicious title track.
The release of Never Just A Dream was almost a dream derailed. While preparing and
creating the album Emma-Lee was stricken not once but twice by any singer’s worst nightmare; the need for throat surgery. She first faced possible vocal chord paralysis while having half her thyroid removed in 2006 and almost a year to the day she went under the knife again for an unrelated polyp on her vocal chords.
While those experiences might have defeated another less determined, Emma-Lee was not about to be stopped by a scalpel. “When good things happen they say it’s fate, but when bad things happen you have to make your own destiny. My destiny was to be singing and writing songs. I wasn’t about to give up on that dream.” Emma-Lee says of the experience.
It’s that kind of dedication and unwavering faith that sets Emma-Lee apart. Her skill, patience and incredible business savvy mark her as a rare artist of foresight and uncompromising vision.
Emma-Lee self-released Never Just A Dream locally in the late summer of 2008 and it instantly caught the ear of key tastemakers at the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Now Magazine, iTunes Canada and CBC Radio, and the track “Flow” earned a spot on the hit CBC show The Border.
She also attracted the attention of management veteran Larry Wanagas (The Trews, Two Hours Traffic, k.d. lang), whose wife urged him to investigate after reading a rave review, and artist development exec David “Click” Cox who discovered her by way of the Toronto-based music collective GoodSoundsGood, which she co-founded. The pair signed Emma-Lee to a co-management deal shortly thereafter and chose to re-release Never Just A Dream through Bumstead Productions, with distribution by Universal Music.
Emma-Lee’s ambition is anchored deeply in her love to simply create. Almost accidentally she discovered an instinctive ability to take self-portraits – a vital part of how she shares herself with her audience, through her website and the album’s graphics – and since 2006 has developed a thriving photography business as well. For Emma-Lee the two disciplines are uniquely entwined. “Although photography can stand alone,” she muses, “music can’t live without imagery.”
“I have a very clear vision of me, the artist”, Emma-Lee states with assurance, and she exhibits that artistry across all platforms, including a live show that is known for an intimate, off the cuff charm that creates a special bond with the audience. “You never know what will come out of my mouth at a show. For me performing is an intensely personal experience and I find it truly satisfying to know someone got something out of something I created; that I moved them like so many artists have moved me.”
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More information on Emma-Lee:
http://www.emma-lee.com
http://www.myspace.com/emmalee
Reactions to Winter Gloves’ debut album, about a girl, and their energetic live shows has garned praise like “Best New Artist” from iTunes and an invite to join Thunderheist on the recent Exclaim! Tour across Canada.
The guys will continue to bring their constant buzz of bass and gritty synths (as well as the coveted CDs of exclusive material thrown offstage at their live shows) on the road this summer across the US and a series of festivals like Hillside, Osheaga, and Toronto’s Harbourfront Summer Series.
Look for a bonus album of complementary material to their debut to surface this Fall! (right-click “save link/target as”)
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More information on Winter Gloves:
http://www.myspace.com/wintergloves
Our band lives on a massive island that is pigment green with sharp grey mountains moving slowly and peninsula fingers stretching out and snagging the sea. The people in the band are all different heights and all have very different tastes in music and very different ways of expressing emotion or thinking about art.
We started making noises in a concrete basement on the wrong side of the railroad tracks in Victoria, Canada six years ago, and we had a lot of conversations with each other through many songs. Some of these conversations were long and sad and unsure of what they were about. Some of them were many voices talking at once but understanding each other perfectly and saying the same thing in different, unconscious ways; and after this type of conversation we would quietly get into our cars and drive back across the tracks and feel a beautiful buzzing in our heads.
We took a bunch of songs and recorded them in 2006 with Neil Osborne. We called the record “Bridges” and we played the songs to each other and also played them to other people over and over and over again all over Canada, America, and Europe. Sometimes there were five thousand people listening and sometimes not, but the band loved putting the music into the air and letting it go.
When we got back to the island we put some heaters and carpets down in our concrete basement and dimmed the lights a bit and sometimes took a sip of scotch and stared at each other and thought about music and the strange relief of Fall but didnʼt talk about it and instead had a lot of conversations with each other through many many songs. So many songs this time that the band felt new and old at the same time which is, I think, a wonderful feeling. In the middle of the winter we put all our instruments, carpets, heaters, lamps and do-dads in a giant truck and moved everything up to a cabin on another, smaller island off the western coast of Canada (Hornby Island, BC) that is crushingly beautiful and calm. We again asked Neil Osborne to join us, and together the band stood facing each other in a circle under an angled skylight. The sound of the songs filled the room and the sound would only stop when someone was frustrated or hungry or needed to watch some Flight of the Conchords or stand out on the porch in the dark and listen to the wind moving the huge trees.
We have put together a group of these new songs and we have called the record “No Nations”. The songs have played over and over again in our heads until they no longer sound like songs, but more like a list of a million decisions and feelings and moments. We are ready to put the music into the air and let it go.
- Antonia
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More information on Jeys Overhead:
http://www.myspace.com/jetsoverhead
