Event Info
Leif Vollebekk, Michael Feuerstack
Plus Michael Feuerstack
Atomique Productions presents
- Leif Vollebekk -
...
5:00pm
Advance tickets: $12.00
Event Description
Plus Michael Feuerstack
Atomique Productions presents
- Leif Vollebekk -
Leif Vollebekk spent two years searching for perfect takes. This search took him from his home in Montreal to a studio in Manhattan, from a farmhouse in Woodstock, NY to a mansion outside Paris, and the result is a dusty, polished, new, old record called North Americana.
“I wrote the songs, I found the best band in the world, and then all I had to do was find the right studio, for the right take,” he says. “And it took forever.”
After his 2010 debut, Vollebekk knew the kind of album he wanted to make next: a record like the ones he loves by Gillian Welch or Ryan Adams, that feel old and familiar even when they’re new. But also a record that speaks to the listener through its lyrics, with songs “that can hold up in a storm,” that are packed full of perfect little mistakes.
So he started writing. Ten new songs, the best he had ever written, with lines about love and the end of love, about journeys and homecoming, about the death of friends and drinking yourself dry. Now Vollebekk laughs: “I thought the record was done when I was finished writing the songs. ‘All we need to do is record it!’”
But when you’re searching for the perfect take, recording is no small task. It happened only piece by piece, session by session, song by song, over the course of seasons.
The players were these: Vollebekk, singing, playing guitar and piano, harmonica, rusty fiddle on “When the Subway Comes Above the Ground”; the jazz musicians Hans Bernhard (bass) and Philippe Melanson (drums). “I wanted to be able to roam with them wherever I go,” Vollebekk says. Arcade Fire’s Sarah Neufeld played violin, arranging her own parts. Joe Grass played pedal steel. And Adam Kinner played tenor sax.
The heart of the songs was always recorded live, to tape. Old school, spontaneous, one real captured moment. To find these moments, they travelled. To Montreal‘s legendary Hotel 2 Tango studio, working with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Coeur de Pirate, Godspeed You! Black Emperor). To New York City, working with Tom Gloady (Ryan Adams, Sigur Rós, Patti Smith). To La Frette studios, in La Frette-sur-Seine, France. And then back to Montreal, for one song at Breakglass studios. Vollebekk even tried recording with John Simon, the producer whose credits include Music from Big Pink and Songs of Leonard Cohen. At his home in upstate New York, Simon listened to “Cairo Blues,” then travelled up to Montreal to record it. “There was just not a good take,” Vollebekk says. “I ended up doing it a few months later, again at the Hotel, between takes of something else – and that’s just how it went.”
North Americana took years. “All this time,” Vollebekk says, “trying to get one take.” But the result is a beautiful, alive, human – shambling ballads, noisy folk songs, vivid portraits of a 27-year-old’s watercolour life. “I feel like I created a record from 1970something that no one’s heard before,” Vollebekk says. “I’m haggard and this record is all I got.”
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In addition to the recent full length album release, Leif Vollebekk has released a free 5-song covers EP on July 10th, 2013: http://we.tl/sxcQEMRFDv
Leif Vollebekk performs "When the Subway Comes Above the Ground" on the Q with Jian Ghomeshi: http://youtu.be/T1It8ZeQk_g
http://leifvollebekk.com/
http://www.facebook.com/leifvollebekk
http://twitter.com/leifvollebekk
Wolves - by Michael Feuerstack: http://bit.ly/1fx9KGM
http://michaelfeuerstack.com/
https://www.facebook.com/michaelfeuerstackmusic
http://www.twitter.com/m_feuerstack
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Doors: 8:00pm (Early show)
Advance tickets: $12.00 - Available at Lyle's Place, Ditch Records & CDs and TicketWeb Canada - http://tktwb.tw/1fx9hVh
No Minors. 2 Pieces Of ID Required.
http://atomiqueproductions.com/
Venue
517 Yates
Bar / Nightclub
Capacity188
Open / Operational
In-Person Event
Sat. October 5th 2013 + Add to Calendar
Lucky Bar
