When this girl was competing on Canadian Idol she moved me when she sang. That’s a difficult thing to achieve on a competition show like that. Those shows can be entertaining, but it is very difficult for any true artistry to come through. She did that, and she did so effortlessly.
I anticipated the release of her first CD, and I was encouraged by the information that it was independently produced. But although I enjoyed it, there was something about the production that was not quite right. Perhaps the musicianship was over-expressed.
The songs that I was familiar with from her didn’t come across the same way. Everything did sound good, but it did not really move me as her performances on air had done. I felt as I listened to it that I was doing so because of a nostalgia for something I couldn’t recapture.
But this new CD has grabbed me right away. Even previewing it in iTunes I was immediately attracted to the production. There were a couple of songs that seemed a bit excessive, but most of them had a great deal of space in the arrangements and production and performances, and this is what is needed for her to come through properly.
She is genuine, and that has always come across, but the cheery optimism of the previous recording is dynamically extended with some real, I believe, pain and disappointment. As a result, there is a seductive quality to the recording.
That might seem strange to say, but pain and sadness, along with joy and desire, is necessary in any recording, I think, for a listener to form an attachment to, and an appreciation for, both the music and the performer.
I think that it’s a lovely record. I’ve only heard it once and it stays with me. That’s a sign of something great to me.
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