VOLLEBEKK IS GOOD - AND READY
Leif Vollebekk has wrapped his third album and now the Montreal singer-songwriter is playing the waiting game.
“It’s a crouching tiger, hidden record type of thing,” says Vollebekk, with a laugh, in a recent interview.
Vollebekk finished work on the album, Twin Solitude, in August, and this time round, he has a label — hot Montreal indie record company Secret City Records — set to release it. That’s in sharp contrast to the situation with his second album, North Americana: he produced the collection, then knocked on doors trying to find a label interested in handling it. That record was eventually released by Outside Music.
Secret City will launch Twin Solitude on Feb. 24, and thanks to the combination of Vollebekk’s reputation and Secret City’s know-how, the first single, Elegy, already has been streamed more than 400,000 times on various digital platforms.
Twin Solitude once again features the stark, moving singer-songwriter fare that has had critics comparing Vollebekk to Jeff Buckley, Ryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen at his most intimate. He recorded at happening Mile End studio Breakglass, and says it was all about keeping things in the moment.
“We did it all live in the room,” Vollebekk said. “We did everything on tape with old microphones. Everyone was set up pretty close together. And we did everything pretty quickly. Everything on the record was the first take, except for two songs, where I had to take a step back and I waited a couple of months and then went back and it was the first or second take.”
He had some help from some notable musicians, including Olivier Fairfield from Timber Timbre on drums, Sarah Pagé from the Barr Brothers on harp and Shahzad Ismaily from Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog on bass.
Once Twin Solitude is out, Vollebekk will be hitting the road. There’s a Montreal show March 2 at La Tulipe as part of the Montreal en lumière festival and then he’s off for a month of shows in Europe opening for Colorado folk artist Gregory Alan Isakov.
My wish for 2017: That Montrealers don’t spend all their time this year checking out the big, pricey, corporate 375th anniversary celebrations, and instead support the smaller, more indie cultural fare that is the real backbone of Montreal’s happening arts scene.