A reflection of hope in a hopeless world
Singer-songwriter Jenn Grant wanted album ‘to be part of something good’
PREVIEW
What: Jenn Grant with Rachel Sermanni When: Friday, 9 p.m. (doors at 8) Where: Sugar Tickets: $14 at Lyle’s Place and Ticketfly.com Note: Grant also performs tonight at The Waverly in Cumberland Jenn Grant ventures in a lot of directions in the 40 minutes that make up Paradise, her sixth and most adventurous album to date.
She revisits the ghosts of Prince and David Bowie, and ruminates on The Tragically Hip. Lucid dreams and a piece of land she inherited after her mother’s death also factor into the mix.
Suffice to say, Paradise is unlike many other recordings in the Nova Scotia-based performer’s catalogue.
“Thematically, it’s a bit more broad, which I hope people can relate to,” Grant said during a recent tour stop in Vancouver. “The songs are still personal. But from a writing standpoint, they look in on something, and are a bit more observatory in some cases.”
That’s a shift in perspective from her previous recording, Compostela. The 2014 album was inspired by the death of her mother, from breast cancer, two years earlier, and channelled the emotion that came with it. It was a breakout recording for Grant, who earned two Juno Award nominations as a result, including one for songwriter of the year.
She switched gears on Paradise, musically and lyrically. Her singing voice is audibly deeper, and the breadth of production styles (handled by her husband and bandmate, keyboardist Daniel Ledwell) introduces new electronic feasts for the ears.
Grant is continuing her evolution on tour with a set of in-ear monitors, which produces a more direct return on what she is putting out to the audience each night. Grant, who performs tonight at The Waverly in Cumberland and Friday at Sugar in Victoria, is playing less guitar on this tour, shifting her primary focus to singing.
“I’m experimenting right now,” she said. “Singing live, you develop different ways of using your voice, and it changes.”
With her new monitor set up, she has been able to avoid oversinging — “I like the control it gives me,” Grant said — and is presenting a spot-on version of Paradise in concert. “It sounds a lot like the record, what we’re playing.”
There’s a dream theme to Paradise. Grants often has vivid dreams, and those factored into the new recording. “I used that directly in my songwriting for the first time, even though I didn’t really realize it was happening,” she said.
The sudden deaths of Prince and David Bowie — within three months of each other, while Grant was writing Paradise — also play pivotal roles. She references the losses in the song Working Girl: “I read it in the news today/The whole world cried for everything we believed in.”
She was caught off balance by their deaths, but found solace in the collective mourning.
“I felt like the music community grounded together and felt the loss together, at the same time. I found that really interesting to be a part of and to watch.”
The night after Bowie’s death, Grant had a vivid dream about him, which resulted in the song Rocket. She didn’t want to explain the finer details of the dream, but it’s clear the experience was moving. “It felt really important to have it on the record,” Grant said.
She thought songwriting sessions for the album were over, until she watched the final Tragically Hip concert simulcast in Halifax. The concert took place on Aug. 20, which happened to be her birthday. Grant was greatly affected by the experience, which prompted her to go back and add more observations and emotion to some songs.
“After I saw that concert, the next day I went through all the lyrics on my record.”
The album title is a reference to a piece of land in P.E.I. she shares with her brother. The land, which sits on Paradise Lane, was gifted to the Grant siblings (and their partners) when their mother died. Grant wanted Paradise to be a reflection of hope, at a point in history when some feel hope is all but lost.
“I wanted it to reflect those ideas, at a time when the world is struggling more than usual. I wanted to be a part of something good.”