Biali will unveil new material at special Blenders concert
Juno Award winning musician Laila Biali will be sharing new songs from her soon to be released album during a special Blenders concert at the Art Gallery of Swift Current on February 15.
Biali, who was previously in Swift Current back in October 2017, is currently touring in support of the album Out of Dust which will be released on March 27. Her Swift Current concert is one of just three Saskatchewan stops on her 13 show Winter Tour 2020. After her album is released she has concerts scheduled in the United States, France and Germany.
Biali’s fifth album, her self titled 2018 release, won the Juno Award in the Vocal Jazz Album of the Year category. She says this new material is a fitting follow-up to that award winning body of work.
“It’s similar. I would say it’s a continuation of the last release for sure. It’s an appropriate follow-up stylistically,” Biali admitted during a recent phone interview.
“Some who’ve heard it who are familiar with my work have said ‘oh, this is more mainstream’ and others have said ‘oh, this is more jazz’. And so it kind of just depends, it is kind of in the ear of the listener as it were.”
“The subject material is really very, very personal on this one. And I do think there are elements of it that are fresh and new and different. But I think that it continues to represent an artist who is exploring the nexus of jazz and other perhaps more mainstream styles of music.”
Music on her new release delves into emotional topics of optimistically overcoming ongoing political upheaval around the world, climate change, women’s rights, addiction, illness, and loneliness.
She shares that her dear friend Wendy Nelles succumbed to cancer in 2018. Nelles had been a big champion of hers for over a decade and supported her in many ways, and was hugely excited when Biali was nominated for a Juno Award in the Vocal Jazz Album of the Year category.
“She was so excited about it. But unfortunately she passed away before I won the Juno. She didn’t get to see that happen. But when I was at her bedside when she was in hospital, and I actually was with her when she passed away, I was holding her hand and told her that I would dedicate the new album to her.”
“It was a very profound moment,” Biali said. ”So she really is at the heart of this album.”
A few months after Nelles’ passing, Biali was at the Banff Centre working on her new album, and the first song that came to her was ‘Wendy’s Song’, a singer and songwriter tune in memory of her friend.
The recording of Out of Dust dealt Biali a life-changing health issue when a previously undiscovered mould issue caused her health to take a tumble.
“It kicked my butt,” she admits of the autoimmune diseases of severe asthma and alopecia she developed as a result of mould in the rental home she and her husband were exposed to while recording the album.
“It’s wild that in the midst of recording the new album, including the vocal tracks as we were recorded in our basement studio, we actually got displaced. And thank God upstairs was much better. But we ended up having to relocate to the living room and had a makeshift studio set up in our living room.”
While dealing with health issues her condition was also complicated by a tight deadline to complete the album.
“It was a scramble but in some ways it was the music that was driving us and helping me to stay focussed as I was kind of falling apart. So music has always been a place where I find purpose and healing, as cliche as that might sound.”
“And our home issues and health issues are still not resolved, but we are on our way towards moving into a better situation, and I do think my health will bounce back. But it has given me great empathy towards people who suffer and struggle, especially when it