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real intensity and emotion. I wanted to do it a different way. I
wrote most of the songs myself again and the basic arrangements
too, working on some particular songs and the final arrangements
with my band. We recorded it at Hotel 2 Tango [it gets its name
from saying its zip code H2T]: it’s part of a bunch of places associ-
ated with Montreal band Godspeed You! Black Emperor.”
B
rought up bilingual in Spanish and English by Mexican-
US parents, Lhasa is known for composing in both lan-
guages plus French, yet this time all the songs are in
English. “I’ve been living a more English-speaking life!
When I arrived in Montreal in 1991 I thought of it as a
French city, I learnt French, went into a French musical commu-
nity, signed with a French record company, lived as a French-
speaking person. In 1997 I moved to a mixed neighbourhood in
the centre of town, a real mix of English, Spanish, Portuguese,
Greek and Jewish which I love but I still mostly spoke French.
Then in more recent years I’ve been discovering the English side
of Montreal. I knew it was a bilingual city but that was abstract
for me and now it’s become very real and makes me feel more
balanced language-wise.”
The new songs seem like sequels to those on Living Road,
expressing similar situations but at different moments from differ-
ent angles. There are songs about the inner repercussions of rela-
tionships, about dreams. There are playful pictures by March
Hutchinson of anthropomorphised animals – swan, zebra, fox,
deer – dancing things like tangos and foxtrots together. There are
a lot of deep thoughts and experiences moving to a lighter feel at
the end. The key song seems to be I’m Going In which almost sums
up the record? “Yes definitely. Soon This Place Will Be Too Small
[Living Road] and I Am Going In are looking at the same thing
from two different sides. I feel overall it’s less dramatic and the-
atrical. A couple of songs were from the end of the Living Road
period that I had never finished. And I love animals: I love their
jumping, free-limbed feelings, and they’re good mojo!”
“When I wrote Rising an image came of somebody being
caught up by a storm, pulled up into the air like a wave rising up
and down and rising again. For over a year I couldn’t make head
or tail of it and then it fell into place: the images are violent and
chaotic but there is something simple and serene there too. A Fish
On Land was almost word for word a dream I had about 1996. It
was about finding this fish, putting him in the water, it becoming
this man and me knowing I was going to marry him. It’s a kind of
fairytale! It was very romantic and I woke up very happy. Then I
had so much fun writing Fool’s Gold: it’s about the end of a rela-
tionship. I had a version for a few years that I did nothing with
and then a friend had a terrible break-up and I put it all together.
It was satisfying to write, especially that verse, ‘I forgive you
wanting to be free/ I realise you long to wander/ And I sympathise
with your roving eyes/ I just can’t forgive your bad manners.’ I
hate bad manners!”
T
he album is full of brooding melodies, opening with
just a few notes played on the piano and the arrange-
ments while atmospheric are pared back. “Andrew
[Barr] is an incredible, subtle drummer who you can
really feel listening and responding. Miles [Perkin] is an
amazing bass player. He has beautiful body language, such an
expressive way of playing and is wonderful to watch on stage.
And he sings too. Sarah [Pagé] plays harp and musically she is the
heart of the album. Joe [Grass] plays pedal steel guitar. Joe is
what Bob Dylan calls a ’musical expeditionary’, always searching
and trying new things. He just picked up the fiddle last year and
now he is playing it too. The hidden card was guitarist Freddy
Koella who plays beautiful guitar solos on What Kind Of Heart,
1001 Nights and Anyone And Everyone. He is an amazing musi-
cian who has played with Dylan and all kinds of people.”
“The final song is cathartic. It’s the last song that I wrote for
the album when I found the musicians. There was this feeling of
coming home, of landing, about feeling your feet go into the
earth, of having a place in the world. It has that feeling of relief,
of things taking care of themselves, of being comfortable with the
world. And I am.”
www.lhasadesela.com F
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