When I Paint My Masterpiece

初期BIG THIEFやADRIANNE LENKER、はたまたJULIEN BAKERが持っていたインディ・フォークの旨味....それをハイクオリティで歌い継いだカナダのSSW ADA LEA。SADDLE CREEKからドロップされる新作『WHEN I PAINT MY MASTERPIECE』で旨味を更に凝縮してインディ・フォークの骨身そのままを刻む!

リードシングル"baby blue frigidaire mini fridge"のシンプルなバンド編成で組んだアレンジが、これでもか! と身に染みる程難しい事は一切していない本作。ハーモニーとメロディの鋭さは落とさず、世界のインディLOVERがウットリするナンバーを揃えた内容、圧巻の一言!

A practicing painter and visual artist when she first started playing in various music projects around Montreal, Ada Leas Alexandra Levy has always taken a transdisciplinary approach to the arts. A breakup gave rise to her first solo album, what we say in private (2019), which was noted for its unusual mix of instrumental timbres, including electronics. A second acclaimed album, the Marshall Vore-produced one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden (2021), was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Over the next three years, Levy wrote over 200 songs while returning to school to study painting and poetry and teaching a songwriting course at Concordia University. She eventually paired up with experimental pop/psychedelic folk guru Luke Temple to record a whittled-down 16-song selection titled when i paint my masterpiece. In a departure for Ada Lea, it was recorded "live off the floor" with core members of her backing band (guitarist Chris Hauer, bassist Summer Kodama, and drummer Tasy Hudson) in sessions that not only allowed for but seem to have embraced human error. In tune with the resulting living-and-breathing quality of the album, its also a more acoustic-leaning one with an indie folk-rock feel -- even opening with a fingerstyle guitar instrumental -- although there are plenty of exceptions and surprises. To the folk-rock point, however, there are songs with titles like "down under the van home overpass," "dogs playing in the backyard," and "bob dylans 115th haircut," which is one of the plugged-in band entries here, if an ambling one with a harmonica solo. ("Bob Dylan couldn’t have written this song/Not even if he wanted to…With only one of me/One of you.") Also on board are straight-up lo-fi indie rock entries like "there is only one thing on my mind" and "something in the wind," a song that would fit well on many a Luke Temple album project. To that point, if theres a knock on when i paint my masterpieces 200-to-16 approach, its that the albums recording style is its most cohesive trait, with the track list sometimes seeming like a Bob Dylan exercise, followed by a Frankie Cosmos op, a quasi-tango study ("dogs playing in the backyard"), etc. -- even if that playful, adventurous spirit is also part of its charm. ~ Marcy Donelson