Canadian singer-songwriter ELIZABETH SHEPHERD has just hit the ‘go’ button on her new 11 track record which blurs the lines between multiple genres including Pop, Hip'-Hop, Pop and Jazz.
We wanted to know more about this incredible artist….
“At heart, I’m an improviser; I love playing off of whatever is around me. But during the pandemic, we were all suddenly stuck at home with nobody to create with. In Quebec, we couldn’t even leave our homes after dark, let alone travel to meet up with other musicians. So I had to find another way to ride my creative wave – I improvised.”
We were interested to know how the record came to be….
“I took inspiration from sounds around me – a typewriter, garbage cans, a record skipping, birds, people talking, laughter – you name it. The world is so full of sounds. I wove them into snippets from old recordings I had of jams with friends, turned stuff upside down, added layers and synth parts, and came up with these songs. Then I sent them off to musician friends (who were also stuck at home, and had suddenly invested in decent recording gear) and asked them to add their parts. I ended up with this Frankenstein album that doesn’t sound like anything I've done before, which I absolutely love.”
THREE THINGS remain on her new record – faith, hope and love. But of the three, the greatest is love. Nothing else matters, especially these days. Check out THREE THINGS in full on your preferred streaming platform now: https://linktr.ee/elizabethshepherd
We were ken to learn more about who or what influenced the record….
“Having heaps of time at home during the pandemic, I was able to finally dig deep into our massive record collection. I came across a Rickee Lee Jones record that I didn’t even know I had (must have inherited somewhere?). People used to tell me I sounded like her, so I popped it on, curious to hear. It started skipping at this one point where she’s singing “years may go by”. The way it was skipping was so hip – this awkward lilting kind of hypnotic loop. I had to record it on my iPhone. Then I looped it and wrote a song about time to it. I loved the idea of using this skip – this repeated moment in time you just can’t get out of – as the backdrop for a musing about what time really is.”
We asked if there was a particular theme to the record…..
“The idea that time is this thing that we feel controls our lives… but if you stop and think about it, maybe it’s just a construct. Maybe we just live our lives moment to moment, surrounded by these cycles (like seasons), and it’s only when we stop to observe our relationship to a cycle (like a season of a birthday or an event) that we suddenly remove ourselves from the moment long enough to witness everything that’s changed since we last stood still, outside of the moment.”
Watch the official music video for “Time,” taken from THREE THINGS, on YouTube now:
