"Down in the Weeds" LP

Abstract

"Down in the Weeds" is a 12 song cycle that uses Western Canadian identity and geography to talk about relationships, isolation, and how we connect with the past. Within it lies stories about depression era farmhouses, prairie revolutionaries, and hollowed out towns, scored with lush, and often noisy arrangements. The record plays with a combination of contemporary and more anachronistic recording techniques, and features recordings made on two-track tape, cassette tape, iPhone, and in a conventional studio setting. I wrote, produced, and performed on the whole record, with Riley Chernoff on drums (as well as a couple writing credits), and a vast number of my fellow MacEwan students contributing to every track (including a cover designed by MacEwan Fine Arts alumni Kyra Heneghan-Smith). It was recorded almost entirely in Studio A & B at Allard Hall, with sessions taking place as part of regular coursework, as well as a full week spent in the Summer of 2019 finishing them up (thanks to funding from the USRI grant).

Presented in absentia on April 27, 2020 at "Student Research Day" at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta. (Conference cancelled.)

Faculty Mentor: Paul Johnston

Department: Music

NOTE: This work is available as an abstract only.