ADA LEA’S NEW EP the end is a wave OUT TODAY VIA NEXT DOOR RECORDS
WATCH / SHARE “the evergreen, the birch” (MUSIC VIDEO) HERE
BUY / STREAM the end is a wave, HERE
Photo Credit: Dylan Obront // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Ada Lea—the moniker of Montreal-based musician Alexandra Levy—releases the end is a wave EP, following last year’s epic, 16-track opus, when i paint my masterpiece. the end is a wave is an experimentation of sorts:
“For this EP, I wanted to combine songs that were cut from when i paint my masterpiece, as well as the ones I’d recorded a million years ago when I was just a child. It was to test their fragility. How would they behave next to the other? The old and the new? The brave and the haunted? The impression and the finely sculpted. I also decided to mix three of the songs myself (was it a mistake? you tell me…I says). I’ve been thinking of the kind of artist I’d like to be, and how I’d like to see all artists treated. I am most at home when I am creating and performing, it is what I was born to do. These worlds are opposites. 12th house and 6th, 4th & 10th, the story goes on. I can imagine a future where artists are supported by UBI and they do what they want. A kind of welfare for the serious artists that are not afraid to play. It serves the betterment of society to support artists this way. I know there are others out there, like me, that feel little purpose in their life when they’re not working toward making things. But it’s also near to impossible to make things when you are fighting to protect your energy at every turn, feeling burnt out.”
The focus track this release week is “the evergreen, the birch”, accompanied by a music video. With harmony contributions from Meggo, this song feels like a grounded walk in the woods. An always welcome step into nature and calm.
Ada Lea shares some thoughts on the track, “‘the evergreen, the birch’ is a watery collage buzzing fly-walk in the woods. The song features lush harmonies sung by MEGGO. We met through a bi-monthly jam band with a band name that changes—the first being ‘fun band who knows?’, another being ‘QCNR’.
the end is a wave, on and on, a form just repeating a shape. I don’t know if I was reading something or how that line came to be, but it felt like an intuitive knowledge—what the end will feel like, or the lack of end.
And we are there, all of us, hand in hand with a little bit of snow capped mountain hill, nails on the wall, empty coffin fire drill, kindness is when… I feel these free-association-type songs are becoming a kind of happy place for me. I feel very at home in this, like I’m loose and freely writing without an agenda, like painting and channeling without any left brain restriction.”
WATCH / SHARE “the evergreen, the birch” (MUSIC VIDEO) HERE
Levy is a Renaissance woman, and Ada Lea’s albums have been swelling in scope alongside the evolution of her artistic life. Her recent turn toward pedagogy—teaching a songwriting course at Concordia University and co-facilitating a community-based group called The Songwriting Method—weaves another vivid thread into her multifaceted practice. Her debut LP, what we say in private, blurred the lines between interior and performative worlds. Her sophomore record, one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden, featured vignettes centered on Montreal. when i paint my masterpiece, written over three years and whittled down from over 200 songs, asks: what happens when you... pause? How can a life be held suspended in song? And is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the transformations art can bring. the end is a wave continues this exploration and bridges the gap between her last, and next masterpiece.
BUY / STREAM the end is a wave, HERE
the end is a wave Cover Art // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
TRACKLIST
01 copycat
02 I’ve never been in love
03 the evergreen, the birch
04 okay, ok, o.k!
05 phases
06 chelsea hotel #2
07 i miss the heavy shoulders of the trees