Caravan

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		Way Past the Hour	4:17	Play
2		Skylight	3:56	Play
3		Prayed	4:14	Play
4		I'm Your Lady	4:16	Play
5		Thievin' Love	3:00	Play
6		I Am An Only	4:28	Play
7		Sore Heart	3:56	Play
8		Worry the Jury	2:53	Play
9		Stone Cold Sober	3:23	Play
10		Never Saw the Ending	3:50	Play

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Description

Madviolet Bio - Caravan July 2006

Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac do their best songwriting in remote places and confined spaces. Caravan, their second album as the Toronto-based duo Madviolet, draws its title from a vintage motor home they occupied for three weeks in Byron Bay, just south of Brisbane, following the completion of their first Australian tour last year. With the Pacific crashing onto a white sand beach and cockatiels delivering raucous wake-up calls, the pair hunkered down with their guitars in the spring of 2005 and wrote many of Caravans ten songs. Theyd surf, bike and play backgammon in the mornings, then begin work after lunch, pausing each evening to barbeque fresh fish and drink wine under the Southern Cross. Escaping the sun, they wrote in the dusky interior of the camper, a silver-with-maroon-stripe 1965 Morton Caravan they nicknamed Greta. Theres something about a cramped van that works for us creatively, explains Lisa. It squeezes whatevers inside of you out.

A similar getaway to the New Mexico desert produced material for Worry the Jury, Madviolets 2004 debut album. As they did then, they took their Byron Bay tunes and a few new rewrites completed with Ron Sexsmith to producer and friend John Reynolds (Sinead OConnor, U2) in London, England. Unlike the pop-oriented, sumptuously produced Worry the Jury, the mission this time was to capture Madviolets live personality and musical roots. The result is a smart, richly melodic singer-songwriter album where contemporary alt.country rubs up against confessional ballads, roadhouse rockers, Lisas Cape Breton fiddle playing and even a streak of old-school Nashville that would do Brenleys namesake, Brenda Lee, proud.

Keeping overdubs to a minimum and steering clear of programming, MacEachern and MacIsaac trade lead vocals, layer on the harmonies and drive the songs forward with acoustic guitars and fiddle, just as they do when performing live. Reynolds (drums) and bassist Claire Kenny (Indigo Girls, Damien Dempsey) again anchor the sound. Julian Wilson of the acclaimed U.K. alt.country band Grand Drive plays piano and Hammond organ. Joining this core group at strategic points are lap steel guitarist Simon Alpin (Willard Grant Conspiracy, Teenage Fanclub), dobro player Fiachna Braonain (Hothouse Flowers, Michelle Shocked) and classical guitarist Hugh Segat.

Above all, Caravan captures Madviolets growing confidence as a songwriting and performing partnership. Every band needs time to grow into its true self, says Brenley. We now have a better sense of what we can accomplish together. Instead of recording their vocals separately as theyve done in the past, the two sang face-to-face in a process that facilitated their gift for intuitive harmonies. Brenley again handles the majority of lead vocals, including Way Past the Hour, Skylight and I Am An Only. But now the two Libras (both born on Wednesdays in October at precisely noon) have balanced the creative scales more evenly.

Lisa sings three songs, including Prayed, a vivid take on spirituality that arrived in a bolt of middle-of-the-night inspiration. And after focusing on guitar in recent years, she again steps forward as a fiddle player in the MacIsaac family tradition. Her extended solo brings Caravan to a riotous close on Never Saw the Ending.

Were extremely proud of Worry the Jury, says Brenley of an album that generated top-40 airplay, a clutch of Radio Starmaker Awards in Canada and several East Coast Music Award nominations. But it was difficult to reproduce live. Touring is Madviolets favorite pastime, and the band dedicated much of 2004/05 to the concert trail. They toured Canada in support of Worry the Jury both as a duo and with their Toronto-based band (which includes bass player Adrian Lawryshyn and drummer Robin Pirson). They participated in Tom Jacksons annual Huron Carole fundraising tour on behalf of Canadas food banks. A third trip was made to Switzerland and they broke ground for the first time in Denmark. And their inaugural trip to Australia was successful enough that they were invited back this February for a tour highlighted by a series of shows at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. People were always asking, Dont you have a record that sounds more like just the two of you? Well, this is it.

Both women are steeped in acoustic, folk and country traditions. For Lisa its a matter of genetics. She began playing fiddle at Cape Breton kitchen parties as a child and turned professional in her mid-teens, wracking up mileage on Celtic roadshows with her brother Ashley, Bruce Guthro and Gordie Sampson, among others.

Brenley was raised in Ontario by parents with a passion for country music and, on her fathers side, deep Cape Breton roots. She worked in the graphic arts industry before turning to music full-time with the band zoebliss, which took its cues from Portishead and the folkier end of the trip-hop movement. That was true to my tastes back then, she says, but I started listening to the family LP collection again and was amazed at how many Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride songs I knew.

Sidestepping the Canadian winter, the self-confessed freezebags spent three months exploring Australia last year, documenting their adventures with snakes, sharks, wombats and bike thieves with a videocam. An intended songwriting holiday in Fiji was cut short due to oppressive heat, invasive mosquitoes and near-hallucinogenic kava (Fijis ceremonial drink). Instead they headed to Byron Bay, the most easterly point on the Australian continent.

John Reynolds, who had encouraged Brenley and Lisa to form Madviolet in 2001, liked their vision of a rootsier sound and invited them back to 18d, his residential studio in Notting Hill, explains Brenley. Theres always been tension when weve recorded with other people, but never, ever with John. Living in a suite attached to the studio was also a joy for the two women who, says Lisa, love to travel but hate to commute.

The relaxed, organic feel of Caravan points Madviolet in a fresh direction as a recording act, one that taps deeps into their musical roots and channels the energy of their live shows. I think weve got a lot closer to the essence of Madviolet nobodys going to mistake us for another acoustic chick duo, says Lisa with a laugh. Adds Brenley: Were developing our sound. Were building audiences in different countries on different continents. Were excited to see where things go next.