Album Review: Ada Lea - 'when i paint my masterpiece'
Blending songwriting, poetry and painting, Ada Lea’s new album brings all her artistic endeavours into a masterpiece of storytelling.
There’s few artists that truly can do it all but in the case of Ada Lea, everything she touches becomes beautiful. An interdisciplinary trailblazer, there's few things she hasn’t turned her hand to and for her new album, ‘when i paint my masterpiece’, every note and stroke of the paintbrush is crafted with intention and feeling. Words, images and sound become one. Across an opus of 16 tracks, she blurs the lines between her favourite mediums and laments on her decision to step away from the mainstream entertainment industry and instead immersing herself in a more quiet and peaceful period of reflection shaped by painting, poetry and a re-engaging with community. Learning how to create for herself again, ‘when i paint my masterpiece’ is the culmination of this era of self discovery and the relinquishing of industry expectations and pressures. In her own words, the album represents her ability to ‘engage with the process rather than the product’ and her newfound love for teaching and sharing a simpler, more intentional practice for art.
The album is punctuated by interludes and it becomes easy to get lost in the rich textures Lea creates. The riffing and strumming of guitars, the gentle beats held together by bass and drums and the occasional treat of piano all creates an intricate tapestry of sound that often, Ada needn’t add vocals to. The opening to the album is simply instrumental; a piece that gets cut short just as it gets going. There were some 200 songs that were written as part of this project so knowing that the decision to include these ones makes their music all the better to listen to. Though all rooted in her synonymous introspective folk pop, each track brings new shades to Lea’s artistry, incorporating inspiration from a litany of genres and fellow artists. She has credited a lot of her work to songwriter Leonard Cohen, artist Shuvinai Ashoona and the writer Olga Tokarczuk but eagle eared listeners will be able to pick up nods to the likes of Carole King, Elizabeth Cotten and Charlotte Cornfield, all of whom mainstays in her artist playlists and preshow setlists.
Lea’s intention with ‘when i paint’ was to answer a simple yet impossible question : how can a life be held suspended in a song? To answer this she sets out on unpicking everything from the abstract to the mundane, creating a soundscape for both the big moments in life as well as the smaller, intimate more personal ones. For a track like ‘baby blue frigidaire mini fridge’, the art lies in the everyday. Its a gorgeously hushed and gentle song that gives insight into the ordinary quiet existence that Lea had been searching for and poses the question of whether her peace of mind was worth the things she lost:
‘waking up and its fall again / heaven is a place i know / then the air gets all cold again / i wanna know where you are and what youre thinking / this chair, this window, this mountain view / our old time souls, this old-time moon’.
Though the lyrics might suggest some semblance of regret, I believe the track is instead rooted in the idea of pushing a reset button and knowing when you need to take the time to pause. It speaks to what the album as a whole is about - instead of chasing the validation and highs of perfection and fame, there is a comfort in finding the magic and beauty in just being.
Most of the album was recorded in a single room where the small band played live and loose in the middle of rural Ontario Canada. The connection between the band members is evident through the sound they are able to create and gives the listener the feeling that they are sitting in on something that is as magic as is it intimate. Whether it be the melodic tension and sense of anticipation they can suspend you in on ‘down under the van horne overpass’ or the joy in hearing the distorted riffs of a guitar step into the limelight on ‘something in the wind’, the band excude warmth and familiarity that effortlessly welcomes you into the dreamscape Lea has cultivated. It would be reductive to simply call ‘when i paint my masterpiece’ a folk album because in reality, Ada Lea transcends the boundaries and confines of the genre. Of course in songs like ‘moon blossom’ the emotion is found in the stable pilars of finger picked guitar and delicately sung harmonies but on others Lea really gets to play, demonstrating how her period away from work has given her the space to grow and evolve as an artist. She experiments with elements of americana, folk rock, and pop that in turn make her songwriting uniquely hers. Yes there is homage, particularly on the tongue in cheek ‘bob dylans 115th haircut’, but she also performs in a way that sets her apart from everyone else. Listening to her music feels like a window into her stream of consciousness now more than it ever did before and its so heartwarming to see Ada really step into and own her independence as an artist.
Fans will no doubt excited to hear that she is embarking on a tour with a handful of dates in the UK this month before heading back across the Atlantic. From the 16th, she is set to play in Leeds, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Chester and finally in London as part of a show with Line of Best Fit. Across these shows, she will have support from fellow folksters Allegra Krieger and @.The UK dates are particularly special because they will be played ‘solo style’, giving a uniquely intimate and personal performance.
Words by Kirsty Ann Thomson
