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Dec 31,2006 - Jan7,2006 |
A multi-faceted musical persona
Local songstress Melissa McClelland releases eclectic third album
By Kerry Doole
Originally Published: 2006-05-14
2006 is shaping up to be quite the milestone year for young Toronto songstress Melissa McClelland. She is about to release a superb third album, Thumbelina's One Night Stand, and is in the middle of organizing her wedding to her key creative collaborator, Luke Doucet. As if that's not enough on their plate, the couple is also planning to relocate to Nashville by year's end, Melissa revealed during her recent Tandem interview.
That move is as much for climatic as career reasons (McClelland can't abide our winters), but, thankfully, they both plan to remain active within a Canadian music scene enriched by their presence. Currently, Doucet is the better known name here, as an ace guitarist for the likes of Sarah McLachlan and Oh Susanna, a skilled producer (NQ Arbuckle, Danny Michel) and a recording artist whose latest album, Broken (and other rogue states), earned him a Juno nomination.
With any justice, McClelland's profile will increase substantially with Thumbelina's One Night Stand. It's a rich and rewarding work that showcases Melissa's pure voice and a poetic songwriting style. It is also very diverse stylistically, ranging from rootsy tracks like "Passenger 24," "Come Home Suzi" and "Taxi Ride", to sophisticated strings-drenched chamber-pop ("Price To Pay") and the Feist-like "Iroquois St. Factory," right through to a bluesy cut featuring Sarah McLachlan ("Go Down Matthew").
Even when pressed, Melissa is unable to come up with a simple definition of her sound conceding, with a chuckle, that "the writing style is all over the map. With this record I thought, 'I really want to make this a cohesive piece of work, stylistically.' That was my goal, and it is completely not! I just don't like writing the same song over and over again. I can't do it. I only get inspired to write when I feel it is something new or different or is challenging me in some different way. In the end, it is my voice that ties it all together, and we tried to keep a lot of the instrumentation consistent."
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