Ivy Mairi

Ivy Mairi (* 1988 on Ward's Island ; actually Ivy Mairi Farquhar-McDonnell ) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She plays guitar , banjo and piano . Her most defining musical influences are traditional folk and classic singer-songwriting and country . In addition to Neil Young , Van Morrison and Lauryn Hill , her greatest inspirations include the British folk singer Shirley Collins .

Biography and artistic career

Ivy Mairi grew up on Ward's Island, a small island in Lake Ontario near Toronto .

She took piano lessons as a child, but switched to guitar in her mid teens. During this time she studied traditional folk songs extensively , the lyrics of which she found in the popular book Rise Up Singing , which was owned by her mother, the book and playwright Kathleen McDonnell. Since she did not know many of the songs collected there, she first began to develop melodies for their lyrics. Only then did she start to write her own lyrics and to write the music for them. Together with her mother Kathleen and her sister Martha Farquhar-McDonnell, she still performs regularly in the vocal trio kith & kin , whose repertoire includes folk songs, American workers' songs and gospel songs .

Ivy Mairi began performing at domestic charity events and singing as a street musician in Toronto, performing mostly songs by Van Morrison and Cat Stevens . Cellist Anne Bourne, a neighbor on Ward's Island, introduced her to Michael Timmins of the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies in 2005 , who became both her mentor and producer. The first, informal recordings of her own son experiments were made. Then her first two albums appeared on Timmins own label Latent Recordings .

In autumn 2007, Ivy Mairi went to Montreal to take a Bachelor of Arts degree at McGill University there . After that, however, she moved back to Toronto. Before playing concerts with her own band, Ivy Mairi toured extensively with the Canadian indie rock band Bruce Peninsula .

Albums

Well you

Her first release Well You was released in June 2007 and was recorded as a largely spontaneous, experimental album. "I wasn't able to think about arrangements at the time," says Ivy Mairi about the recordings. Ivy Mairi didn't follow any preconceived style or genre when composing her songs: “There've been times where I've sat down and tried to write something in a certain style. But those songs end up being the ones that I don't want to play. “The majority of Well You contains songs with simple guitar accompaniment, to which a number of guest musicians in alternating line-up contribute further arrangements, but which rarely reach band strength. Producer Timmins just wanted to receive Mairi's undisguised spontaneity: "I didn't want to lose that thing of her sitting on her bed singing to you." At the end of the album, this idea culminates in Good News , an improvised, melancholy vocal number lasting more than seven minutes rather casual piano accompaniment, recorded as if with an old cassette recorder and domestic background noise.

No talker

No Talker (2012) is both more compactly arranged and produced and stylistically more diverse. Ivy Mairi's own band, which had been together for a few months now, recorded the entire album, supplemented by only a few guest musicians. Electric guitars , electric bass and drums are increasingly being used . Kenyatta , Just Go and the title track No Talker contain dynamic rock elements. Something of Love or Passing Cars , on the other hand, are melodic and catchy folk songs with country influences, Scar a lively country & western / rockabilly number. Wintry City and Bruise are again very reminiscent of the previous album with their melancholy and sparing instrumentation.

Nonbeliever

She recorded her latest album Nonbeliever (2014) almost entirely on her own together with her long-time musical partner Matthew Bailey, who can also be heard on No Talker and is also a producer here. Some songs were written while she was still a student in Montreal. Stylistically, Nonbeliever is again a reorientation compared to No Talker . The arrangements - to some extent already heard in Please Let Me Get It or The Cuckoo on Well You - are far more economical, at times even minimalistic, and reduce catchy melodies and rhythms in favor of atmospheric sounds that are dominated more than before by Ivy Mairi's idiosyncratic fragile voice become. The overall mood of the album is more melancholy. Mairi himself describes the album as "moodier and weirder". The final title track Nonbeliever , similar to Good News on the first album, holds an eleven-minute conversation in the style of a litany between Mairi's meditative vocals, alienated by Hall, and a quasi monochrome organ accompaniment.

Discography

Albums

• Well You (2007, Latent Recordings)
• No Talker (2012, Latent Recordings)
• Nonbeliever (2014, Bandcamp) only as download

With other artists (selection)

• kith & kin: Yet I Will Be Merry: Carols and Songs of the Season (2009, Latent Recordings)
• Bruce Peninsula: Open Flames (2011, Hand Drawn Dracula)
• Rene LaVice: All My Trials / Not Deep (2012, RAM Records) 12 ″ maxi single
• Matthew Bailey: Tendrils (2013, Bandcamp) only as download
• Various Artists: The Kennedy Suite (2013, Latent Recordings)
• Various Artists: Dominionated: A Compendium of Classic Canadian Songs Covered by Contemporary Canadian Artists (2014, quickbeforeitmelts QBiM)

Web links

• Ivy Mairi at Discogs (English)
• Ivy Mari website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Biographical notes on Ivy Mairi's website
2. ↑ Paul Cantin on No Depression ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (March / April 2008) 
3. ^ Biographical notes on Ivy Mairi's website
4. ↑ Paul Cantin on No Depression ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (March / April 2008) 
5. ↑ Paul Cantin on No Depression ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (March / April 2008) and Matthew Chung on TheStar.com on July 1, 2007 
6. ^ Quoted from Matthew Chung on TheStar.com on July 1, 2007
7. ↑ Paul Cantin on No Depression ( Memento of the original from November 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (March / April 2008) 
8. ↑ Kerry Doole on exclaim.ca June 2012
9. ^ Ivy Mairi on her website