Jill Manselll

On her new record Entre nous, Jill Barber reaches a new level of intimacy with the French language. An unabashed francophile, it all began at the Montreal Jazz Festival over a decade ago: she surprised her audience with a French translation of one of her songs, and the room exploded into applause and a chorus of bravos. Québec was charmed. In response, Jill was inspired to record her debut French album, interpretations of classics from Piaf to Gainsbourg on 2011's Chansons. Soon millions of listeners worldwide were discovering Jill's music through her french material, and she continues to earn spots on top french playlists with songs from Chansons across streaming platforms.

Jill Barber returns to her folk roots with her new album, Homemaker, delivering ten quietly profound songs about the complexities of motherhood, marriage, and the struggle to feel at home in one's own identity. Whereas her most recent albums have been bathed in lush string arrangements, Homemaker sees emotions laid bare, with a stripped- down production style reminiscent of her acclaimed debut Oh Heart and double Juno Award nominated follow-up For All Time. Written and recorded in her adopted hometown of Vancouver where she lives with her husband and two children, Homemaker is the first record that sees Jill in the role of a producer, co- producing with Erik Neilsen, and features some of Vancouver's top session players. It is an intentional push-back against the worn-out notion of what it means to be 'just a homemaker'. It is a statement about the humility and strength that it takes to do the meaningful work of creating a home for others, while still holding space for your own dreams."

A bold entre into the world of contemporary pop music, resulting in a Jill Barber we've never heard before. Metaphora showcases her power and vulnerability as both an artist and a woman. Evolving over the course of many albums from folk to jazz, R & B and pop, Jill's success is defined not by genre, but by her undeniable songwriting chops and distinctive voice. Metaphora is a continuation of Barber's musical story that confidently tackles everything from issues of empowerment, sexual politics, the complications of love, and depression. It's introspective and personal. It's also a dance party.

Kevin Volans is probably most famous for the 1984 Kronos reworking of White Man Sleeps. His beginnings in South Africa to the Neue Einfacheit (in English, New Simplicity) of West Germany with the theorist Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose seminal sine-waves and soundscapes shaped the landscape we understand in electronic music today, are well-documented. The Man With Footsoles of Wind, an opera about the enterprise of the influential poet Arthur Rimbaud in Ethiopia, remains very much on my ‘listening wishlist’. Volans is obviously a musicologist. He is undoubtedly a modernist. This is 2022. He has offered us Études, a collection of his own previously unreleased solo piano works performed by Jill Richards and a second-half where he performs Liszt. The listener has been invited into “a sound world” with “extremely complex and challenging arrangements”.

A cafe in Paris, a cocktail lounge in Palm Springs, a beachside bar in Rio De Janeiro, a lokanta in Istanbul. Jill Barber’s French repertoire is played around the world and has earned her a following that transcends language barriers. It’s the soundtrack to an experience.
It’s a surprising achievement for an Anglo-Canadian artist who only began her affair with the French language in her late twenties, following a moment of inspiration during the Montreal Jazz Festival, where she sang a few notes of French to an enraptured crowd.
Shortly after, Barber enrolled herself in a late immersion French school in the South of France, eventually emerging with her own recordings of the songs and poets that inspired her: Piaf, Gainsbourg, Aznavour…