(Français suit)
Every mother has a unique story. One thing is true for every mother, though: There’s no deadline quite like a pregnancy.
Award-winning Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell was pregnant with her first child when she booked studio time on Vancouver Island to make an album about motherhood. The nine songs on Shadow Child — one for each month of gestation — had to be ready before then, and her return flight was booked on the last day she could safely fly in her third trimester.
Working with producer Colin Stewart (Dan Mangan, Black Mountain), Lapell finished her songs in the studio and on rural walks beside the Pacific Ocean. She enlisted some of her favourite singers, all British Columbians, all mothers: Frazey Ford, Jill Barber, Pharis Romero. “They’re all people with unique, distinctive voices,” she says, “which is what I’m drawn to.”
Musically, Lapell was looking for a stark, acoustic sound, as opposed to 2024’s Juno Award-nominated Anniversary (recorded in Niagara with Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker) and 2022’s acclaimed Stolen Time (recorded in Montreal with Howard Bilerman, featuring E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons).
Lapell’s road to motherhood was fraught, involving years of IVF and a 2023 miscarriage — that she experienced on stage while on tour. (She finished her set.) Her son was born in November 2024. The song cycle of Shadow Child covers joy and loss, using metaphors from Maritime tragedy, reproductive health, and lives altered by the arrival of a newborn. The title track refers to ultrasound imaging of “a liminal person that doesn’t quite exist yet,” says Lapell. “Their status is ontologically blurry.”
Shadow Child arrives May 8 – just in time for Abigail's second Mother’s Day.
🎟️ https://www.showpass.com/abigail-lapell-3/
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Chaque mère a une histoire unique. Mais une chose est vraie pour toutes les mères : il n'y a pas de date limite aussi importante que celle d'une grossesse.
La chanteuse et compositrice torontoise primée Abigail Lapell était enceinte de son premier enfant lorsqu'elle a réservé du temps en studio sur l'île de Vancouver pour enregistrer un album sur la maternité. Les neuf chansons de Shadow Child, une pour chaque mois de grossesse, devaient être prêtes avant cette date, et son vol retour était réservé le dernier jour où elle pouvait voyager en toute sécurité au cours de son troisième trimestre.
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