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Land of Talk with Josh Reichmann
Broken City
Sunday, November 9 - Sunday, November 9

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Broken City

After releasing the well-received Applause Cheer Boo Hiss EP in spring of 2006, Montreal’s Land of Talk went into hibernation on the studio front, biding their time until the release of last month's excellent full-length, Some are Lakes. The album merges the hook-heavy energy of the EP with a sense of restraint — perhaps gleaned from producer and man-of-the-hour Justin Vernon, a.k.a. Bon Iver — providing an optimal backdrop for a vocal presence that is unquestionably the band's centrepiece. Blending equal parts Karen O, Thao Nguyen and Cat Power, singer and guitarist Elizabeth Powell's potent pipes have put her band front and centre among Canadian up-and-comers. Don't expect that to get to her head anytime soon, though.

“Apparently we've been on the upswing since 2005, so it doesn't really feel different than it did three years ago,” Powell says. “[We have] the same constantly encouraging crowd of family members, friends and the community in Montreal who are always excited to hear what we're doing. I've [stopped looking at] reviews or interviews, so I'm a little bit oblivious to what's actually going on. We still get paid somewhat the same as we did three years ago, we're still travelling around to different countries and continents, so it feels like good hard work. And it pays off when you play a show and someone comes up to tell you they enjoyed it.”

Of course, outside the sphere of Powell’s self-imposed media ban, things are going pretty well. In addition to the ever-increasing praise for the new album, Powell has managed to throw in her lot with one of the nation's most colossal supergroups, Toronto's Broken Social Scene. When asked how this came to pass, she credits a decade-old connection to the progenitors of the Canadian indie scene.

“I was coming down [from Guelph] to Toronto when I was 17 because my boyfriend at the time was in By Divine Right, which at that point Brendan Canning played in, as did Leslie Feist,” she recalls. “So she and Brendan kind of developed a bit of a big-brother, big-sister vibe towards me and always kept tabs on me. And two years ago when [Canning] was looking for someone to collaborate with for the music on a Bruce McDonald film with Ellen Page called The Tracey Fragments, he asked all of his usual suspects and they were all too busy, and Leslie was like 'What about Lizzy?' And then it all worked out, we collaborated on a Patti Smith cover and two original songs, one of which we'll probably release as a Broken Social Scene-Land of Talk 7-inch vibe in January.”

Since then, she also collaborated with Canning on his solo album and joined Broken Social Scene on their recent tour, pitching in on guitar and taking on the female vocalist role that has been tossed between a handful of remarkable talents over the collective's brief but eventful history. While Powell has had to pull double-duty, opening shows with Land of Talk before hitting the stage with the headliners, she appears to be more than happy to put in the extra effort. And while the gig with her longtime pals could certainly prove profitable in the long-term, she remains adamant that nothing could pull her away from her band. With a pair of consecutive successes under their belt, she feels that Land of Talk are well situated to keep on rocking for years to come.

“I think we were lucky to avoid being the next big thing — not like we had a choice or even could've been,” she muses. “I think we're always going to ride the line of having people interested in us and coming out to our shows, but I doubt we'll ever have to do the sort of meteoric bullshit of being catapulted into the sort of thing most bands hate anyways, that usually destroys anything they have going. We'll maintain a nice, healthy level of modest success. That sounds so Canadian, eh?”