Emily Triggs / John Borra
We’re pleased to welcome Emily Triggs & John Borra back to the Hotel Wolfe Island!
EMILY TRIGGS
There are a few specific reasons why Emily Triggs titled her new album The Great Escape, the main one being that the 13-song collection represents a break from old ways of thinking that the Montreal born, Calgary-based Americana singer/songwriter says have held her back both artistically and personally. With her new material, Triggs set out to challenge herself by ignoring any genre restrictions, and the result is her most honest and empowering album to date.
The Great Escape was produced by longtime Neko Case collaborator Paul Rigby, who also played a multitude of instruments on the album. Also contributing to the sessions in Vancouver were engineer/multi-instrumentalist Dave Carswell (Destroyer, The Evaporators), bassist Darren Paris (Frazey Ford), drummer Geoff Hicks (Colin James) and engineer Erik Nielsen (City and Colour). By coincidence, one of the studios where they recorded, Afterlife, was near where Triggs’ father Stanley recorded traditional folk songs on a houseboat in the early 1960s, which have since been released as a 3-disc set entitled The False Creek Tapes.
The Great Escape offers a clear picture of an artist coming into her own with songs that encompass the full range of emotions, from tenacious to transcendent. As Emily says, “My last album was about resilience, but sometimes you don’t need to be resilient, you need to change. You don’t have to leave a place, it can be metaphoric; you just have to leave a past version of yourself behind.”
JOHN BORRA
Roots-rock storyteller John Borra takes the stage celebrating his acclaimed new album, Last Dance at the E-Room! Borra’s career is a rich chapter in Toronto’s sonic history. Last Dance at the E-Room is a love letter to the past and a bold statement of where he’s headed, filled with grit, grace, and undeniable heart. Whether you’ve followed him from Queen West bars in the ‘80s or you’re just discovering one of Toronto’s most honest voices, this is a night you don’t want to miss.
It’s fair to say that John Borra has seen and done it all within the Toronto alternative music scene, from witnessing the first stirrings of punk as a kid in the late 1970s, to joining his first bands at the dawn of the alt-rock movement in the 1980s, and forging a solo career during the roots music renaissance that followed.
