“There isn’t really a specific kind of music that is Canadian,” says Lauren Gillis, whose stage moniker is Lucette. “Because we’re such close neighbors, it just makes sense to draw so much from American music.”
The 22-year-old Canadian songwriter took to Nashville to work with producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson) on her latest record, Black is the Color.
The album’s title, a nod to the Scottish folk song of the same name, works on two levels: as a figurative reflection of the collection’s dark imagery and murder ballads, and as a representation of the folk tradition the album participates in.
Gillis sings her minor toned tales of mountain boys and prairie girls in a voice inspired by her rural upbringing.
“There’s a lot of cowboys, country and rodeo,” Gillis says of her northern homeland in Edmonton, Alberta. “As soon as you get outside the city, you don’t see anything for thousands of miles. It’s one of the most beautiful places on the planet.”
Gillis, along with cellist Cecilia Miller, performed the following off Black is the Color:
1. “Black is the Color”
2. “Fields of Plenty”
3. “River Rising”
