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Basia Bulat is a singer-songwriter living in Montreal, Canada. She offers both a distinctive voice and artistry that pulls as much from R&B and soul as it does from classic folk. In addition to her skills as a powerhouse vocalist, Bulat is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, recording and performing on electric guitar, piano, autoharp, ukulele, bass and charango.Her talent has also been recognized at scale: her songs have been adapted for major performances with symphony orchestras, and she has been invited to perform at prestigious tributes to Leonard Cohen, Daniel Lanois, Nick Cave, and The Band. Since releasing her debut, she has shared the stage with artists like St Vincent, Sufjan Stevens, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The National, Michael Kiwanuka, Daniel Lanois, Beirut, Destroyer, US Girls, Jim James and more. She’s been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, performed on the #LateShowMeMusic Series on Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Later with Jools Holland, and received support from The Needle Drop, The New York Times and more. Bulat is a three-time Polaris Music Prize finalist and has been nominated for five JUNO Awards.
BASIA’S PALACE ALBUM: Let’s get one thing out of the way: Basia Bulat doesn’t live in a château. The property at the heart of the songwriter’s new studio album is at once her apartment, her jam-space—and the inside of her head. Basia’s Palace is a place festooned with love and memory, bad wiring; it’s a paradise that comes alive in the wee hours of the night, at a time that’s suited to video games and Leonard Cohen records, when you sit in all that richness, taking in all the mess we inherit.
Reuniting with co-producer Mark Lawson, she found herself moving through a dreamworld of whispers, synths and early Eurovision tunes, Cohen’s I’m Your Man and Air’s Moon Safari, her great uncle’s gauzy Maryla Rodowicz LPs. The result feels like an album that was concealed behind the backings of Bulat’s childhood photos—tracks like “My Angel,” where mystery and romance mingle over squelchy synths + drum-machine, with a soaring string arrangement by Drew Jurecka (Dua Lipa, Alvvays), or “Laughter”— which was mixed, like all tracks on the record, by legendary engineer Tucker Martine (Beth Orton, Neko Case, The National)— that takes a quiet domestic scene and sees it build to a deafening sublime. “Disco Polo” is a track Bulat’s been threatening to make forever—a folk-song named for a genre of trashy Polish dance music that was beloved of her father—whereas “Baby,” which took years to finish, makes an elegant dance number out of an oh-too-familiar predicament: “Baby, baby, baby,” Basia sings, “I don’t learn!” At some moments there are shades of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s “Bonnie and Clyde” or Charles Aznavour’s “Emmenez-Moi”; at others it’s the silicon-shiny sweetness of The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” or Air’s Moon Safari.
Basia’s Palace is set to be released February 21st, 2025 via Secret City Records.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Aeolian, 795 Dundas St East,London, Ontario, Canada
