Land Of Talk Get Out Of The Classroom And Into The Club

Did you ever sit in class, wishing that you were in a rock band? Liz Powell did.

She had moved to Montreal from Guelph, Ontario to study music, but it didn't seem to fit. "I regretted leaving Guelph until about a year ago," Powell says.

Interesting, one might say, considering that it was a year ago that Powell started her band, Land Of Talk. Since then, they've recorded an EP titled Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss, toured Canada and the U.S., and signed to Dependent, the label home of Wintersleep and Holy Fuck.

Powell was an active musician in Guelph, playing with various local acts and as a solo artist. It wasn't, however, until she moved east and started working with Chris and Bucky, the boys that would form the other two-thirds of Land Of Talk, that she found a band that she felt she could work with.

Powell is the primary songwriter in the band, as well as the singer, but she says "the boys put [the songs] together into something listenable."

The EP is raw and stripped-down, allowing the songs to stand on their own. There's little adornment or unnecessary flourish. The sound is driving, but never overpowers Powell's strong yet delicate and introspective vocals.

"We recorded it in three days with no real idea of what we wanted from it," says Powell. "So far, it seems to have been the reason for many good things."

Among those good things, Land Of Talk have been getting airplay on independent radio in the U.S.

"A while back, KEXP gave us a lot of airplay and even invited us to NYC for a live in-studio concert/interview," says Powell.

When asked what the future holds for Land of Talk, all Powell replies is "dark nature places." One can be pardoned for thinking that the future might be ominous for Land Of Talk.

Land Of Talk play this Saturday at Club Lambi in Montreal.