Good Fortune Keeps Befalling Basia Bulat

Singer/songwriter Basia Bulat was raised in Toronto and now calls London, Ont. home.

She's sweet, with that sincere, aw-shucks kind of modesty usually found in fledgling performers who haven't quite figured out how to accept praise from fawning fans and critics. In her song "Snakes And Ladders," she sings, "Who believes in fate, anyway?" However, the stars seem to have aligned in Bulat's favour, raising her profile from virtual unknown to indie-folk darling in a series of fortunate events over the past couple of years.

"My first real gig happened when a friend of mine at the campus radio station put my name on a poster telling me that I was opening for Julie Doiron," says Bulat. "He called me up and said, 'How would you feel about opening for her?'

"And I said, 'Well, I'd love to, but I don't really have any songs and I don't know, I just don't feel confident in what I'm doing.' And he said, 'Well, get on it because your name is on the poster and it's in two weeks.' So I really have him to thank for a lot of this."

Bulat stepped up to the plate and started developing the songs that make up her debut album, Oh, My Darling. She was influenced early on by the sounds of Stax and Motown, but recently has also found inspiration in the Anthology Of American Folk Music and bands such as Neutral Milk Hotel and Belle & Sebastian.

Bulat moved to Montreal in 2006 to learn French and started making friends with musicians in that scene. She met producer Howard Bilerman through Adam Brown (The Adam Brown). With the help of Bilerman and Bulat's tight-knit group of musician friends, they laid down the tracks that make up Bulat's delicate yet powerful album.

"I think that's almost what I'm most proud of about the record, is that it was really meant to be," says Bulat. "When we were starting it, it was really meant to be an 'audible memory,' like a photo album, sort of, but in songs of what we were like.

"And it ended up being that way because we weren't thinking about anything else, and we wanted to be ourselves and have as much fun as we can. And so, really, it had a lot more to do with wanting to have my friends involved with my record, and it just works perfectly. As for me, I love the fact that they're there."

Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) was so smitten by the recordings that he started writing to labels and bloggers about Bulat and, in another stroke of fate, garnered the attention of Rough Trade's Geoff Travis, who signed Bulat and released Oh, My Darling in the U.K. in the spring.

Hardwood Records (Hayden's label) is now releasing the album in Canada.

"It is a little bizarre," Bulat muses. "I felt like it [the album] was a little baby walking too early all by itself, and you're overly shocked at the fact that it's able to do it."

Bulat toured parts of the U.K. and Europe earlier in the year, and now she's embarking on her first proper Canadian tour, opening for Final Fantasy. Perhaps fortune has favoured her path so far, but her talent and the appeal of her record is no fluke.

Here are Bulat's Canadian tour dates:

Sept. 18 Hamilton, ON @ Casbah w/Julie Doiron
Sept. 19 Toronto, ON @ Soundscapes (in-store)
Sept. 21 London, ON @ LOLA Festival
Sept. 22 Toronto, ON @ The Music Gallery
Oct. 4 Montreal, QC @ Ukrainian Federation w/Final Fantasy
Oct. 15 Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre w/Final Fantasy
Oct. 16 Regina, SK @ The Exchange w/Final Fantasy
Oct. 17 Edmonton, AB @ Myer Horowitz Theatre w/Final Fantasy
Oct. 18 Calgary, AB @ The Warehouse w/Final Fantasy
Oct. 20 Vancouver, BC @ Richard's On Richards w/Final Fantasy
Oct. 21 Victoria, BC @ Alix Goolden Hall w/Final Fantasy