Amelia Curran Breaks Out

Amelia Curran is no longer the east coast's best kept secret. Nearly a decade into her career, the Haligonian recently signed a deal with Toronto's Six Shooter Records. Her fourth album, War Brides, was recently released in Canada and Europe.

"War Brides surprised us both," says Curran, who co-produced the album with multi-instrumentalist Phil Sedore. "We made that record two years ago just to have something to sell at the St. John's Folk Festival.

"We figured we'd print a couple of hundred copies and sell them on the road. We're about 7,000 copies into that plan now and about to break into an international market."

It's been a landmark year for Curran. With rumours of her inevitable move back to Newfoundland, she's been dividing her time between St. John's and Halifax, recording a follow-up to War Brides with Don Ellis. There were also multiple on-screen film debuts at this year's Atlantic Film Festival, both in Tara Thorne's short film Gracious and in Aram Kouyoumdjian's whimsical video for "Scattered And Small."

"The past couple of years, I've been threatening to go home, leave Halifax, which has been so good to me these past times," Curran says. "Last year, I even spread a rumour myself via CBC radio, then reneged and stayed in Nova Scotia anyway. The older you get, the harder it is to relocate, which puts me in a bit of a hurry sometimes to get it done."

Curran's resilience has been noted. Her discography — which includes Barricade (2000), The Sense Amelia Project's Trip Down Little Road (2001), Lullabies For Barflies (2002) and War Brides (2006) — has been stamped with multiple East Coast Music Awards and Music Nova Scotia nominations.

War Brides' title comes from a lyric in Curran's "All The Ladies," and brings to mind the young Newfoundland women who married Yankees or British solidiers. With the rich historical connotations and folkloric imagery found throughout the album, it's not hard to tell the city of legends still runs thick in her veins.

"The island of Newfoundland itself probably influences me more than I realize," Curran says. "But maybe not as much as being away from it, which after nine years still stinks.

"There's an intense, mysterious loneliness about being away from Newfoundland. Maybe just a juvenile resentfulness, too. Growing older, being so sure that you belong in another place, and sure, too, that you'll get to settle there again soon — that's a bit dramatic and wild, but worth reflecting on."

Curran will join the handsomely romantic Royal Wood for these shows:

Dec. 3 London, ON @ London Music Club
Dec. 5 Toronto, ON @ The Mod Club
Dec. 13 Wakefield, QC @ The Black Sheep Inn