Jenn Grant Dislikes City Life

Hearts break, mend and bloom again. Jenn Grant's new album, Echoes, lingers and leaves traces of all these emotional stages.

"It was really hard to pick a title," says Grant. "I'm really happy with Echoes.

"It's kind of linking sounds from the past, which is a part of the analogue recording style. Visually, it reminds me of echoes through the mountains, things from the past."

Grant also painted the majestic cover art for Echoes. The arctic-like scene portrays an array of kaleidoscopic light shining over a small house with towering mountains looming in the distance.

"The painting looks faded to me on the artwork," she says. "It's sort of a magical place with sounds coming out of it. The northern lights over the mountains sound like echoes to me."

Echoes is a mature departure from 2007's Orchestra For The Moon. Instead of the dreamy pixie dust clouds her previous release created, Echoes dives into the depths of the caverns of her heart.

"I think it's a thing everyone can relate to," Grant says. "Everyone's experienced it in some way.

"I feel like music and your heart are linked. You feel things with your heart. You listen to things with your heart. For me, it's just natural most of the time to write about your feelings about things."

Grant and her gang — Kinley Dowling on violin, David Christensen on bass clarinet, Sean MacGillivray on bass and Gary Craig on drums — joined producer Jonathan Goldsmith at Puck's Farm in Schomberg, Ont. to make Echoes last summer.

"It was away from the city," says Grant, who takes comfort in rural settings rather than a booming metropolis. "We got a lot of time together.

"There were bunk beds there where we slept on. There were lots of animals, old carnival equipment."

Life for Grant and company might seem somewhat like they've joined the three-ring circus, as they've recently been to Los Angeles to perform at the Canadian consulate party and a couple of showcases presented by the Canadian Independent Record Production Association during Grammy week.

You can see Grant here:

Feb. 11 Charlottetown, PEI @ The Mack
Feb. 12 Toronto, ON @ The Mod Club w/Kevin Hearn
Feb. 13 Montreal, QC @ The Green Room
Feb. 14 Wakefield, QC @ Black Sheep Inn w/Jon And Roy
Feb. 15 Halifax, NS @ Rebecca Cohn Theatre (Dalhousie University) w/Kevin Hearn
Feb. 18 Sheffield, England @ The Grapes w/Kevin Hearn
Feb. 21 Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England @ Studio in Live Theatre w/Kevin Hearn
Feb. 24 Dublin, Ireland @ The Ruby Sessions at Doyle's Pub w/Kevin Hearn
Feb. 25 London, England @ The Macbeth w/Kevin Hearn
Feb. 27 Brighton, England @ Engine Room w/Kevin Hearn
March 14 Toronto, ON @ Reverb w/Melissa McClelland, Amelia Curran, Wendy McNeil and Moriarty (CMW)
March 19 Austin, TX @ Velveeta Room (SXSW)