Victoria, BC-based artist Dana Sipos is set to release a new album, The Astral Plane, on June 25th via JUNO Award-nominated musician Miranda Mulholland’s label, Roaring Girl Records. For The Astral Plane, Sipos once again teamed up with experimental producer Sandro Perri and reunited with her accomplished studio band for the project, consisting of Thomas Hammerton (keys, piano, organ), Mark McIntyre (bass), Nick Zubeck (guitar), and Blake Howard (percussion), with guest appearances from Lydia Persaud (vocals) and Michael Davidson (vibraphone). To bring the new songs to life, the crew decamped to a large converted 1860s stone carriage house, The House of Miracles, in Cambridge, Ontario, in the summer of 2020. The result is an impeccably curated collection of sounds, anchored by Sipos’ haunting vocals and evocative lyrics.
Many albums offer a snapshot in time, or a glimpse behind the curtain into a fleeting certain moment in the writer’s story. On The Astral Plane, Sipos instead invites the listener beneath the surface, diving into complex personal histories and relationships and their ongoing reverberations, from the past and into the present and future.
Among the many forms of loss explored in this album, Sipos unearths the trauma of her grandparents’ early lives, surviving the Holocaust, escaping from Communist Hungary with two young children, including Dana’s mother. They arrived in Canada with $5 sown into a jacket pocket and didn’t speak a word of English. “I feel very lucky that they shared these stories and experiences with us,” says Sipos. From her grandfather, she also inherited a love for singing, Jewish jokes, and Yiddish humor: “I grew up with a love of stories and storytelling across the board, the unfathomably dark and painful. And despite — or perhaps because of — the hardships, the ability to turn that darkness into humor.” Sipos became a careful observer and close listener at the kitchen table on her grandparents’ farm, where they settled in southern Ontario.
In writing these songs, Sipos is holding memories, often painful ones, up to the light and asking: What is the contour of these memories in your body? How do they shape you? How are these inherited memories and experiences absorbed? What does their aftermath look and feel like?
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Breathing Barrel,” (PRE-ORDER) one of the standout songs on the new album. The song finds Sipos dreaming of new possibilities and trying to get herself to a warmer, more expansive mindset. Backed by a sparse beat, minimal yet emotive piano, and lush bass lines, Sipos sings in a ponderous and dreamy way that brings to mind folk singers of the sixties and seventies. Her vocals are enchanting and she exudes a sense of hush calm as she meditates on what it means to be present in your current moment while also dreaming of new places. At a time when many of us can identify with trying to make the best of our current state of mind and place while also starting to think about getting back to a life of travel and social interactions, “Breathing Barrel” is a soulful and dreamy indie folk song that is deliciously relatable.
Listen to the track and read our short interview with Dana Sipos below…
What inspired you to write this song? What is the story behind it? What is it about?
I have been fortunate enough to participate in numerous music residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts. This song was written immediately upon coming home; I was living in Toronto at the time, and to be honest it felt a bit bleak coming from the incredible foothills of the Rocky Mountains. ‘Breathing Barrel’ was my attempt to integrate what is always a very powerful experience into ‘normal’ life. The Banff Centre is ‘July’ full of the feeling of rich potential and lush possibility – and Toronto felt like bleak, mid-winter. I was trying to trick or convince myself to ‘be July in the wintertime’ – bring that feeling of abundance to that very moment, wherever I was. I always feel so free and inspired coming from the Banff Centre, so it’s also about dreaming about possibilities – or enjoying those fleeting moments – and trying on different ideas and versions of who I could be or what I could do, albeit in this large, abstract way.
Do you consider this song — and your music in general — a place for you to work through things? Do you find songwriting therapeutic? Did writing this song bring you solace or peace in any way?
Definitely. That has always been the case for me but especially when writing this album – it felt very potent working through a lot of big things going on. I often tell my family that, “Songwriting is cheaper than therapy,” <insert nervous laughter> but for me, the writing process, the freedom to express in this way that is very natural for me, brings a big sense of relief – almost closure. Once I have written a song about something, especially something painful or personal, it is almost like I am releasing my grip on the situation – which I have absolutely not control over anyway, of course, and giving it a softer and more gentle hold.
This song is the final track on the album. What about it made you want to put it in that slot and have it be the “parting words,” lyrically and musically, for the overall album?
Since this song is ultimately a meditation on being in the present moment while also daydreaming about different landscapes, soundscapes, and dreamscapes, something we are all experiencing so keenly, perhaps that in itself makes it a good parting song for the album. It’s also about anticipation and desire and those magic moments of connection that can present themselves in surprising and unexpected ways, when we need it most, and I think that moment is very much right now. Nonetheless, because it is so unique to the rest of the album musically, with the drum machine and sparser vibe, that is ultimately why it found its home as the last song on the album.
What do you hope listeners hear in its music and lyrics?
Hopefully this doesn’t sound too cheesy but I’d love for listeners to hear hope and also be soothed. I find the drum machine beat very comforting with its consistency and rhythm, all thanks to the vision of our amazing producer Sandro Perri. And although it was written before the pandemic, it feels very pandemic-appropriate, for me anyway. In this song – and in life in general right now – it feels like it’s all bubbling just below the surface. We’re getting closer and the anticipation of it is so tangible, and yet we’re also still meant to be very patient. So, yes, hope and a sense of calm in knowing that the bubble will eventually boil, the press will go to print, hidden love will reveal itself again when the time is right, because it always does.
Photo credit: Chris Dufour
