k.d. lang
In her 25 years of record-making, lang has worked with a wide range of producers including country – Owen Bradley, pop – David Kahne, even rockabilly – Dave Edmunds.
As the title suggests, Watershed represents a milestone in k.d. lang’s already extraordinary career. For the first time, she has assumed, on her own, the role of producer – as well as writer, singer and multi-instrumentalist — for this album of new original songs. The result is perhaps lang’s most confident and revealing work, with gorgeous arrangements featuring strings and guitars; distilled lyrics that come across as intimate reveries; and warm, understated, and often very sexy vocal performances. Watershed serves as a highly personal companion to her 2004 Nonesuch debut, Hymns of the 49th Parallel, a collection of brilliantly realized interpretations of material from fellow Canadian songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Jane Siberry.
lang has often organized her albums around a particular sound (like the clear-eyed country of Absolute Torch and Twang) or concept (the elegant smoking songs of Drag). This time the theme, if one can be identified, would simply be k.d. lang as she is right now, with plenty of musical and lyrical intimations of how she got here. As lang explains, “Watershed is like a culmination of everything I’ve done — there’s a little bit of jazz, a little country, a little of the Ingénue sound, a little Brazilian touch. It really feels like the way I hear music, this mash-up of genres, and I think it reflects all the styles that have preceded this in my catalogue. I didn’t feel the need to be genre-specific because this experience felt so wide open. I didn’t have a band in the studio where I had to come up with a feel for a song because the clock was ticking and dollars were flying out the window.”
For more information on k.d. lang, visit her website.
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