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“I haven’t but had my Joni Mitchell part,” admits Nico Paulo, which for a singer-songwriter born in Canada is perhaps thought-about near sacrilege. However Paulo’s mother and father are Portuguese and so they returned to Europe when she was two; as an alternative, the lusophone sounds of Tropicália – Gal Costa specifically – have been the primary to make a long-lasting impression. “I don’t come from a musical background. I’m nonetheless discovering all of it.”
Paulo grew up in a small city an hour outdoors Lisbon, and whereas she sang in church choirs and faculty musicals it was one thing she solely ever noticed as a passion, opting as an alternative to check graphic design. It wasn’t till 2014, when she moved again to Toronto in the hunt for a graduate internship, that she picked up a guitar for the primary time, turning to songwriting as a method to take care of the “tradition shock” of her new environment.
“I’ve twin citizenship however I felt this pressure after I arrived in Canada, like I didn’t belong right here,” she explains. “I didn’t develop up talking English, and I used to be residing on this huge North American metropolis – I felt a bit lonely. In a approach it was a blessing, as a result of I bought to spend so much of time on my own, with music, and I started to know that this ardour that I’ve for it was not only a passion. I do have one thing that I wish to say.”
Paulo left her design job to start making music full time in 2018, releasing her debut EP “Wave Name” in early 2020 forward of a brief European tour with collaborator and then-romantic associate Tim Baker, the previous frontman of Newfoundland indie-rockers Hey Rosetta!. Throughout lockdown in Toronto later that yr, the pair determined to relocate to Baker’s childhood dwelling in St John’s, the place Paulo shortly discovered neighborhood within the island capital’s flourishing artistic scene.
“I really feel nearer to myself right here than I’m anyplace else,” says Paulo. “I’m very simply distracted, and in Toronto there are such a lot of issues making an attempt to seize your consideration. Finally I really feel extra linked to this place: being by the ocean, the slower tempo of life and having more room to be outdoors.”
Her self-titled debut album was recorded in equally idyllic circumstances, in a lakeside cabin on Nova Scotia’s South Shore with Baker and percussionist Joshua Van Tassel co-producing. Fellow St John’s musicians got here right down to contribute: clarinetist Mary Beth Waldram, singer Steve Maloney, and Baker’s Hey Rosetta! bandmate Adam Hogan on guitar. Kyle Cunjak, head of Paulo’s label Ahead Music Group, added bass elements throughout a three-day recording session.
“The cabin wasn’t deliberate,” Paulo reveals. “Josh Van Tassel was organising a studio in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, however a few issues he wanted wouldn’t arrive in time. Because the date of the session approached, he instructed turning a member of the family’s cabin right into a studio as an alternative. We solely used it as a recording area, so I used to be staying with some buddies who additionally lived within the South Shore, and their little daughter. It actually was magical.”
Pairing lyrics impressed by love, goals and the passage of time with heat instrumentation and rhythms subtly influenced by these Tropicália data, the ultimate album sounds each comforting and timeless. “I really feel like I’m very younger as a songwriter, so plenty of the writing that I’ve carried out is a dialog that I’m having with myself,” says Paulo. “It feels virtually like remedy, like a meditation.”
Nico Paulo is offered now from the Ahead Music Group
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