We’re six days away from the official release of Port City and we’re mostly excited with a bit of nervous. I’d like to talk about the cover art, which takes my breath away. The incredibly talented landscape artist Paul Hannon gave us permission to use his painting “Bridge in Wet Fog,” which is my favourite of his and one of my favourite paintings of all time. It evokes Halifax, this cozy and damp and lovely and lonely city, so completely.
As I wrote the song “Port City” I kept coming back to this quintessentially Haligonian image—the car lights shimmering on North Street, the Macdonald bridge looming above a foggy harbour, winking streetlights, and the trees, of course, in this city of trees. I certainly didn’t anticipate being able to use it, though; I only asked because I didn’t want to regret having not tried. But Paul graciously said yes (which I still can’t believe), and now every time I look at our stacks of beautiful CDs I pinch myself. I thank Paul so much for his generosity and his unreal talent, and for painting Halifax with such love. You can see Paul’s other cityscapes here and his available paintings—mostly stunning landscapes and coastal scenes—here. Some of Paul’s paintings will be featured in an upcoming book called From Land and Sea: Nova Scotia’s Contemporary Landscape Artists, by Dee Appleby, and “Bridge in Wet Fog” is going on the back cover.
Aaron Harpell did an amazing job of designing Port City—he let the painting be the most important element, using soft and textured details to create backgrounds on the interior and on the disc itself. He’s also been designing and illustrating some amazing posters for us. I feel lucky and humbled to be working with such gifted artists.
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We’ve played some tremendously fun shows in the last couple of months, including Tunes at Noon, a show at the Union Street Café in Berwick, and a little acoustic set at the most beautiful studio I’ve seen, Heartstring Productions. Thanks so much to everyone coming out to hear the music; it is such an enormous privilege to be listened to.
(photo by Dawn Sloan)
If you can, come out to the release on Saturday, October 3rd, at 8:30 p.m. at The Company House. Dance Movie is opening, and if you have not seen them play then you are missing out so hugely. Tara Thorne is a woman of many talents, and all of a sudden she was like “Oh hey guys, I also write ridiculously good songs, I have a killer voice, and my banter is unparalleled.” So we were like “Oh hey Tara, please play at our CD release.” And SHE SAID YES!
I don’t think I could feel luckier.
penelope
