#devon sproule

[musicmakesyousmart]

Devon Sproule - Upstate Songs

City Salvage

2003

[eurydice-arachne]

Hadestown Characters: Eurydice

Anais Mitchell (Original Composer, Prototype 2007, Concept Album 2010, Various Concert Tour Iterations 2010-2011)

Devon Sproule (Washington DC 2011)

Nabiyah Be (New York Theatre Workshop, Off-Broadway 2016)

TV Carpio (Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta Canada 2017)

Eva Noblezada (National Theatre, London 2018)

[seattleredandgreen]

“I’m imagining a golden string that is connecting everything but especially, beings where love has been. I’ve imagined it again and again so often, it isn’t even imagining, it is making it happen.”

Devon Sproule’s music welcomes the magical and the tangible. It celebrates human complication in the language of nature. It is North American music with weirdo roots.

Since 2007, Sproule’s recordings have been released by Tin Angel Records, based in Coventry, England. She collaborates regularly with Toronto-based band Bernice and producer Sandro Perri. In Summer 2015, she recorded songs from a new collection, “The Gold String,” in Yukon and Nova Scotia. Besides Canada and America, Sproule also tours regularly in Europe and has traveled with her music to Africa and Australia.

“Sproule’s lyrics glance off each other arrestingly, juxtaposing images.” (Financial Times). “Her quirky affectations bring to mind Bjork, and forays into the dark, Michelle Shocked.” (Village Voice)

Devon Sproule is a Canadian/American musician living in rural Virginia, raised on eco-villages near Kingston, Ontario and Louisa, Virginia. The 33-year-old, in addition to being a musician, is a high school drop-out, a birder, and a student of Deaf Culture and sign language. She has been married to producer Paul Curreri for 10 years.

[half-a-tiger]

BERNICE ( @sillybed ) - “One Garden”, from the Toronto band’s ‘Puff LP: In the air without a shape’ out now on @arts-crafts. Text by Josh Gilligan.

Video created, shot & edited by Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri. Flower hat by Taylor McGee.

[sodarkthenight]

[youhearthat]

Off Your Radar readers might remember I nominated Devon Sproule's I Love You, Go Easy album for issue #38. There are a bunch of reasons I'm crazy about that album, but here's one I zoomed in on in my OYR blurb:

Lyrics that are this meticulously constructed shouldn't flow so naturally, but here, they drift along on the gentle tide of Sproule's prosaic gift.

I learned just this week that Sproule put out a new album earlier this year called The Gold String, and it's lovely in all the ways I Love You, Go Easy is, especially when it comes to the way the lyrics flow. In fact, she touches on a similar idea in the title track when she imagines an endless strand that connects everyone and everything. Her description of it is nothing short of elegant, in large part because form and theme are one; she describes this inspiring connectedness using verses that lead into one another and this amazing rolling rhyme scheme that weaves together phrases in ear-pleasing clusters. Her words become the string she's singing about. It's really incredible.

If you ask 10 people about how the universe is connected, you're likely to get 10 fairly different answers, but my answer would probably involve language -- maybe not words themselves, but the desire to be understood and to understand. The space between your brain and someone else's isn't just space if you're filling it with communication. It really is a way to make something from nothing. I'm drifting a bit myself here, so I'll close by saying that for fans of language, Sproule's writing is a gift, and I'd recommend The Gold String in the strongest terms.

[consumptionlog]

Devon Sproule - The Gold String

Great album, a little more loose and wander-y I suppose.

[youhearthat]

Lots of fun stuff going on this week -- including a ticket giveaway below!

I picked this past week's Off Your Radar album -- Devin Sproule's I Love You, Go Easy -- and I want to thank the other writers for taking a listen. I'd also like to officially and publicly cop to not knowing that "Runs In The Family" was a Roches cover. Doug Nunnally may never forgive me. Click here to read this week's issue.

Speaking of Doug, I can't wait to read the RVA Magazine article he wrote about Andrew Cothern and his efforts with Virginia Tourism. Might have to go hunting for a copy after work today.

It has begun -- the Record Store Day lust started welling up last night when I saw that this collaboration between Light in the Attic Records and the Aquarium Drunkard blog will be released on Black Friday. It collects Lagniappe Sessions -- informal covers recorded for the blog -- including Matthew E. White covering Randy Newman.

I picked up a copy of Nels Cline’s Lovers album last weekend, and it’s an absolute monster. I listened to it around when it came out in the summer of last year, but I guess I wasn’t listening intently enough, because it is so broadly and consistently brilliant.

Lucy Dacus did a Take Away Show. Lucy Dacus did a Take Away Show. [tries to catch breath] Lucy Dacus did a Take Away Show.

Just got my ticket for Helado Negro's show at Strange Matter on 11/7 and was surprised to see another band listed as the headliner: Kikagaku Moyo. Checking them out now, both their album from this year -- House in the Tall Grass -- and this Revolt of the Apes profile.

Speaking of tickets, remember how I interviewed Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre? Exciting news -- Richmond Navigator is giving away two tickets to tomorrow night's show at The Tin Pan! Be the first to comment below or respond on Twitter or Facebook and they're yours!