A former winner of the CBC’s national Searchlight competition will kick off the 2016-17 season of the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum’s (EAGM) After Dark concert series.
Lauren Mann, a singer-songwriter who hails from Calgary but recently moved to British Columbia’s Gulf Coast Islands, will perform at the EAGM on Oct. 14, starting at 8 p.m. Mann will be making her first appearance in Estevan, and she will be promoting her album, Dearestly, which was released earlier this year.
“I love different spaces that are collaboratively for art and different creative uses, so I’m excited to see what it’s all about,” Mann said in an interview with the Mercury.
Most of the songs she will play are from Dearestly, which is her third album, and her first since 2012’s Over Land and Sea. She will be playing on her own, as opposed to with her band, The Fairly Odd Folk, and she has been busy working on the arrangements and the instrumentation for the show.
She noted Dearestly required a lot of work to get it recorded and released.
“It’s really nice to have it out in the world now, to be able to share it with people, and now to be on tour and playing the songs,” said Mann. “It was a very collaborative effort, and I wrote all the songs, but I had lots of help from my two producers, and all the musicians who played on the album.”
Mann enjoys working and collaborating with other musicians, and she believes the album was enhanced by that creative input.
“Over Land and Sea was my last studio album … and I think the difference between that album and Dearestly is, Dearestly … is a lot more dynamic,” said Mann. “I guess I got a little braver with it than with Over Land and Sea, because that was my first time recording in a studio, so I was still a little apprehensive, and not willing to step out of the box too much.”
Mann and the other musicians who were part of Dearestly had some fun with the recording process, as they tried some different sounds and tones. Some of the songs have intense and light moments.
“There’s a bit of a paradox between the dark and the light, and those different feelings and dynamics,” said Mann.
It also allowed her to expand her repertoire with keyboards and pianos, which are her primary instruments. And she was able to try different things with her vocals.
In between the releases of Over Land and Sea and Dearestly, Mann and her band won the CBC Searchlight competition in 2014. They finished first among 4,500 bands looking to gain attention through the national competition.
“The Searchlight contest was huge for us,” said Mann. “The CBC is all across the country … and so we noticed right away more people coming out to our shows, and just that increased awareness of my music and the songs.”
Shortly after they won the competition, they took a break to record Dearestly, and their first song from the album, Brave Face, received airplay during the summer.
The appearance in Estevan will come in the midst of a 50-city tour that will span the country to promote Dearestly. It will end Nov. 19 in Halifax.
“We’ve been gearing up for this tour that we’re on right now,” she said.
Mann will also be in Forget on Oct. 15 for a concert at the Happy Nun restaurant that starts at 6 p.m.
