BOW VALLEY – When an unmastered, unreleased playlist from Banff native Amelie Patterson hit my inbox with songs that will soon grace your ears, but I am insanely fortunate for them to have already graced mine, I had no idea I would be replaying them over and over again.
Every cliché you can think of when listening to music that simply feeds your soul came to mind; “chills up my spine,” “gives me goose bumps,” “foot-tapping, head bopping.” Patterson’s music ticks all the boxes of what constitutes as a good tune and her innovation in song writing is possibly unmatched.
Speaking over the phone as she walked to her home in Calgary, Patterson told me about her newly released single called The Patient Kind – one of many songs to be released one-by-one over the coming months. The single-song roll out is just another way Patterson is trying to get ahead of the game in terms of the way we consume music.
“What I’m doing is essentially releasing rolling singles to curate a groovy alt-folk playlist,” she said.
“The idea behind that is it’s a direct reflection of how people are consuming music these days, as we’re moving away from the album structure. It’s also how I consume music. I’m less likely to listen to a full record, so I wanted to sort of push an industry standard, if you will.”The project has been in the works for two, almost three years, and Patterson said the reason she’s chosen this route instead of releasing a single-genre album is so that she’s not restricted in the music she produces.
“Probably the most important thing to me and my music, and I think it’s probably the most important thing to people and their art in general, is being able to connect with what your voice is and what it is that you are trying to say. The reason you’re making art in the first place and being able to do it on your own terms,” she said.
“That can be really challenging … The problem with putting out albums right now is people spend a lot of money putting out these beautiful records they pour their heart and soul into and with streaming, the way that most people who are not in the music industry are consuming music is via playlist, and via almost an online radio situation. They can really love a song and have no idea who the artist is because there’s so much content, so much music that’s out there.”
That’s why the music Patterson produces is particularly intriguing. She doesn’t restrict herself to a certain genre, which she said is meant to create a body of work that plays out like a playlist as opposed to a single artist’s album.
“In a way I’ve kind of been looking at it like this – Ammie P is a genre,” she said.
“The idea is that I can be far reaching, I can make what I want to make in the studio at the time. Sometimes that’s a disco track, sometimes that’s a really rootsy-folky track and that’s the beauty of the studio is that it feels very limitless when you’re in it and you can really see your ideas come to life.”
Recruiting other talented musicians such as Kyle Tenove and Barry Mason, Patterson knows that to make anything great, it takes a team. For her, it’s important to ensure everyone is able to contribute with his or her own musical strengths.
“I think that my strengths as a leader is going into the studio and saying ‘OK this song The Patient Kind this is about knowing what you want, playing the long game I want it to be fun. I really like that hook you just played Barry, let’s work off of that’ and then stepping back and letting them come through as artists in their own right and that’s how we get to a lot of these places is because I give Barry and Kyle as well as Will MacLellan my producer, a lot of freedom to follow these ideas that they have,” she said.
Though each track can be different, Patterson is what holds it together as one body of work.
“I can kind of try as hard as I want too to write outside of what I do and it should always have my voice and my stamp on it and interestingly enough, that’s what I’ve found when I’ve gone into the studio with my band and with my producer at the end of the day we’ll say ‘wow this is a super different song,’” she said.
When listening to her music, you may find yourself (like me) suddenly putting them on repeat, your fingers working rapidly on your cellphone as you send her Spotify artists page to all your friends with a quick text reading “you must listen to this.” There’s just something about Patterson and her music that is truly special.
“For me it’s always, always the backbone of what we do is a story that’s being told," she said.
"I’m very much a storyteller, I’m somebody who lives music very viscerally, so when I hear something I really hear the story, I feel it, I see it, and so it doesn’t matter to me what different filters we put over it as long as that stories still coming through."Though she’s not a new artist and these songs aren’t the first she’s released (cue Roll Honey Roll, her debut song) it doesn’t mean she’s not nervous about this new project.
“I’m nervous, super nervous. But it’s also really fun, also I’ve had a lot of people – primarily the Bow Valley has been so supportive of what I’ve done that mostly I’m just really excited to show people what I’ve been up too,” she said.
Patterson is set to roll out a new single every couple of months with the intention of each song being a bit different than the last, so that they’ll “be excited for the next one to come out to see what happens next.”
The Patient Kind is available now on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, etc). Coming up in July, Patterson will play alongside Yukon Blonde and Dear Rouge at the Edmonton Expo Centre. She’ll also be featured on The Stampede City Specials, a program put on by Lorne and Candice Weber that will play on PBS. For more information on her music or upcoming shows, you can visit her website at www.ameliepattersonmusic.com. You can listen to The Patient Kind on Patterson's soundcloud.
