BANFF – Love is on Amelie Patterson’s mind.
The Banff songstress is releasing her latest single “Everything, Nothing” on Thursday (March 11). The “Folk-tronic” song explores the contrasting ideal that love is both uniquely one’s own experience, and yet ubiquitous around the globe.
“It’s quite personal. I had just met my new baby niece and felt overwhelmed by the feelings of love. At the same time I was also falling in love in my personal life,” said Patterson about starting to write the song. “This is one of the few songs where the melody came really quick, and the lyrics came quickly to me, which is rarely the case when I write new music.”
After writing a majority of the song four years ago, Patterson put the song, originally titled “Love Song” on the back burner. Eventually, she brought it to her bandmates Barry Mason and Kyle Tenove. From there, she said the song started to take shape.
“Oftentimes, I’ll bring them this dinky little folk song that I wrote and then as soon as they start playing along – they bring such a spark to everything they play that it kind of reanimates the song.”
It wasn’t until Patterson got the chance to record with producer Graham Lessard, who has produced acclaimed albums for Rueben and the Dark, Timber Timbre, and Plants and Animals, that “Everything, Nothing” really took shape.
Patterson originally sent a handful of demos to Lessard to listen to, and was surprised when he chose to work on “Everything, Nothing.”
The bulk of the single was recorded in late 2019 and fine-tuned throughout 2020.
“It was such a fun, creative and collaborative process working with Graham. He made it really easy to record and was so generous with his time. The song wouldn’t be what it is without him,” Patterson said.
“He gave us so much time in the studio to explore and mess around cool ideas and every idea I thought of, he gave weight to. I have worked with other producers where every take is the same, but not with Graham, which was refreshing and exciting as a creative person. He encouraged us to explore new ideas.”
The electronic-sounding track is unique in the way it was made because there was not one electronic instrument used. Instead, Patterson, her bandmates and Lessard experimented with different sounds, patches and mixing techniques.
The result is harmonic vocals soaring over pulsing rhythms and glitchy guitars.
“My favourite part is when it builds into a hopeful bridge with lyrics 'and though it is ours, it is through the ages the same.' ”
The new single will be released as part of Patterson’s concept-driven studio project, The Playlist. Rather than recording and releasing all the songs at once, The Playlist is a stream of rolling singles and has no ending in sight, according to Patterson.
She has six more songs in the hopper to add to the four songs that make up The Playlist.
Patterson said The Playlist was born out of necessity because people are not buying albums like they used to, and more inclined to search after singles.
She said this concept has had a large impact on her growth as an artist and has allowed her to more creative in my songwriting and in the studio.
However, her favourite aspect of The Playlist is each song gets to have its own life.
“I like that each song has its own time to shine.”
“Everything, Nothing” will be available to download at Patterson’s website, Spotify and AppleMusic.
