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Music

Snowblink

SNOWBLINK at the Music Gallery (197 John), Thursday, June 16, 7 pm. Free with NXNE wristband/pass or $15. nxne.com. See listing.


Even though Snowblink’s Daniela Gesundheit only moved to Canada from California three years ago, the ethereal space-folk singer already seems at home in the Great White North.

“I’m feeling pretty Canadian,” she claims. “Playing on the National Parks Project will do that to you, I guess.”

Recording in the Cape Breton Highlands and sleeping in a tent for that experimental film/music project was quite a different scene than the Los Angeles recording session she’s interrupting to talk to us. However, she has brought many of her new Canadian collaborators down with her, in case you thought she was just sucking up.

“Growing up in L.A., I’d always daydreamed about Montreal. I had great-grandparents who were from there. I imagined being in Montreal in the winter and writing, and completely romanticized the whole thing.”

The shock of her first Quebec winter was tempered somewhat when she began working closely with multi-instrumentalist Dan Goldman, who introduced her to Toronto’s vibrant musical community and led her to relocate here.

However, you won’t hear much of that influence on her recently released debut album, Long Live (Out of This Spark), since most of it was recorded while she was still living in California.

It must be hard to feel excited about playing songs from a new recording that’s really three years old.

“Luckily, no. I still feel really behind that record, and still feel good about it.

“We’re always revisiting and reimagining the songs, so whenever something starts to feel stale we go back to the drawing board and add a new element that makes it feel new again.”

One of the ways Gesundheit keeps it fresh is by devising ways to bring the audience into her performances. One of her favourite tricks is to give the crowd a bunch of pitched bells to ring as texture in some songs.

“The bells are a mainstay in the show and are almost a ritual or ceremony. Participatory elements have always been part of what I do. It’s difficult to get the audience clapping or singing, so I’ve always looked for other ways to bring whatever’s happening onstage into the theatre and fill the entire space.”

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