Kathleen Edwards

Was trying to figure what Alfred's problem was, but now I reread and it seems like the time he doesn't like it is when she DOESN'T sing like that.

Fascinated by "Buffalo." Seems to have a parsable story, but I've been burned before and I know the score so maybe I'd better leave it alone.

Don't be-e-e like that

otm

Even quitters quit quitting. See you at Massey hall. https://t.co/lFdsxEedNf

— Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) January 22, 2018

omg

Y E S

this woman is a genius

ICYMI, KE seems like she is getting much closer to a full-scale revival of her music career:

...making a new album:

I leave in 5 days to start making a new album. “I’m so excited for you!”, “how amazing” is what I’m hearing from friends and family. And they’re very kind and supportive. But I’m peaking out on the anxiety meter. Big time. And that’s how mental health rears it’s ugly head.

— Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) March 4, 2019

It's with heartfelt gratitude and excitement i get to say.... I wrote a song with Maren for her new album! "Good Woman" was written during a devastating heartbreak hoping the phone would ring. Maren has turned it into a loving expression of joy, can't wait for release day!! https://t.co/cFLGrVmNw4

— Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) March 1, 2019

signing a record deal via DocuSign is infinitely less cool that on the hood of a car. but still. signed a motherfucking record deal today. this old broad stillllllllz gots it.

— Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) March 5, 2019

very good news, imo

Incredible news.

oh my fucking god

I saw she’s playing a festival in Camden this summer and I thought it was a one off how exciting that there’s actual new music coming!!!!

Ahhhhhjhhhhh

Acclaimed singer, songwriter and musician Kathleen Edwards will release her highly anticipated new album, Total Freedom, August 14 on Dualtone (an Entertainment One Company). In advance of the release, the album’s first single, “Options Open,” is debuting today.

Alongside the album announcement, Rolling Stone is featuring Edwards in an exclusive, in-depth profile chronicling her long-awaited return to music, praising, “Total Freedom is the result of profound self-reflection from Edwards, who’s reached a place where her past trials, false starts, and wrong turns have begun to feel less like a burden and more like a blessing.”

Co-produced by Edwards, longtime collaborator and guitarist Jim Bryson and Grammy Award-winning producer and musician Ian Fitchuk, Total Freedom marks a major return for Edwards, who took an extended step away from music in 2014. After spending the last six years running her successful small business (a coffee shop, bar and café aptly named Quitters, in her hometown of Stittsville, Ottawa), Edwards is back with a refreshed creative outlook and a new sense of freedom. Across the album’s eleven songs, Edwards revisits past relationships with a new perspective, explores her own resilience and optimism and for the first time pursues what she feels is right rather than what is expected.

“I had no desire to write, no desire to play,” she says of what she refers to as her “working sabbatical.” “It allowed me all the time and space I needed to even just enjoy listening to music again. There were so many times where, if I was thinking about my own writing or playing, my heart just wasn't in it.” She continues, “I don’t want to write songs that are going to keep me in a dark place for two years. I didn’t have to carry a lot of the pressure of whatever course I was on previously…There’s a pressure sometimes to keep that ball rolling, and that’s what was so freeing about stopping altogether and starting again. I realized I’m entirely in control and deciding what my course of action is."
Total Freedom is Edwards’ fifth-studio album since her 2003 debut and her first since 2012’s Voyageur. The album reached #39 on the United States’ Billboard 200 chart, #2 in Canada and received widespread critical acclaim—NPR Music praised, “Her songs feel as personal and lived-in as ever…Edwards has never seemed more confident in her own considerable gifts,” while Pitchfork declared, “Each song emphasizes change and risk, and Edwards never resorts to tired sentiments or platitudes about healing and hope” and Rolling Stone proclaimed, “an exquisite, widescreen beauty.” Now based in Ottawa, Ontario, Edwards is a five-time Juno Award nominee and winner of the SOCAN Songwriting Prize for Voyageur track, “A Soft Place to Land.” She has also had her music featured in several hit television shows including Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill, Hart of Dixie, House and more.

TOTAL FREEDOM TRACK LIST
1. Glenfern
2. Hard On Everyone
3. Birds On A Feeder
4. Simple Math
5. Options Open
6. Feelings Fade
7. Fools Ride
8. Ashes to Ashes
9. Who Rescued Who
10. Take It With You

Ooh great I can't wait to hear this. Good news that she's dumped Vernon as producer (following their break-up). I loved her first three albums but I found the last one close to unlistenable.

AAAAAAHHHHHH

I was wondering what happened to her old guitarist/producer/boyfriend (I think?) Colin Cripps, and it turns out not only is a member of Blue Rodeo now, he and a friend released a surf album under the name C & C Surf Factory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQmi5eDrorY

it makes me very happy to hear "Crappy Tire" used in a lyric

I found the last one close to unlistenable.

― the grateful dead can dance (anagram), Tuesday, May 19, 2020 7:54 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

come on it's a good record

i am so fucking thrilled this is happening

This new interview is a great read. Sounds like she's in a better place at the moment:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/kathleen-edwards-comeback-new-album-total-freedom-1001469/

aoty without having heard a note

since no one has posted this yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyFjqmWgqug

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/06/kathleen-edwards-on-quitting-music-falling-for-a-conman-and-her-comeback

damn it *I* could have been that conman if I'd only made an effort to actually go to Quitters

for real though I hope the new album is up to snuff but mainly I'm glad she's doing well

sad to read this piece. hard to believe it's been 9 years since Voyageur. excited to hear this one.

I swear to god I can hear someone getting a text at 0:19 into "Simple Math"

i love kathleen edwards

i love kathleen edwards

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Wednesday, July 22, 2015 11:03 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

"birds on the feeder" kicking my ass

"take it with you when you go" is the best song ever written

great album imo

I'm afraid to listen to this in case it's just OK but I will rip the bandaid off later today

I know what you mean, but I am going on in!

so yeah, this is great

what a crass misstep voyageur was, but she's back on top form with this one

I don't get what's wrong with Voyageur, unless you hear way more of Bon Iver in it than I do.

I haven't listened to it in years, but iirc it was kind of more amorphous and atmospheric?

i have "hard on everyone" running on a loop in my head

"crass misstep" is not fair to Voyageur at all. especially the word crass.

it has a lot of good songs, a couple snoozers, the production may be questionable, but she'd made three albums of roots-rock (this is not totally fair to Flowers, but whatever), can't blame her for wanting to try something different.

i think it's better than Back To Me, but even if you say it's her worst album of the four, it's a lot better worst than most artists, imo.

thank you for this revive, I finally listened to her & I love her music!

anyone who's just getting into her now, for the love of god seek out Asking for Flowers.

Haven't heard the new one yet but agree Asking for Flowers was the best of her first four. I get misty eyed in some of the quieter songs. Consider it one of the better alt-country albums of the 00s.

I listened to the kathleen edwards essentials on apple music & it was fabulous

I think the first album is perfect and the second album sort of improves on that one without necessarily being better, if you can square that circle.

Wait, I'm thinking of "Asking for Flowers." Yeah. "Asking for Flowers" and the first one are perfecto.

I adore Failer (six o'clock news, hockey skates) and the Cry Cry Cry material / Shindell collabs.

Have barely scratched the surface of anything since, alas

Cry Cry Cry is Shindell with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplanksy, no? Unless I missed something (only know their ‘98 album).

Oops, my bad. What was I thinking? Possibly drinking.

HOWEVER I know she did do backing vocals or was a touring vocalist on something at least some of those folks did. Crud. Hang on, I'll find it. Or not.

One of the worst humans I know is a huge Kathleen Edwards fan. Probably can't bring myself to get over that hurdle.

Dar Williams... that's a name I certainly haven't heard for 17 lifetimes. Anyway, came here to say this album's sounding great.

god asking for flowers is so good, basically as good as failer, not sure why i keep forgetting this

"Goodnight, California" is the stunner on there for me: a guitar epic, in feels a sequel to "Cortez the Killer".