DECEMBER 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM SPOTLIGHT SUBSCRIBE FOR ONLY * $12 in 2012 (*1 Yr, U.S.) MMUSICMAG.COM/SAVE Steve Gerrard

SONGS INSPIRE US + MUSIC MOVES US KATHLEEN EDWARDS M CONNECTS US Digging herself out of a familiar hole, with a hand from a new friend

Since her 2003 debut album, you’re on to something. and Justin did. We Failer, Kathleen edwards has gradually just went from there.” honed her craft as a singer and songwriter the result of their collaboration is whose finely wrought character sketches Voyageur, as intimate and daring as any teem with both sardonic humor and knife’s- album edwards has recorded—aspects edge emotional danger. “and then part of me she credits Vernon with encouraging. “the felt like i had fallen a little bit too complacent,” songs that i write are my life, they’re things says edwards, an Ottawa, Ontario, native that i feel, they are my victories, they’re my DECEMBER 2011 M who now lives in toronto. “i thought, ‘OK, disappointments, they’re everything,” she i know how to write a song, i know how to says. “i can’t imagine being in a studio and MUSIC & MUSICIANS write a chorus, i know how to put a guitar lick working on this thing that is such a huge MAGAZINE here.’ i’m not diminishing the heart and the force in my life with somebody who you truth of how i’ve approached music before, feel like you can’t trust.” Still, she notes but i was ready to be more challenged that Vernon was adamant that Voyageur by what i was doing. i felt like i had dug ultimately be edwards’ own vision. “there’s a hole for myself.” a reason that is currently one enter Justin Vernon, the mastermind of the most respected and successful artists behind indie-rock sensation , who in popular music,” she says. “it’s because his was introduced to edwards through a intentions are in the right place.” mutual friend. When the notion of Vernon after a brief winter break, edwards producing her new album arose, she was is eager to get back on the road and take skeptical. “i didn’t really see how his musical her new songs to the stage. “i’m nervous,” aesthetic would be right for me,” she recalls. she admits. “i feel pretty vulnerable right “but he just got it. When you’re trying to now. i wrote a really private record. i do something different and you don’t know put my whole life into these songs. i’m how to articulate what that is, if the other excited to stop talking about them and person is able to finish your sentences and actually let them be.” you go, ‘Yes, that’s what i meant,’ you know –Chris Neal

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