Grant, Jenn

Grant, Jenn

Paradise

Ba Da Bing!

Jenn Grant’s Paradise opens into an expanded realm never before explored by the songwriter. Following Compostela’s 2015 Juno nominations of Triple A Album Of The Year and Songwriter Of The Year, this latest adds to Grant’s usual insight and intimacy a whole new dimension of wisdom. Songs unfold gradually, guided by her nuanced and soulful voice, mining a deepened honesty that touches upon balladry, R&B and electronic music along the way. If her previous album was a window into an artist’s psyche, this one is a front row seat for the symphonic beauty and pain of life from the sage perspective of someone who has lived through both extremes. With her poetry firmly intact and a powerful lyricism honed over a decade, Grant takes new chances and explores new approaches on Paradise. She upends her entire songwriting approach, investing two years of crafting and shaping. “I wanted to explore new soundscapes,” she says, describing how piano was the primary songwriting instrument. “I also thought about my singing much more. For some of these new songs, I decided to approach singing more like a whisper, to get a feel for its softness.” Grant reaches a shared emotional experience with these songs, and this homemade album provides both melodic beauty and sonic diversity. What results is a talented, experienced musician employing all her abilities to lengths never before heard.

Grant, Jenn

Beautiful Wild

Ba Da Bing!

Jenn Grant’s The Beautiful Wild, her fourth (but first US-released) record, expresses wonders beyond pleasant views. Having grown up on Prince Edward Island, Canada, she saw lush landscapes and the glistening sea right outside her window, and it was easy to take such things for granted. The album title is a challenge: to accept the grueling lows of life that come between glorious highs. To embrace life means acknowledging its inevitable confrontations. So why this record and why now? Simply put, it’s the songs, soulful and ornate, with lush guitars, pianos, horns, banjos, strings and even a boys’ chorus populating The Beautiful Wild like trees in the woods. But everything stands aside for Grant’s captivating singing, a thick tenor that trails like heavy smoke. While her past material established her throughout Canada as a musician of distinct note, The Beautiful Wild propels her into new realms of accomplishment. Over the time period that The Beautiful Wild was conceived and completed, Grant’s life took significant turns. First, she married Daniel Ledwell, who is now her musical collaborator. Having spent the past ten years living in bustling downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, she and Ledwell moved to a two-story home in the wilds of Echo Lake (population 3,562). Like her youth on Prince Edward Island, Grant chose the reflection of a removed life and took a step away from the city. It was this environment of accepting the past in which The Beautiful Wild materialized. In the video for “The Fighter,” shots cut...