Toronto’s ambitious and talented L CON recently released her debut LP, The Ballad Project, on Daps Records and you can stream it here until Nov. 8.
ListenThe Ballad Project by L CON
Streaming until Nov. 8
Tracklist
While Lisa Conway has released music as the Owle Bird, Del Bel and a Twin Peaks-inspired writing project called Chrome and the Ice Queen, The Ballad Project marks her first release under the enigmatic moniker L CON.
“It started as a nickname and it sounded kind of like a robot or a rapper,” Conway explains. “It sounds a little bit like Akon so hopefully I’ll get a lot of Akon fans accidentally.”
Adventurous hip-hop heads that get over feeling duped will get lost in the mesmerizing orchestration and dizzying grandeur of The Ballad Project, which could not be more aptly named.
“I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for schmaltzy ballads and wanted to do an album of them for a really long time,” Conway says. “It was a major orchestration exercise that I created for myself and was quite challenging. Music theory is a bit of a weakness but I wanted to make an album of all ballads, as a homage to some of the artists I’ve been listening to.”
Names like Lee Hazlewood, Scott Walker and Dionne Warwick tumble forward when Conway is asked to cite her influences. While she doesn’t mention contemporary balladeers, she believes that there’s something timeless about the form that gives it a broad appeal.
Over the next weeks, Conway brings The Ballad Project to life at shows across Ontario and Quebec but she’s clear that the live show is no mere recreation of the LP.
“We’re going in [a] totally different direction and the live ensemble features two vocalists, myself on shimmery violin and singing and then [Skeletones Four frontman] Andrew Collins will be playing bass and there’s a drum machine as well,” Conway states. “So it’s extremely sparse because there’s no way we can do the album live when your budget is quite limited slash non-existent.”
Watch this interview with L CON, conducted at a ski lodge in Collingwood, Ont.
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