Introducing: Jenn Grant

Hometown: Lake Echo, Nova Scotia
For fans of: Feist, Hannah Georgas, Rose Cousins
Key tracks: ‘Lover Lover Lover’, ‘I’ve Got Your Fire’, ‘Spades (featuring Buck 65)’
See Jenn live: The Festival Hub on Thursday, 8 May at 8pm/Headlining Music Nova Scotia at Canada House (Blind Tiger Club) on Friday, 9 May at 2.30pm at The Great Escape in Brighton.
Connect: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Bandcamp | Soundcloud

Although originally from Prince Edward Island, Jenn Grant has called Nova Scotia home for over a decade. “It is one giant family of songwriters and musicians of all kinds.” she says of Halifax, “There’s nowhere else in the world quite like it.”

Over the years Grant has made a habit of collaborating within this musical family, appearing on albums by Rich Aucoin and Buck 65, who repays the favour on her upcoming Clairvoyant EP on the track Spades. Sometimes the musical family is also a literal family: the record is produced by her husband Daniel Ledwell, formerly of In-Flight Safety and a solo artist in his own right. In fact, it seems it isn’t just the people that have impacted Grants music, but the place itself: the combination of the colourful cafes and shops of Agricola street in Halifax’s North End combined with the open space and quiet of her Lake Echo home have had a huge impact on her writing.

The Clairvoyant EP is a compilation of sorts, gathering all the aspects of Grant’s recent work and presenting it to new places, both musically and geographically. Thus we get samples of AquaAlta, her self described “Undersea dream-pop” project with Charles Austin of The Super Friendz, the aforementioned duet with Buck 65, “I’ve Got Your Fire”, which took home an East Coast Music Award for Song of the Year earlier this month and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Lover, Lover, Lover”, whose video we are pleased to Premiere today. Grant views Cohen as an inspiration both as a songwriter and as a poet: “It’s an honour just to utter the words. I was also looking for a song from the 70’s, which is an entire musical era I’ve been slightly leaning on for my next album.” Be it introspective and brooding, upbeat and poppy or jazz-tinged folk-rock, Grant’s voice is a captivating thing indeed, whatever she turns it to. Indeed, those going to see her on her forthcoming tour may even be treated to her rendition of ‘Eye of The Tiger’, a bonus track on her previous record.

And of course, we couldn’t finish an interview about the release of The Clairvoyant EP without asking if she has ever visited one: “Of course. Yesterday, she told me wonderful things about this upcoming tour…”