Lisa Conway has detailed a new album as L CON. The Ontario artist will share The Isolator on May 10 via Idée Fixe Records.
Following 2019 EP Whatever and 2018 full-length Insecurities In Being, The Isolator is said to balance "romanticism and the loneliness of navigating the layers of your identity," navigating "stories we've internalized about nationality, home, our families, and ourselves."
The reflective journey of Conway's latest begins in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, in which the artist was composing music for the German production of a theatrical play remotely from her studio in Guelph. With an otherwise empty calendar, she began taking piano lessons online, and was encouraged by her teacher to lean into playing what felt comfortable.
Conway was then driven to write a record that would allow her to exist in her comforts, clarifying, "Not that I wasn't striving towards artistic growth and challenging myself... but I finally gave myself permission to fully live in sound worlds and lean into writing tendencies that are very instinctual and restorative to me."
Beyond the keys, those "sound worlds" also include tape loops of Conway's compositions for alphorns, her own voice, and the Prophet synthesizer heard on "Heimatort," which you can hear below. Taking its title from a line on Conway's Swiss passport, indicating one's "home place" or "place of origin," the song explores the artist's familial origins.
"When you're told stories as a child, you create a mythology about a place — my heimatort is a little town in the mountains I was told I could return to if I was ever in trouble and needed to be taken care of," Conway shares. "As an adult, I'm faced with the practical reality of what that would actually look like — many of my family members are buried there, but I don't have a place to stay, or someone to call, and the rest of my family lives in other areas. How at home do I really feel in my 'home place'?"
"Heimatort" can also be found on The Eh! List, Exclaim!'s weekly roundup of the best new Canadian music presented by Mary Brown's Chicken & Taters.
Conway is far from alone on The Isolator, with contributions from Cedric Noel, Karen Ng, Isla Craig, Morgan Doctor, Drew Jurecka, Victoria Cheong, and more.
In January, Conway released SOUNDMILL improvisations — collecting sonics that were part of a multi-channel sound and light installation — via Halocline Trance.
Pre-order The Isolator.
The Isolator:
1. Alphorn Tape Loop I
2. Heimatort
3. Hold
4. Appear
5. What if Heidi Likes the City?
6. Ordinary Girl
7. The Isolator
8. Too Much
9. Big Pile of Nothing
10. Alphorn Tape Loop II
Following 2019 EP Whatever and 2018 full-length Insecurities In Being, The Isolator is said to balance "romanticism and the loneliness of navigating the layers of your identity," navigating "stories we've internalized about nationality, home, our families, and ourselves."
The reflective journey of Conway's latest begins in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, in which the artist was composing music for the German production of a theatrical play remotely from her studio in Guelph. With an otherwise empty calendar, she began taking piano lessons online, and was encouraged by her teacher to lean into playing what felt comfortable.
Conway was then driven to write a record that would allow her to exist in her comforts, clarifying, "Not that I wasn't striving towards artistic growth and challenging myself... but I finally gave myself permission to fully live in sound worlds and lean into writing tendencies that are very instinctual and restorative to me."
Beyond the keys, those "sound worlds" also include tape loops of Conway's compositions for alphorns, her own voice, and the Prophet synthesizer heard on "Heimatort," which you can hear below. Taking its title from a line on Conway's Swiss passport, indicating one's "home place" or "place of origin," the song explores the artist's familial origins.
"When you're told stories as a child, you create a mythology about a place — my heimatort is a little town in the mountains I was told I could return to if I was ever in trouble and needed to be taken care of," Conway shares. "As an adult, I'm faced with the practical reality of what that would actually look like — many of my family members are buried there, but I don't have a place to stay, or someone to call, and the rest of my family lives in other areas. How at home do I really feel in my 'home place'?"
"Heimatort" can also be found on The Eh! List, Exclaim!'s weekly roundup of the best new Canadian music presented by Mary Brown's Chicken & Taters.
Conway is far from alone on The Isolator, with contributions from Cedric Noel, Karen Ng, Isla Craig, Morgan Doctor, Drew Jurecka, Victoria Cheong, and more.
In January, Conway released SOUNDMILL improvisations — collecting sonics that were part of a multi-channel sound and light installation — via Halocline Trance.
Pre-order The Isolator.
The Isolator:
1. Alphorn Tape Loop I
2. Heimatort
3. Hold
4. Appear
5. What if Heidi Likes the City?
6. Ordinary Girl
7. The Isolator
8. Too Much
9. Big Pile of Nothing
10. Alphorn Tape Loop II
