Talia Schlanger Announces Debut Album, Grace For The Going With New Single, “Attention”
Already a name you’ll undoubtedly recognize, you’re about to hear Talia Schlanger in a whole new way. Internationally known as an authentic, articulate, and encyclopedic former host of NPR’s World Cafe and a constant CBC ‘q’ and Commotion guest host, Talia has spent her career talking to some of the biggest names in music, and the arts. Schlanger has earned a reputation for her natural ability to connect with artists, especially songwriters. Yet for someone who had spent her whole life singing, she realized she was using her voice exclusively to help other musicians tell their stories.
“If there’s one thing I learned from talking to artists,” Schlanger says, “it’s that nobody hands you a permission slip and says ‘you are allowed to make art now.’ You either do it or you don’t.”
So in the fall of 2019, Schlanger took the leap and left her job. Over the course of several months, Schlanger wove her way from London to Lisbon renting rooms on the cheap and staying up all hours to write. She found a used LAG guitar at a second-hand store in Paris and together they lost entire days to practice and exploration.
“I needed to spend a few months walking around with toothpaste on my pants, singing to myself, and recovering all the ideas I had stuffed down or ignored for years.” Schlanger returned to Canada in the winter of 2020, with an album she felt ready to record. Of course, then the whole world changed. “I was already a professional recluse at that point. So I just kinda kept hiding away, writing and editing my songs.”
The result is her debut album, Grace for the Going set for an early 2024 release (via Latent Recordings). Grace for the Going is Talia Schlanger’s intimate and explosive reflection of her reverence for the power of words, genuine love of connecting with people, and her passionately eclectic musical taste. Her inspiration runs deep, from Roberta Flack’s quiet confidence to the raw freedom of Jeff Buckley, from Missy Elliott’s electric cadence to Patti Smith’s fearless poetry, and from Paul Simon’s pristine storytelling to the honest ache of Nina Simone. Schlanger’s approach to making music is the result of a lifetime of deep and broad listening, as a music fan with an open heart and hungry ears.
She has revealed the first single with a video directed by Yuan Liu for, “Attention.” Schlanger winks at the notion of dating someone who’s more than a little self-obsessed. “Attention is oxygen,” she sings, with a smoky timbre over the sound of layered violins played by the wildly inventive Jaron Freeman-Fox.
“It’s a mantra I tell myself sometimes—as in, be careful what you pay attention to because you breathe life into it.”