EMILY TRIGGS ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM THE GREAT ESCAPE OUT MARCH 28
Calgary-based singer/songwriter Emily Triggs is gearing up to release her latest album The Great Escape on March 28, and today is offering a preview with the first single and video, “Summer In Nevada.” An homage to those who witnessed and participated in U.S. nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s and ’60s, the song reflects The Great Escape’s overall exploration of different aspects of North American culture
There are a few specific reasons why Emily Triggs titled her new album The Great Escape, the main one being that the 13-song collection represents a break from old ways of thinking that the Montreal-born Americana artist says have held her back both artistically and personally. With her new material, Triggs set out to challenge herself by ignoring any genre restrictions, and the result is her most honest and empowering album to date.
The Great Escape was produced by longtime Neko Case collaborator Paul Rigby, who also played a multitude of instruments on the album. Other contributors to the sessions in Vancouver were engineer/multi-instrumentalist Dave Carswell (Destroyer, The Evaporators), bassist Darren Paris (Frazey Ford), drummer Geoff Hicks (Colin James) and engineer Erik Nielsen (City and Colour). By coincidence, one of the studios where they recorded, Afterlife, was near where Triggs’ father Stanley recorded traditional folk songs on a houseboat in the early 1960s, which have since been released as a 3-disc set entitled The False Creek Tapes.
Emily says,
“My last album Middletown was about resilience, but sometimes you don’t need to be resilient, you need to change. You don’t have to leave a place, it can be metaphoric; you just have to leave a past version of yourself behind.”
That strength is evident from the first notes of the opening track “London 1969,” inspired by a friend’s story of watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on television as a small child. The song sets a nostalgic tone similar to “Summer In Nevada,” while songs like the unyielding “Rough In The Ring” dish out hopeful metaphors to anyone trying to fight back against life’s struggles. There are plenty of purely poetic moments on The Great Escape as well, from the gorgeous “Beautiful August” and “Ask The Birds” to the Irish-tinged “My Son” and closing track “Water Tower.”
Although The Great Escape is only Emily’s third solo release since 2014, she played in various bands up to 2019 and continues to perform as a duo with Lorrie Matheson called The Rosellas. Going out on her own eventually became the most practical move in terms of touring, but it also helped Emily reconnect with the folk music passed down from her parents, and immerse herself in the sounds of Appalachia in West Virginia. That inherited wanderlust has also taken her from Montreal to nearly every region of Canada, all of which she continues to visit as often as possible through her busy touring schedule.
Emily’s aforementioned album Middletown was nominated for a Folk Music Canada Award and a Western Canadian Music Award in 2021, setting the stage for The Great Escape to expand her audience even further, with its clear picture of an artist coming into her own through songs that encompass the full range of emotions, from tenacious to transcendent.