Winnipeg folk trio Sweet Alibi are hard at work on a new album “ Walking In The Dark”, while supporting their most recent album “We’ve Got To.”
The trio play the Cave at Lethbridge College for the Lethbridge Folk Club, May 16.
“ The tour got off to a bumpy start. We had some mechanical troubles, but we only had to cancel one show, ” said vocalist/ guitarist/ ukulele player Amber Neilsen from Prince George who is joined by band mates Jessica Rae Ayre (lead vocals,guitar, harmonica) and Michelle Anderson ( electric guitar/banjo/ background vocals) who are joined on this tour by bassist Alasdair Dunlop and drummer Jake Bell.
Neilsen is pleased with how well “ We’ve Got To” has done.
“ CBC picked it up. We made their top 20. It’s getting a lot of play on CKXU and we won a Western Canadian Music Award for it. It’s received lots of good response, she said.
But they are already working on the next CD.
They are turning to crowd funding for the next CD, offering pre-sales and innovative perks through Pledge Music.
“Michelle offered banjo lessons and Jessica offered home made blush she makes from beets, ( that option also includes some of Neilsen’s home made jewelry and art from Michelle)” she continued.
“ And a couple of people went for the learn a cover option. We learned ‘Angel From Montgomery’ in a day for a couple in Red Deer. We’d never played it before, but now we play it every night and it’s become part of the set,” she said.
She is excited about some of the new music, which has a darker undertone.
“My mom died in November, so I wrote a song about her. A lot of the music has a darker sound and darker themes, even some of the more upbeat sounding ones,”she said.
“ Some of them are written alone and we collaborate with others. It depends on how personal the songs are. This time, we had our band in the studio so they added some of their ideas which flushed out the sound,” she added.
“A lot of our songs are about taking some of the darker moments of our lives and trying to make something good out of them,” she said adding all of the songs are completed for the new CD, which a they are recording with producer Murray Pulver.
“ We definitely enjoyed working with him. He works with Doc Walker and produced the Bros. Landreth CD, which we love. It’s so smooth sounding,” she enthused.
“ He’s really talented and he likes to record live,” she added, noting they liked some of the scratch vocals enough to keep them for the CD and they recorded some parts separately.
She said it has been about a year since they last played Lethbridge.
“ I think it was the Owl Acoustic Lounge,” she said.
She said the next Lethbridge show will include lots of new music.
“ We’ll play a few songs off the first album , a lot off the second album and some songs that haven’t been on any album,” she said.
Sweet Alibi and Cathy Hawley play the Lethbridge Colleg eCave for the Lethbridge Folk Club, May 16 at 8 p.m.
Tickets cost $25 for members, $30 for invited guests.
