Sitting in Halifax’s Coburg Coffee, Pat LePoidevin discusses what it’s like to practice with the Little Sackville Symphony. The group of students and community members from Sackville, N.B. will be joining the B.C. native for his upcoming performance at the Company House on March 19.
“We didn’t write anything out because I wanted it to be as relaxed as possible,” he says of the rehearsal process. “(I didn’t want them to) look at any music or anything like they would normally do, but actually have them sort of use their ears and do it differently.”
This unique approach to arranging a symphony around a folk song is just one example of how Pat LePoidevin is an ideas man. The title of his new album, Highway Houses, was inspired by the families who live in houses along the Trans-Canada Highway. The first and last songs of the album, respectively titled “North,” and “Highway Houses,” are about a fictional family living in one of these homes.
“The father sort of gets frustrated with the fact that they’re not really in the middle of nowhere; they’re still connected by the highway,” explains LePoidevin. “The father of this family wants to take them up North—take the kids away and actually get into the middle of nowhere.”
The 23-year-old Mount Allison graduate released Highway Houses on March 4 and is currently touring the Maritimes to promote it. This, LePoidevin’s third album, features what he calls his “looped orchestra of folk,” an eclectic assortment of instruments layered with a looping pedal.
For influences, he cites Canadian acts Owen Pallett and Elliott Brood, as well as the Brooklyn-based band, The Hold Steady, adding that he is a “sponge,” picking up different techniques and styles from every concert he attends. His primary instruments are the baritone ukulele and guitar, though as a child, he played the highland bagpipes. In the future he wants to learn to play the hurdy-gurdy and the violin.
Another one of LePoidevin’s ideas was to record in a century-old church and community hall in rural New Brunswick. Along with his recording engineer and friend, Nick Battist, LePoidevin drove out to Parkindale Hall in December with some rented recording equipment and a computer, achieving “a mixture of old versus new.” They recorded the album over the course of two days, sleeping on the floor of the hall at night. On choosing such a remote location, the musician says: “A lot of the songs were written in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon, so it kind of fit the stage well.”
He has other reasons for working outside of the studio. “I think studios are totally, like, 90s,” he states, talking about the huge analogue equipment that used to be necessary to the recording process. “Now that we’ve brought it down to this digital stuff, it’s pretty neat. You can bring this equipment to all of these locations now, where everyone wanted to record in the past.”
According to LePoidevin, if you are going to record in the studio, you should use all of the old analogue technology. Otherwise, “if you want to record a really good album, go to Long & McQuade, rent a bunch of amazing digital gear and bring it wherever you want.”
Pat LePoidevin will be playing at 8 p.m. on March 19 at the Company House.
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