ELLEN FROESE

Saskatoon songsmith Ellen Froese’s latest record, Solitary Songs, finds her meditating on a strange chapter of her life. “It’s been a weird year—lots of life changes, maybe some ego-death,” she says. Between an ADHD diagnosis and cutting back on some vices, her perspective—as a musician, a lover, a human being—has changed.

The follow up to 2022’s For Each Flower Growing (produced with the Sheepdogs’ Sam Corbett), Solitary Songs showcases Froese singing songs that sound like dusted-off country classics with wry, down-to-earth lyricism. One moment, Froese is confessing, ‘I’m scared of getting old / But more than that, I’m scared of living without your love’; the next, she’s reeling from a false-start fling, ‘stray cattin’ along’ with a freshly purchased ‘strawberry watermelon turbo-powered vape’. There are no sacred cows in Froese’s world, with blunt humour meeting heartache while the band plays on.