When k.d. lang phones Westender to discuss her new collaborative LP with fellow songwriters Neko Case and Laura Veirs, the Edmonton-born singer’s excitement about the album is palpable.
“I have way more enthusiasm for this record than I do for my own [solo albums],” she gushes. “I’ve been tweeting about it and doing all sorts of press for it, ungrudgingly. I’m really into it.”
The fact that lang is eager to do interviews for this latest endeavour works out nicely for this conversation, since she is affable and talkative when discussing the origins of the collaboration. It all began, she says, when she relocated to Portland after having previously lived in Los Angeles.
“I moved there in 2012 and met Laura, and then I met Neko around the same time,” she explains. “One night I just thought, ‘Oh, that would be an interesting collaboration.’ So I wrote them an email and got a response from both of them with the thumbs up in about half an hour.”
Although it only took around 30 minutes for the trio to agree to the project, it took them a few years to assemble the 14 tracks that appear on the self-titled case/lang/veirs. The sessions began with lang and Veirs hammering out ideas as a duo, and Case joined later in the process by flying out from her home base in Vermont. These meetings proved to be both fruitful and challenging.
“We’re still three individual artists with very strong opinions and ideas of how things should go,” lang acknowledges. “It’s a straight-up democracy, three ways. As you can imagine, it’s difficult.”
Given that the musicians are well-established as solo artists, adjusting to a group dynamic inevitably led to some artistic clashes. “We did have our share of them. It was an ego-adjuster to say the least,” lang admits with a chuckle.
Once the material was finished, the three women called up producer Tucker Martine — who had separately worked with both Veirs and Case in the past — and captured the album in a whirlwind five-day studio session. (A few overdubs were completed after.)
The results are both lush and intimate, as ornate pop anthems are interspersed with aching minor-key folk dirges. The album is cohesive, and yet the participants’ individual personalities still shine through: lang’s powerful vocals are smooth and sultry on the oldies-style ballad “Honey and Smoke,” while the Case-sung “Delirium” is toe-tapping alt-country with a flavour of rock urgency, and Veirs’ perky “Best Kept Secret” is laden in AM pop harmonies and lavish string flourishes. The singers’ chemistry is highlighted by the moody opener, “Atomic Number,” on which they trade off on lead vocals before coming together in gorgeous harmony.
After the rewarding struggles of the drawn-out writing process, lang remembers the time in the studio as being richly productive. “It went down so fast and so beautifully, it was really quite astonishing,” she marvels. “I don’t know — it was a dream record, really.”
With the album available now, case/lang/veirs are hitting the road for a North American tour that will come to the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival on June 29. Fans should take advantage of this opportunity to see the trio, since they’re unlikely to team up again. When asked about the possibility of a second collaborative album, lang says that it will only happen under one specific circumstance.
“If we win seven Grammys then we will make another record. That’s probably the only way that it’s going to happen,” she says, laughing jovially. “Six and a half wouldn’t even work. It has to be a full seven. Eight, we don’t need to think about it anymore. We can retire.”
Vocal supergroup performs June 29 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre with special guest Andy Shauf. Tickets from $79 at CoastalJazz.ca.
