TORONTO —
Greater than 4 years after her husband Gord Downie’s dying, singer-songwriter Kaya Usher is within the midst of a creative awakening.
Along with her debut album “All This Is” set for launch Nov. 17 and its meditatively euphoric single “Coronary heart Clicks” already obtainable on streaming companies, she’s fascinated about what’s subsequent with co-producer Kevin Drew of Damaged Social Scene.
“Kevin and I plan on making a whole lot of music collectively,” she stated, musing on probably working with a symphony or dabbling in experimental digital music.
“The chances are countless.”
Usher is vivid and optimistic in a video dialog in regards to the function music has performed in her “therapeutic journey” and the way her album is about “coming into not solely the grief however actual energy” after a devastating loss.
Almost a decade in the past, the now 54-year-old confronted breast most cancers. Then, she witnessed Downie confront a terminal mind most cancers analysis in 2015. The Tragically Hip frontman died in 2017 at age 53.
On “All This Is,” credited to Kaya Usher and the Household Band, the Toronto musician finds her deep curiosity in meditation crossing paths with devotion to her youngsters.
Two of their 4 youngsters play on the album — 21-year-old son Lou on keyboards and drums and 26-year-old daughter Willo on vocal harmonies — realizing a shared purpose she had with Downie of sooner or later beginning a household band.
Getting thus far took many years for the Toronto musician, who was born Laura Leigh Usher however now goes by Kaya.
Usher was a 20-year-old pupil on the College of Western Ontario in London, Ont. when she met a 23-year-old Downie, who was simply getting began with the Hip, enjoying largely college gigs.
“We have been younger and candy and all the things,” she recalled with a smile.
“However we’d at all times sing and play collectively once we had folks overΓǪ. We had our marriage ceremony celebration on the Horseshoe (Tavern) the place Gord and I carried out collectively.”
Early of their marriage, the Hip’s reputation grew, and Downie started spending upwards of a yr on the street, Usher stated. However the couple wished a “actually massive household” so that they agreed Usher would focus primarily on elevating their youngsters whereas Downie toured.
“I at all times knew that my time would come, that I may sing my tune for myself,” she stated.
They purchased a farm on the very tip of Prince Edward County, a quiet neighborhood in southern Ontario that Usher describes as “idyllic.”
“We pulled again and actually wished to offer them an natural childhood. Gord was fiercely protecting of the youngsters and I.”
Usher stored nearly completely out of the highlight in these years. Solely when Downie revealed that her breast most cancers analysis impressed lyrics on the Hip’s 2012 album “Now For Plan A” did she grow to be part of the dialog.
“He was so unbelievable for me after I acquired sick,” she stated. “He had my again that entire time and gave me the area to get higher.”
The couple separated earlier than Downie was recognized with glioblastoma in late 2015. However given little time to stay, they rapidly shifted their priorities again to the household.
“Gord and I dropped all the things and we got here again house to one another,” Usher stated.
Having her personal expertise with most cancers, Usher stated she knew the significance of supporting him.
“Close to the top of his life, we acquired nearer than we might ever been,” she stated. “And despite the fact that he’d misplaced a lot, and we have been shedding a lot, we developed a deeper connection than we might ever had.”
Final February, Usher made a long-postponed journey to the Hip’s Bathouse recording studio in Tub, Ont. to report her poem “Thunderclap” with the help of Drew and engineer Nyles Spencer.
It was the primary time Usher and her household had returned to the secluded nineteenth century house since Downie died, she stated.
Being there ignited previous reminiscences and buried feelings, and as soon as “Thunderclap” was recorded the floodgates of creativity have been opened.
“We did 4 songs in that first day and Kev stated, ‘I feel we’re doing an album,”‘ Usher recalled.
“I spotted how a lot I’ve held in as a powerful mother desirous to be there for my youngsters. And as I began singing, the tears simply began flowingΓǪ. With every tune, I by no means knew what I used to be going to do. It simply got here out of me.”
“Coming Residence,” “First Frequency” and “Ascension” are just a few of the songs that mix light chants, classical guitars and different stringed devices with “excessive ranges of frequency” meant to advertise calm and leisure.
“Coronary heart Clicks,” the primary single and poppiest tune on the album, got here collectively in a single day as Usher grappled with author’s block. Partway by means of making the observe, she was caught on phrases. Telling the group she deliberate to sleep on it, Usher went as much as Downie’s former bed room to relaxation.
That room was essential to Downie, guests to the Bathouse are sometimes informed. He thought of it an area of inspiration and would bask within the rising solar as rays broke by means of a small east-facing window.
“I wakened early that morning and the solar was rising off the lake and coming in by means of the window,” Usher remembered.
“I jolted up, wrote down the phrases and stated to Kev, ‘I’ve acquired it.’ I actually really feel like Gord wrote that tune with me.”
Regardless that his voice would not seem, Downie’s presence lingers all through “All This Is.” Usher performs the harmonica he gave her on “Quickening” and his acoustic guitar seems on a number of different songs.
“I actually tried to convey him in by means of his devices,” she stated. “We have been as near him as we may very well be.”
Having come this far, Usher cannot predict what’s subsequent. She hopes to carry out “All This Is” in a live performance corridor, ideally with Drew and her youngsters accompanying her onstage.
“We do not know the place that is going,” she stated, “However I really feel prefer it’s the beginning of one thing actually particular.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Nov. 8, 2021.
