Music To My Eyes: Describing Elisapie’s music and other impossible tasks.

By: Chloe Gust, Marketing Assistant.

Fundamentally, music is made up of all the same things as speech. Sound waves tumbling through our ears to make noise that some time ago we all agreed, “this means something.” Music is just more waves

Tasked with writing the Press Release for The Works Street Stage, I started to listen to music that would be featured on our stage. I heard all of these waves, and was in charge of writing about them in a way that would resonate enough to attract someone to The Works Art & Design Festival. Choosing an artist to write about is itself an impossible task, with over 70 artists performing more than 130 hours of live music, comedy, poetry, and more. We are partnered with TD Edmonton International Jazz Festival to provide Works with Jazz, Jazz in the Park, and with Festival Edmonton Chante to help produce amazing line-ups, including celebrating Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day and National Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

This is where I found Elisapie.

This Quebec-born, Inuk singer, songwriter, documentary filmmaker, and general coolest-person-in-the-room is making music that has captured my attention and refuses to let it go.

She’s performing TODAY, Friday, June 21, 2019 at 7:30PM and now I am overwhelmed with the need to convince everyone to go see her perform because her music is amazing. But “amazing” is a nothing word! How do I write words that explain not only what her music is, but also why you need to go and see it? Music journalists practice this craft for years and years and still sometimes get caught up.

 All I can do is try.

Elisapie has been performing since she was 12, when she worked with the Salluit band Sugluk. Her latest album, titled The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, dropped in 2018. Singing in English, French, and Inuktitut, Elisapie’s dreamy voice carries so much meaning that you don’t need to understand what she’s saying to feel what it means. Layered harmonies (in songs like Una), gorgeous guitars (Rodeo (Yadi Yada), Wolves Don’t Live by the Rules), and driving, building drums (Qanniuguma, Arnaq) build this incredibly vast sound. The Ballad of the Runaway Girl is an album that should be consumed in its entirety in one sitting, every time you listen to it. It sounds like the soundtrack to an Oscar-winning movie. It’s one of those albums that you feel conflicted telling people about because you enjoy it so much – should you share it with everyone or keep it just for you. (I’ve written this blog as an excuse to listen to the album over and over again.)

I don’t know if Elisapie’s music will move anyone the way it moves me, but that’s why I love it. The Works Art & Design Festival’s theme this year is CODE, and I am so fortunate to be able to provide a key to my interpretation of The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, so that you can try and decode her performance yourself, tonight, June 21, 7:30PM, at The Works Street Stage on Capital plaza.

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About the author: Chloe Gust is a modern storyteller from Lethbridge, Alberta, focusing on long-form non-fiction content. Curious about the impact of technology on storytelling, she aims to create podcasts, essays and broadcasts that explore interconnectedness and diversity. Gust recently completed her B.A. in English with distinction and Co-op designation from the University of Lethbridge. Funded by a scholarship from the University of Alberta, Chloe was one of ten Alberta post-secondary students accepted to the 2018 Alberta-Smithsonian Internship Program. She traveled to Washington, D.C., to be the Writer/Editor Intern for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Find Chloe online @cholegust on Twitter and Instagram, or at chloegust.wordpress.com