Changing patterns

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This article was published 30/08/2023 (1120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Leaving Winnipeg for bigger musical centres has become a rite of passage for local acts seeking the next step in their careers.

Add indie-rock singer-songwriter Taylor Janzen to a list that goes back almost 60 years ago, to when a young Neil Young drove away in a repurposed hearse and bumped into Stephen Stills, another performer chasing a dream, in Thunder Bay, Ont., and began making rock history.

Janzen is heading to Nashville with her partner Ben and their border collie Lewis in September, and is marking the beginning of the new chapter with a farewell concert at the West End Cultural Centre Thursday.

“I felt like I needed to change my surroundings a little bit. As much as I deeply, deeply love Winnipeg, I feel like another Winnipeg winter is going to send me into oblivion,” she says with a chuckle.

“I feel like I have enough friends who have moved to the U.S. that I kind of knew what to expect in the process and how annoying it can be. I underestimated how difficult it is to find a place to live from afar, but it’s working out.”

Janzen, 24, got her start at the Stingray Young Performers Program at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, where she later graced the mainstage; she was featured at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, in 2019. After two EPs, she released the album I Live in Patterns on the Arts & Crafts label in February to critical success (Exclaim! magazine said, “her intensely vulnerable writing effortlessly cloud-bust(s) its way into massive pop hooks”).

She is looking forward to collaborating with other songwriters when she gets to Music City, once she gets moved in and becomes accustomed to a new city and country.

“I honestly feel, coming out with the record, I wanted to do something new in my life, and new surroundings often impact your art so heavily. I think if I wanted to move forward and make new art it was important for me to change my surroundings a bit.

“I’ve spent a lot of time there and I enjoy it,” she says of the city known as a songwriting hub. “Out of all the major cities you can build a music career in, that’s the one that feels the most comfortable to me.”

Janzen didn’t tour to promote I Live in Patterns, so she is looking forward to sharing live performances of emotional songs such as the heavy beat of Fingers Crossed, or Designated Driver, which explores trust and relationships.

JayWood, who made the Polaris Prize long list earlier this summer, is also on Thursday’s bill, along with Boniface, who will back Janzen during her set. She’s become friends with Boniface’s Michelle II Visser and is excited about the onstage alliance.

“Michelle has been one of my best friends for a while and I’m just excited to have some of my friends there, some of them on the stage, some of them off, and see everybody, play music,” Janzen says.

Janzen has a visa that allows her to perform in the U.S. for the next three years, but she’s taking the move to Nashville one year at a time. While she’s struggled with finding the right place to live, she’s been able to sell or give away things she didn’t want to take with her.

One thing definitely packed and ready to go is her record collection, which began in her teens with a CD by American rock band Paramore and has expanded along with the vinyl renaissance over the past two decades

“I’m intense about bringing them. I have about 250 of them and we’ve got to bring them all,” she says.

Janzen maintains it’s the emotions from playing her songs — she sheds a tear on I Live in Patterns’ album cover — that will be on display, rather than any fond or sorrowful farewells.

“I feel I’m getting ready for the emotional goodbyes from my friends and family, but that’s going to be more intense when I’m actually talking to them versus when I’m singing in front of them,” she says.

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall