Forged at the fest
Heralded Winnipeg guitar whiz, singer-songwriter Ariel Posen was a fixture on Voyageur stages for years
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/02/2021 (2001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Ariel Posen and the Festival du Voyageur go hand in hand.
The Winnipeg singer-songwriter honed his guitar chops more than a decade ago on the festival’s stages and, as recently as last February, headlined an evening at Fort Gibraltar with his band.
“I used to show up on Saturday, play four gigs with four different bands and come back Sunday, play four gigs with four (other) different bands, and then on Tuesday do the same,” recalls Posen, who is part of Saturday night’s free virtual concerts on the festival’s Facebook page and YouTube channel starting at 8 p.m.
“The thing about that festival, a little of everybody gets to be a part of it,” he says. “All kinds of bands and artists will play in it and as a sideman, a hired gun, you’re fortunate to get a wide palette of music to play and gigs to play.”
Posen and his band will perform a few songs from his upcoming album, Headway, which comes out March 5.
Unlike many performing artists who’ve seen tours derailed and albums delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, timing has been — to a certain extent — on Posen’s side. He recorded the songs for Headway in December 2019, before touring in North America and Europe early in 2020.
He was able to play his late-February gigs in the U.K. and was in Sweden when the global entertainment shutdown hit in the middle of March.
During his touring in 2019, he spent his spare time writing new songs and wanted to improve on the experience he had in creating How Long, his debut record from 2018.
More than 20 new songs that he had tested live gave him lots of material to choose from, which helped the process.
“When we did How Long, I decided a month before… if I don’t do it now I’d never do it. It happened very fast,” Posen says. “In the studio I’d second-guess everything I played, second-guess everything that I sang. I felt an incredible amount of pressure.
“The difference is I was just a lot more comfortable this time around. I went into the studio, first of all, with songs I felt more comfortable with, songs I had spent more time with. I knew what I was going into.”
Posen has hunkered down in Montreal over the winter, but was in Winnipeg last summer, working with co-producer Murray Pulver on the album’s final touches.
Posen is getting used to being the frontman after years of performing with other bands and artists. He gained some notoriety backing the Bros. Landreth but it took some time to be confident making his own decisions.
Earning praise from high places hasn’t hurt. In October 2019, Rolling Stone described him as a “modern-day guitar hero” and included a video of the song Familiar Ground on a list of 10 new country and American songs to check out.
The website Music Radar joined in, placing Posen in ninth spot on its list of the 10 best guitarists of 2019, joining six-string superstars such as Slash and John Mayer.
“I couldn’t have dreamt of positive reactions like that,” Posen says. “Any time publications like that say any kind of praise — even if they said, ‘We saw his show and it was good’ — that makes me happy.
“I don’t necessarily believe that is true, but it is very flattering and I’m definitely humbled by that.”
Headway isn’t 12 tracks of explosive guitar solos, mind you. The album’s first single, Now I See, begins with a short-and-sweet slide-guitar lick but the focus is on the lyrics and melody of the song, not on frenetic fretwork.
Posen calls them guitar moments, rather than solos. It’s in those instances where he shows his stuff and creates his own sound, transforming an ordinary chord into a unique sound.
“Of course, I like guitar-playing but I’m not looking to make a record full of just guitar-playing. There are a lot of guitar moments and there’s a lot of time spent in dialing in the guitars,” he says.
“I’m not doing any of this to prove anything. It’s the just the music I like, what’s in my head and the way I like to make music.”
alan.small@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter:@AlanDSmall
Alan Small
Reporter
Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Rayannah’s return
Festival du Voyageur’s virtual concert series means a long-awaited return to the stage for Winnipeg bilingual artist Rayannah.
The electronic music artist is on the bill for tonight’s launch of the festival’s virtual concert series, joining a bill that includes Montreal pop singer Marie-Pierre Arthur and Winnipeg singer-songwriter Kelly Bado.
The electronic musician had scheduled to perform Afterglow, a mixed-media installation in collaboration with Synonym Art Consultation and Théâtre Cercle Molière for last October. A lull in the COVID-19 pandemic last summer opened a short window for small concerts, but a rise in positive cases slammed that window shut.
Tonight’s show includes three songs, two in French and one in English, Rayannah says, and recording it at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain was a respite from months of isolation, she says.
“CCFM is a building I’ve grown up in. For me it’s just been a fixture for my entire life. It feels like a semblance of normalcy and comfort in these times that have been pretty strange,” Rayannah says.
“I found my energy to be creating and be making new things kind of depreciated over time, and getting to make music around other folks again… was such a breath of fresh air after spending so much time alone.”
Here is the entire virtual concert lineup. Shows are free and can be viewed at the Festival du Voyageur’s Facebook site and its YouTube channel.
Tonight, 8 p.m.
Rayannah, Marie-Pierre Arthur, Kelly Bado
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Small Glories, Ariel Posen, Red Moon Road
Sunday, 8 p.m.
Emerging Francophone Artist Night with Musicaction
Andrina Turenne, Gen & Tonic, Fowler, Dr. Henry Band, Sala
Monday 1 p.m.
Ivan Flett Memorial Dancers, Lisa Muswagon, Tia Wood, Alexandre Tétrault, Bighetty Brothers, Zoey Roy, Twin Flames, Celeigh Cardinal
Thursday 8 p.m.
Bingo Hého avec Johanne
Friday, 8 p.m.
Canada’s Walk of Fame RBC Emerging Musician Program
Allydice, Bold as Lions, Breagh Isabel, Elijah Bekk, Maya Malkin with special guest – Faouzia
Saturday, 1 p.m.
Fiddling and jigging contests
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Burnstick, Master and Mistress of the Jig, Nikki Komaksiutiksak, Xhalida September, Super Duty Tough Work, respectfulchild, Mattmac, Sebastian Gaskin
Sunday, 1 p.m.
Justin Lacroix Kitchen Party, Ça Claque
Alan Small
Reporter
Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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