Middle of Nowhere all fired up

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This article was published 07/05/2018 (2872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When five local singer-songwriters gathered at a cabin in the depths of winter with an idea to record an album in just eight days, the outcome of their venture was as obscure as the nearby, snow-covered waters of Falcon Lake.

JP Hoe, Keri Latimer (of Nathan and Leaf Rapids), Alexa Dirks (Begonia), Grant Davidson (Slow Leaves), and Rusty Matyas (Imaginary Cities) are Middle of Nowhere, a new ensemble that came together in early 2017, after Hoe, Dirks and Matyas pitched the idea of a singer-songwriter bootcamp in the bush to Latimer and Davidson.

Two summers ago, Matyas, Dirks, and Hoe were mentors at a songwriting retreat at Falcon Trails Resort, helping emerging artists create new songs daily. At the end of the retreat, the three mentors went to town and wrote a song together, wondering whether they’d be able to put out their own musical project under a strict deadline, Hoe recalled.

“We said alright, let’s go live out the cliché of Manitoba artists in the wintertime having nothing to do except stay inside and make music,” the Crescentwood-based musician said. “We challenged ourselves to see what we can come up with eight days of no internet.”

That winter, the crew returned to Falcon Lake and turned one half of a cabin into a songwriting space and the other into a studio, Hoe explained. As instruments and ideas were passed back and forth, the group’s nine-track record began to take shape.  

“It was a really neat experiment because everyone sort of drifted toward their comfort zone, in a way,” he said. “And Rusty, he’s a real weird musical genius, where he can play anything and everything, and really well. And I would say everyone else currently has their foot more into writing.”  

Matyas would be experimenting with instrumentation and production, Hoe said, while others would be developing lyrics and concepts. When fatigue settled in, the roles would reverse (or they’d take a dip in the hot tub).

“It turned out to be a really great, fluid process. Everyone was able to use their own fortes. That being said, it definitely was also an opportunity, or a moment, of figuring out how to work with people in a different way that most of us have not been used to,” Hoe said.

“Artistically, when you have people who all come from a different place trying to create something that works with everybody, that’s super challenging, but the nice thing about this group is that everybody has been doing this for a long time, so I think all egos were checked at the door,” he added.

Latimer, a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who has also taken home a Juno award for her work with Nathan, said she was quick to jump on board for the project.

“I like a challenge, and I loved the idea of starting with nothing and going into the woods and just spending a week with them; it sounded really enticing,” Latimer said. “I was curious to see if could it be done and what would happen with so much creativity to pull from.”

After a week in isolation, Latimer said she was amazed the group managed to pull the project off, and a bit of cabin fever, spontaneity, and delirium may have worked in their favour.

“On the second or third night, it was late, I think we had set everything down about two in the morning, we’d been working really hard and drinking a bit, then I decided I’ve got a nice whisky glow on, I wouldn’t mind trying my vocal part for a song we had done the bed tracks for. So we fired everything up again,” Latimer said, laughing.

“And then Alexa decided, ‘Yeah I want to do mine, too.’ So we ended up staying up until four in the morning and listening after.

“It was a really great moment where we were all fired up, and couldn’t quite put ourselves to bed.”

Middle of Nowhere will perform on June 1 at The Park Theatre, although tickets for the show sold out within two days. The band’s first record was released May 1 and is currently available to stream on Spotify, Google Play and Apple Music.