All the livelong day

Megan Lane spent two full years composing latest LP

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Five years after Bow & Drill the Spark, Saskatoon singer and guitarist Megan Lane is back with Sounding the Animal, a new record with contributions from indie CanRock legend Hawksley Workman and folkie turned dance popper, Rae Spoon.

Lane says Workman came on board to produce the record after hearing “Coyote/Wolf,” one of the songs which made the final cut on the long-awaited LP.

“I seriously spent two years writing the record and sending a lot of tunes Hawksley’s way to get suggestions,” she says. “He really helped bring the tones, textures and continuity on the record. The fuzzy tones were something he was really passionate about and just pushing me to write riff-centric tunes.

“This was an especially long process, I basically wrote for 12 hours a day, every day. A lot of songs were completed and never used, but that’s OK. The whole idea was to breathe creativity every second of every day to get those really great songs.”

The 26-year-old has put out three records previously and she feels like Sounding the Animal showcases her best material to date, by far.

“I think what’s happened with this record is that you can hear the songs are really solid,” she says. “The songs on the previous records are cool too, but personally, in my heart, I feel like those are demos and they’re all just leading up to this record. I really believe in this new record and I definitely think you can hear the evolution, it’s just been a matter of really honing in on my writing abilities.”

As with Workman, chance meetings with Spoon helped to push forward a strong collaboration on lead single “Someday We Will Leave This Town.”

“Rae and I have known each other for a long time, basically just running into each other at festivals,” she says. “We’re both queer musicians who have been working hard for a long time and we’re both originally from the prairies, which ties into the theme of that song. I was subletting a place in Montreal and decided to hammer out that tune one day, it was such a natural thing.

“We chose it as the first single because it couldn’t get out of any of our heads. It’s a really catchy tune and we want to make an impact on people. It’s pop-y, but it’s also a positive song with a great message, which you don’t hear a lot of about on the radio nowadays.”

In addition to focusing on her cross-Canada tour, Lane notes that she’d also like to branch out internationally in support of this record.

“I live and breathe music so I just want to keep on rocking as much as I can,” she says. “I’ve been touring since I was 12, starting off doing blues, so this is basically just life for me.”

Published in Volume 69, Number 1 of The Uniter (September 3, 2014)

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