We last caught up with Land of Talk – Montreal-based indie rock outfit of Lizzie Powell, who have been signed to Saddle Creek since 2008 – in April of 2022, when they were touring behind their four-song Calming Night Partner EP, released in 2021, between 2020 LP Indistinct Conversations and their most recent full-length, Performances, which dropped last October. During our Spring 2022 chat, Lizzie discussed gender joy (Lizzie themselves is non-binary and has delved into the experience of being a non-binary person in much of Land of Talk’s work of recent years.), the new music that they were working on at the time and would come to be Performances (“I seem to be composing more and more on keys/synths, and gravitating towards improvisational, electroacoustic, atmospheric worlds.”), and their love of Johnny Brenda’s.
Well, Land of Talk kicks off a North American tour this Thursday in Ottawa, which will have them returning to Johnny Brenda’s next Tuesday, April 9th. Get your tickets below, read my 2022 chat with Lizzie Powell, and check out the video for Land of Talk’s most recent single, “Sitcom” (which director Ana-Maria Espino-Trudel has explained by saying, “I wanted ‘Sitcom’ to be a cross between a blasé ‘90s sitcom and Jeanne Dielman peeling carrots in the kitchen.”), a song which Lizzie has described as being inspired by childhood car rides with their dad, in addition to retro sitcoms.
“A lot of my love of music is just from long car rides with my dad listening to Christopher Cross, Fine Young Cannibals, and Whitney Houston. He’s not a musician but I feel like I’m almost having a conversation with my dad through a lot of my records… Recently, I got into a really big Christopher Cross phase. On this song, I thought I could try to write like that. I was also watching a lot of Family Ties and older sitcoms. The keys part kind of evoked that classic TV intro from the ‘70s and ‘80s.”
*Get your tickets here.
