|
Fast lane to the big time >> Smoky local chanteuse Angelina Iapaulo signs with Atlantic by CHRIS YURKIW
But even if you haven't moved in the same Plateau/art circle as 28-year-old Angelina Iapaulo, you're sure to be running into her soon. Here's the story (mourning, gory bits left out in the inevitable "overnight success" angle): Iapaulo has been doing music for just 18 months. She recorded an 11-song demo last April, only because her lush voice so bewitched indie studio guru Howard Bilerman that he offered his services on credit. And now (already!), Iapaulo has that most coveted and mythologized of music-industry prizes, the major-label deal. Just four weeks ago she inked with Atlantic Records, the same company that recently signed another distinctive Montreal songstress in Lhasa de Sela. And now? And now? "Now the work starts," says Iapaulo, who has such a good head on her shoulders that you figure this kind of thing, for her, was unavoidable. But before getting into the future that no one knows, how about that past--at least in music--that's equally obscure? "My sisters and I memorized jazz standards when we were growing up," says Iapaulo of her youth in Toronto and Calgary. "We knew them all--every word to every single one, and about three different versions of each song. We'd know Sarah Vaughn's version, and Billie Holliday's version, and Ella Fitzgerald's version. We didn't even realize what we were memorizing." And certainly, jazz informs Iapaulo's deep, deep voice--if not always the music that surrounds it. The eleven songs on her demo seem dominated by the jazz vibe at first (also due, in part, to accompaniment by Swing Dynamique guitarist and bassist Mike King and Tom Small, respectively), but extended exposure reveals something more like a traditionally jazz-inflected voice (Etta James and Nancy Wilson are among Iapaulo's favourites) set in an acoustic frame of all-encompassing pop that's free to pillage from bluegrass to blues. And it's Iapaulo's partner, writer Chris Tzotzos, who does the lyrics in superior, playful fashion ("Horsey Don't Snore" and "Mr. Powder Blue Breadbox" are just a couple of titles, for a taste), to match Angelina's blissful ignorance of conventional song structure. She self-learned the acoustic guitar just a year-and-a-half ago, with some advice from funky-ass folk friend Lisa Gamble. "She basically just said, 'You can do anything you want. Don't let anybody tell you anything. There's no way to play it. There's no way that you should be doing it. Nobody knows any more than you do. Just make it up.'" And that's probably why an "unknown" musician comes out of "nowhere" to score the big-time recording contract. Iapaulo has--probably unknowingly--brought something new to the singer thing. You could call it being a jazzy singer-songwriter, or call her a smoky, folky chanteuse. Oh yeah--and it was sis, a proper jazz singer living in New York, who slipped Angelina's demo to producer and Atlantic A&R guy Yves Beauvais, who's already got Iapaulo working with types like Tom Waits' guitarist Marc Ribot and Peter Gabriel protégé Joe Arthur. "Everything that I've needed to happen along the way has happened. I've been so lucky," says Iapaulo. "Well, maybe I've just been so open to it all happening to me." Iapaulo gives a short performance as part of "Getting In Tune: A Songwriters Workshop" on Wednesday, January 20 at Chapters (1171 Ste Catherine W.), 8pm, free, and plays solo at Yellow Door, Friday, January 22, 9:30pm, $3
|
Maybe you've read her zines. Perhaps you've scoped some installation art in her apartment. You might even have heard the slinky and sly cabaret songs of Angelina Iapaulo at spaces like Isart or Blizzarts--although if you have you might better remember them being done under her stage/faux-group name of Lullaby Baxter Trio.