LATEST RELEASE / JUNO WINNER
Lovers’ Gothic by Maïa Davies
Juno-winning Lovers’ Gothic is Maïa Davies’
third solo album and her first in English
PLAYLISTS
Lovers’ Gothic on Spotify and YouTube
VIDEOS
Fuck You I Don’t Forgive You (“clean” version/ 3 mins 47 sec)
Fuck You I Don’t Forgive You (extended album version / 3 mins 34 sec)
WEBSITE
Check out her site
Montreal’s Maia Davies took home her first JUNO Award last weekend for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year.
MAIA DAVIES’ LOVERS’ GOTHIC
An award-winning album springs from a life-changing healing journey
Maïa Davies got a standing ovation after a moving 40-minute afternoon show last week at Vancouver’s Carnegie Community Centre as part of Vancouver’s JUNO Awards events.
The roughly 70 of us who jumped to our feet may as well have been at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It was that good. We felt the resonant presence of a deeply talented and passionate artist giving full voice to painful emotional insights. Her candid stage comments and lyrics set to absorbing melodies are steeped in a healing journey that changed her life and won her a legion of fans.
Playing solo guitar and electric piano, Davies delivered an almost pitch perfect set of what she humourously calls the stages of relationship grief – euphoria, heartache, abuse, self-actualization and acceptance. The tunes she presented are drawn from the exquisite 9-song album Lovers’ Gothic that earned her a first JUNO trophy for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year the following day.
A Montreal-born producer, songwriter and singer Davies is an award-winning SOCAN #1 bilingual Canadian artist. Besides composing a dozen radio hits for artists like Serena Ryder, Jill Barber, Mother Mother and others, she’s a music veteran who helped form Montreal country quartet Ladies of the Canyon in 2005. She went solo in 2012 releasing a couple of French-language albums. And along with Patrick Krief she is part of dark wave duo Darkometro. Lovers’ Gothic is her third solo disc and the first in English.
On the road for four years searching
Davies started her therapeutic ramblings in 2019 with the demise of an abusive relationship. Uprooting herself from work and stability in Toronto, for four years she trekked across Canada and then across the water to Paris, Spain and Stockholm before taking up residence in Los Angeles for a while.
Returning to Canada with volumes of writings, lyrics and ideas she began transforming her thoughts and hard won revelations into a musical document. She tapped a network of experienced artistic collaborators to help craft the project including Marcus Paquin (Begonia), Andy Stochansky (Ani DiFranco, Lola Lennox), Erin Costelo (Kaïa Kater), David Mohacsi (Rêve, Mother Mother) and more, to co-produce the collection. Over a stretch of 18 months they played and recorded in studios across the country.
When the resulting album was released last May she told writer Jenna Melanson from Canadian Beats, “Songs and writing are the best way my body knows how to express pain to date. I was in a very dark place for a long time, but the songs helped me save and heal myself in so many quantifiable ways. Admitting that I was not ok and transforming that self-knowledge into my lyrics gave me a tremendous amount of emotional release and allowed me to start processing my deepest true feelings.”
The music: strong compositions well sung and arranged
Davies’ has been likened to fellow musicians Kate Bush, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. There are clear similarities – she’s a strong and determined artist; a powerful and nuanced vocalist; her word play and adroit arrangements are layered and complex and some of her music has classical edges. But Davies’ smart pop sensibility sets her apart. One example on Lovers Gothic is a small masterpiece (and there are several here) – the unabashed break-up song Fuck You I Don’t Forgive You. Driven by bouyant major chords, a spirited piano line, crisp rhythm and an assured, melodic vocal, Davies makes it clear: she’s over it. And she’s proud to claim rights to the last word.
Maïa Davies playing a short concert at Vancouver’s Carnegie Centre last Friday afternoon sponsored by the Centre, the Heart of the City Festival and Let’s Hear It BC – the official JUNO host committee. (Kurated photo)
The finale
The album closes with the brief – and somewhat mysterious – title track:
Souls forgotten
Hungered, foreign
Darkness called them
Lovers wanted
Lightning concert
Spells and sonnets
Kitchen poisoned
But the bread was so apothic
Lovers’ Gothic
Maïa Davies is a unique and compelling artist – someone to look forward to hearing more of.
Let’s hope!
05 April 2025
PLAYLIST
On Spotify
On YouTube
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kRZ4LgiLIWAozlTG0zwlOGHbMHmSezRFU
