March 11, 2005

Publication title: Stuff, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Tom Cardy

The return of the angel

When Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan played a packed Wellington Town Hall last June, the welcome was so rapturous it could have been mistaken for a pentecostal religious gathering.

Such was the near-ferocity of screams, cheers and claps throughout her show that it would have been no surprise if McLachlan had been carried off at the end and paraded down Willis St.

In her final encore, in which she played a piano version of the ballad Angel, some of the audience – a mix of ages and backgrounds – had tears rolling down their cheeks.

It was the response and success of that tour – McLachlan’s first in New Zealand since she supported The Chieftains in 1995 – that is one reason she’s back so soon.

But McLachlan, resting up in Auckland over the past week, explains it’s also because since last June, she hasn’t actually stopped touring. “I absolutely loved Wellington,” she says “and that song (Angel) really seems to do it for people. It goes right to the jugular. It was perfect timing to come back in terms of scheduling. We have a big North American tour in May and I didn’t want to be off (from touring) for so long. I thought `Well gosh, February and March in New Zealand and Australia, that’s a nice time to come.’”

McLachlan, 37, has a voice and an approach to music that’s drawn comparisons with fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell, as well as touches of Tori Amos and Kate Bush. She easily flits between folky ballads, big pop and rock numbers. But what makes McLachlan her own is that she can also sound dark, atmospheric and experimental. As a result, McLachlan has been a long-time champion of remixes of her songs. It’s included remixes by major dance music producers and musicians including William Orbit, best known for his work with Blur and Madonna. She even released the album Sarah McLachlan Remixed, where some of her best-known songs were transformed into dance numbers, some dark and experimental, others upbeat dance-floor fillers.

McLachlan says one reason for remixes was that ever since her first albums in the late 80s, she has been with small, independent record label Network Records. “We never got radio play. We had to look at alternative sources of promoting and for whatever reason – and it is an odd mix to have my music remixed – we always did it. It has always been really well received.”

And McLachlan excitedly explains that a new remix album is on its way. The final songs are yet to be decided, but it will include remixes by some big names including the Black Eyed Peas and Rollo Armstrong from Faithless – who is also Dido Armstrong’s brother. “We are really going back into the archive to get something unique and different.”

HOWEVER McLachlan, who takes her young daughter on tour, says she hasn’t spent any time in the past 12 months composing new songs for her next album after 2003’s successful Afterglow. “I haven’t even begun writing. I’ve never had any luck writing while on the road and now that I have a little girl who comes everywhere with us, basically my day is full. We get up at seven and I’m with her most of the day unless I’m doing some work like press or rehearsing in the afternoon. We come home and we put her to bed, we pass out and do it again the next day. When I’m working like this, it’s so full on that I just want to be with her at the end of the day.”

Most of McLachlan’s band and crew have been working with her for 15 years. Being in each other’s faces for so long has actually made it easier for them to tour together for long periods, she says. “There’s a very comfortable feeling when we get together. We all know each other really well and have a lot of respect for each other.

“It’s a comfortable place to be and when you are on the road, you need creature comforts. If you have one person who stands out and isn’t working, it really is like one bad apple spoils a bushel. We are living in a petri dish.”

McLachlan admits that the past 12 months have also been as much about promoting Afterglow. For every show in every city, she’s also been making other appearances. During the American leg, it even included performances on most of the big talk shows, which she enjoys.

But even with such a quick return by a major muso, McLachlan promises that her set will be different.

Wellington’s last response means she knows there will be a lot of return customers. “We are trying to change it, and because it’s a theatre (sized) show, I can get away with doing more of the slower songs that I feel in the arenas we really have to put aside.

“I like the slower ones better. I can get really intimate and really quiet. I can get away with that.”