Australian expatriate singer-songwriter Larissa Tandy now calls Vancouver home and after moving to the city 6 years ago, she tuned in to the sounds of her new neighbourhood to write her new single ‘Sirens’,which is out today on all digital streaming platforms.
“I wrote ‘Sirens’ while living on the Downtown Eastside during the opioid crisis with sirens constantly blaring around me,” says Larissa. “It’s in the key of E, which kinda works for most sirens in Vancouver and makes them a kind of background harmony. I started writing a lot about emergencies, drawing on my experiences with them back in my hometown in Australia. It has a population of 600 or so, a rural environment, so there’s a lot of what I think of as ‘natural drama’. As in, nobody seems to die peacefully in their sleep. It’s always some tragic, violent accident, or people just head out to work one day and don’t come home at night.”
‘Sirens’ is the first in a series of singles set for release in 2021, recorded during an extended stint of living and working in Nashville: “I recorded these songs at my friend’s studio, and we pulled the session together in less than 24 hours,” says Larissa. “I just wanted to get good, vibey players in a room together, and especially wanted a bass player and drummer who work together a lot, so we invited the Jons (Estes and Radford), then tapped Dan Knobler and Ryan Brewer for guitars and keys. We tracked the songs pretty much live.”
The following day, Tandy drove to Memphis and recorded Motown legend, Jack Ashford (Funk Brothers, Marvin Gaye), adding his iconic tambourine sound to the songs.
From her humble beginnings in rural Australia, raising herself on stolen Aretha and Patti Smith records, Larissa has mined her difficult life for potent stories and spun them into songs that made their way onto radio in America, the UK, and Canada where the CBC ordained them as “songs you need to hear”. Within a few short years, she has doggedly beat a path for herself, touring relentlessly across Canada, Australia, and the US, and playing official showcases at Kansas City’s Folk Alliance, and Nashville’s Americanafest.
Larissa’s debut album, The Grip, was released in 2017 and spent 4 months on the US Americana charts, reached #2 on the Canadian college radio chart, and attracted praise from almost every corner of the globe. Awards followed, namely the prestigious Nashville Songwriter Residency, which she used to carve out a place for herself in Nashville’s competitive writing scene. Tapped by artists for her tough affect and muscular writing, she jagged a number of cuts in her first year in the game, which secured chart positions in Australia and the UK.
Larissa Tandy’s new single ‘Sirens’ is available now on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services worldwide. For more info, please visit https://www.larissatandy.com/
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