Just Us Folk

In 2014 the Guelph, ON based trio Boreal, featuring singer-songwriters Tannis Slimmon, Katherine Wheatley and Jude Vadala, released their debut album Winter’s Welcome. With interpretations of well-known seasonal songs and their own original compositions about winter, the album came out of touring throughout the province since 2009 with their show “Songs For The Snowy Season”.

Now ten years later, with the group consisting of Tannis, Katherine and Angie Nussey, who came on board in 2019, they’ve released their new album Winterbirds. It’s an album their fans have been asking for and the trio has been working on it since Angie joined the group.

“Our issue in taking so long wasn’t because of the songs,” Angie explained recently over Zoom. “It was the recording process. We found out we’re very meticulous recording artists. Everything we thought would take one minute actually took ten.”

“We were all on steep learning curves,” adds Katherine. “We mixed the album ourselves, with help from Lewis Melville. It took me ages to get my guitar solos right. Normally I would hire a better guitar player than myself but I was really happy with what I got.”

“Also life happened,” says Tannis. “We would commit to doing something by a certain date but then we’d do something with our solo careers or I’d go off to France.”

That meant songs were partially finished and then weeks would go by before they’d get together again. By then, they had forgotten what they’d done and have to start again.

What changed the situation was the opportunity to spend nearly a month near Huntsville last spring at the home of “Survivorman” Les Stroud.

“He’s got this wonderful place that has a state-of-the-art studio in it and he gave it to us for our use,” says Angie. “It’s got a grand piano upstairs and any guitar you’d want. If it wasn’t for the time we spent there, the album wouldn’t be here right now.”

The time together in the studio also meant the vocal harmonies on Winterbirds are more intricate than what they can re-create in concert.

“That took time too, to get our vocal parts exact,” says Katherine.

The first song on Winterbirds, ‘Shepherd Of The Road’, goes back to the very beginning of Angie joining Boreal.

“It started one day after I found out I was in the group,” says Angie.

Coming home to Orillia from what was essentially an audition gig with Katherine and Tannis, Angie found herself driving through a blinding blizzard.

“The incident happened that night and at that time I still didn’t know if I was in the trio,” says Angie. “Once I got home I found out I was in, and I started writing the song the next day.”

As the title of their concerts, “Songs For The Snowy Season” implies, not all of Boreal’s repertoire is made up of Christmas songs. Christmas, and winter in general, are used as the backdrop for songs dealing with a variety of scenarios. In Katherine’s song, “Beautiful Blue”, she sings, “I’m the true north without the snow/the golden city sinking low.”

“The song came from a place of conflict, feeling the world had become chaotic and unkind, and me wanting to get off the planet sometimes,” says Katherine. “So the song is a reminder of how beautiful this planet is and how miraculous it is.”

Whenever Katherine looks for solace and quiet, her go-to place is to be among trees.

Winterbirds also features a couple of songs from Katherine and Tannis’ solo albums, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Weathervane’ respectively, which have been part of the “Songs For The Snowy Season” show for a number of years and therefore have been “Boreal-ized”.

“The new arrangements are so much fun, it seemed like a nice thing to have them on the album,” says Tannis.

“People wanted them on the new album,” adds Katherine. “We wanted people to have the gift of their favourite songs from the show on the album.”

The continued success of Boreal’s “Snowy Season” shows has created additional interest for performances during the rest of the year. So now there’s a show called “Songs Of Renewal”.

“We’re comfortable playing any time of year,” says Angie. “We have enough material to do anything now, and that’s really empowering for a band. For all the things that came out of COVID, that’s one of the blessings of having to play at outdoor venues. We now have all this other material for the group.”

“It’s actually easier to do the off-season shows,” Katherine explains. “We can draw from a much larger group of songs.”

While Boreal is in the midst of their current “Songs For The Snowy Season” tour, dates are already lining up for next year and they are looking forward to a 2025 spring tour.

“And we’re planning to hole up at Les Stroud’s place again in January, with the hope new songs come out of that,” says Katherine.

“Writing summer songs!” adds Tannis.

For more on Boreal and their album Winterbirds, go to https://borealsongs.ca.