Dinah Thorpe's new album Lullabies & Wake Up Calls is as beautifully contradictory as its title

Let’s keep a good thing going, shall we? Wednesday's new Fragics track has inspired me to write about another genre-melding artist – politically vocal, musically-versatile, Toronto-based Dinah Thorpe – and her forthcoming album Lullabies and Wake Up Calls (out on April 15). She’s a talented singer/songwriter/producer that I featured on my personal blog a while back, as I was immediately and immensely won over by her alternative folk-pop style, and her ability to seamlessly transition from catchy melodies to rhythmic speaking. Suffice it to say, I’m psyched to share with the EARMILK masses.

Her first single “Hold a Place” is a slowly building buoyant ballad, that morphs into a beat poetry performance at minute 2:08, the style and lyrics making us take notice: “Listen up because I’m gonna get this s*** out fast / it’s been that kind of week / I don’t know how I’ll last.” A minute later she’s back to quietly crooning, “Say you’ll hold a place for me.” And it just works. As she’s asked – we’re listening, and we’re holding a place [in our queue] for this track.

Now switching gears to another song “Can I See What’s in Your Backpack” – a tongue-in-cheek rap offset to a fuzzy beat box. She speak-sings, “I’ve got a notebook, a pen and an apple too / not a Mac, an actual apple, food / remember those?” It has undertones of sarcasm and mimicry, but it’s kind of an ode of acceptance too – “let’s call it like it is.”

She’s a soft-spoken Natalie Merchant with the unapologetic opinions of Natalie Maines, and vocally reminiscent of translucent songstress fairies Feist and Olga Bell. So if you like these ladies, and these two spectrum-spanning songs, then we’re sure you’ll love her album when it’s out in two months.

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/109162345" params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/109162216" params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]