NEPEAN SINGER/SONGWRITER SHOWS TENACITY ON UPCOMING EP
Nepean Weekender and Barrhaven Weekender; June 16, 2005
By Malcolm MacMillan
It's all about tenacity.
Nepean singer/songwriter Ana Miura is set to release her first full-length EP next week, entitled Tenacious Heart.
The six-song release is aptly titled, considering Miura's tenacity in working on the project. In fact, the album could just as well be dubbed Tenacious Spirit and Determined Mind, as Miura has had to overcome forces beyond her control en route to seeing the album come to fruition.
That's because eight of her songs that had been recorded at an Ottawa home studio two years ago were lost in teh infamous blackout of August 2003.
Sitting on a digital 8-track, all but three songs which had been copied onto a computer were wiped away forever.
What may have seemed like an unnatural force preventing her from releasing an album only spurred the St. Pius X graduate on, and since that fateful event, she has been performing, writing and recording for Tenacious Heart, set to be released to an eager public on Friday, June 24 at Zaphod Beeblebrox.
"I'm really excited about releasing it. I love that word, 'release', " she says.
"You just throw it out there and you dont' know what will happen. You dont' know whether people will hate it or love it. You just say, 'I made this, here it is.'"
A LEARNING PROCESS
Since the letdown of the blackout that erased countless hours of work, Miura has stayed on course to seeing her dreams realized.
For the past two years, she has been promoting and selling a demo album called The Dragonfly Demo - a disc that she calls "very honest."
Fans of Miura's soft, soulful style will agree, as The Dragonfly Demo garnered strong support in Ottawa and beyond.
"There was a good response. I sold quite a few," says Miura, who was born in Kingston but moved to the Leslie Park area of Nepean at the age of four.
Her demo caught the ear of critics too, as Miura was named Ottawa's best singer/songwriter this year in the Ottawa Xpress Readers' Poll.
But with the goal of releasing an EP still in her mind, she began work in early 2004 on the songs that would eventually form Tenacious Heart.
In and out of the studio for the next year, Miura wrote and recorded the six songs with a little more experience under her belt - about the recording process and the lessons learned from the blackout.
"I went into it very aware this time. I knew what I was getting into," she says.
"It was a learning process, but I wanted to do it right this time."
She says that as her creativity and imagination grew, so too did her awareness of backing up her work.
"I definitely made many copies," she laughs when recalling the recording process.
Her cautiousness paid off too, as her computer actually crashed, but she was able to retrieve her work from backup copies.
Musically, Tenacious Heart is a departure from The Dragonfly Demo, and an album that showcases Miura's maturation as a songwriter and as a person.
"The more I learn, it's a chain-reaction," she says. "I'm learning more possibilities, and I try to capture that."
While her songwriting stayed exceptionally strong, her growth as a recording artist was something she noticed.
Miura says that performing to a live crowd is easy because there is an exchange between performer and audience.
That exchange is something she worked to recreate in the studio.
"In the studio you have to use your imagination to conjure stage emotions," she says. "You have to bring it in a static environment."
In just her second time recording, Miura notes how easy it is to obsess over every note.
"You can nitpick every single thing, but it's also an exercise in keeping your self-consciousness at bay," she says.
"But there are endless possibilities. You have full creative control over what your piece of art will sound like."
In addition to writing each of the songs, Miura provides vocals and guitar on the album.
She is back by her band of guitarist Dave Gaudet, bassist Ryan Hendrick, drummer Matt Ouimet and violin player Chris McKhool, as well as a select group of guest musicians.
EVERY SONG A STORY
Miura touches on life, love and relationships in each of her songs.
Dragonfly is an observational piece written about herself on a carefree day and how that feeling involves the person she loves.
La Dee Da is one of her first pieces, and touches on self-discovery.
Follow me back was written on a bus from Kingston to Ottawa in the fall. in the song, Miura asks a hypothetical man to follow her to an ideal relationship.
Left of Centre is a love song written for a past boyfriend, while TransCanada centres on a long-distance relationship.
He Swallows Whiskey showcases Miura's songwriting creativity. Looking for a song topic, she idly flipped open a novel and pointed to a group of words on the page, which read, "he swallows whiskey."
The rest came easy.
"I wrote it in 15 minutes," says Miura of the song that looks at the relatinoship of two fictional people.
Miura has has a chance, in anticipation of the June 24 release date, to prepare in grand style.
She performed at this year's Tulip Festival on May 21, opening for Sarah Harmer, one of her musical heroes.
"It was a very humbling to be abel to play an internationally renowned festival," she says of her set during a heavy downpour.
"It was rainy, but no one left. We froze, but we had a great time."
RELEASE COMING UP
Miura has more performing scheduled for the summer months. After the release date, she plans to hit stages in Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston and Hamilton before embarking on a small tour down east in August.
In the meantime, the University of Ottawa psychology student, just year away from graduation after starting her degree at Queen's University and taking some time off, will continue to go where her heart carries her.
Tenacious Heart will be shared with the public on June 24 at Zaphod's, 27 York St. in the Byward market.
Tickets are available for $8 in advance or $10 at the door.
The EP is available for sale at CD Warehouse olocations across the city and online through Miura's website, www.anamiura.com.