"If you go to a Karkwa concert, all you're doing is pure feeling"

Extract from a article posted on Jun 2nd 2011 by Marsha Casselman, spinner.com

Land of Talk's Liz Powell Says Goodbye to Her 'Teenage Mindset'

Liz Powell is more than just the creative genius behind Montreal rockers Land of Talk. The vocalist-guitarist seems to have become the glue that keeps the Canadian music scene together. If prompted, Powell can name-drop most of Canada's indie rock elite (Why yes, Arcade Fire stopped by to play on Land Of Talk's latest album, 'Cloak and Cipher'; Sure, she'll fill in as a singer for Broken Social Scene the next time they need her; And yes, she just took up singing with Polaris Prize winners Karkwa and will likely see them at a BBQ or two this summer).

A workaholic, Powell learned the hard way from her vocal chord ailment in 2009 she needs to slow down once and a while. On the phone via Montreal before Land of Talk's June 17 NXNE performance at Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square, Powell tells Spinner she's going through a transition. This period is for rest, gaining perspective and finally, perhaps, embracing adulthood.

(...) [Liz Powell] : Maybe I'll write some songs in French.

Oh, you are fluent in French?

It's funny, no, I mean I don't think I am ... but I collaborated and am friends with Karkwa. They invited me to do a benefit concert a couple weeks ago and they sang [the Land of Talk song] 'Quarry Hymns' with me and we did a song which has a bit of French in it. [Karkwa frontman] Louis-Jean [Cormier] kept asking me, "Why do you have just one verse of one song in French?" And I was like, "Well it took me like three years just to write one verse." He was like, "Just keep doing it." So maybe there will be a French album. That would be so cool, as long as I don't insult my Francophone friends.

Karkwa have mentioned singing in French-only can be isolating.

That's surprising because if you go to a Karkwa concert, all you're doing is pure feeling. Plus, I don't know half of what people are singing anyways, even bands I love: Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Julianna Barwick. It's not really the lyrics you're listing to, it's the confluence of all the musical elements and the energy. It's funny because we performed Karkwa's album in English on CBC [Radio] and I sang the songs translated by an English poet, translating the meaning instead of the actual language. I almost felt like a bit of an a--hole. These beautifully composed songs are perfectly amazing in French; it felt like I was hurting the music.

Read more....