As a child her father would use the music of Leonard Cohen to lull her to sleep, laughs British-Israeli musician, Lail Arad, “He would change the words of Cohen’s songs and pretend that he had written it.”
Her affair with the strains of the sixties and the seventies, infused with the untrammelled spirit of the era is a long-drawn-out one.“It was what my parents listened to, and so it was always around. Of course, I rediscovered it for myself as a teenager but it was in my blood and in the air, “ says Arad, who will be performing at The Music Academy on November 11, alongside her Canadian counterpart, JF Robitaille at the 13th edition of The Hindu November Fest.
Though music was always inextricable part of her life, it was on a school camping trip that she first discovered her voice. “Someone started singing Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell and I knew all the words so I joined in, “ she says. People around her began complimenting her and encouraging her to sing again. And so she did. “I went on to get a degree in Theatre studies from Warwick because I wanted that university experience. But I knew I was going to do music, “ says Arad who launched her debut album, Someone New in 2010 and her second, The Onion , last year.
Montreal-born Robitaille on the other hand, “was very into Rock and Roll as a teenager : The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, all that stuff.” Then he got into lyrics and discovered folk music.“It was my doorway into song-writing,” says Robitaille, who released his third full-length, Palace Blues , along with a book of poetry called Minor Dedications , in June last year.
Puducherry diaries
Talking about their concert, they say it will be held in Puducherry at the Aurodhan Garden and Adishakti Theatre on November 14 and 16 respectively, Robitaille says that “its focus is songwriters and song writing. It sounds very folksy, we are enamoured with that simplicity that gets across through the melody and lyrics.”
“Two performers one guitar, it is very intimate,”chips in Arad, who believes that honesty in music is important for it to, resonate with other people. “I really liked the little I heard, “says Vinay Kumar of Adishakti. “This is the first time we are associated with The Hindu and we are excited about it. “
The concert will pay tribute to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Simon & Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell, interspersed with the duo’s original numbers including Arad’s quirky The EU Song that draws a parallel between the Brexit referendum and her letting go of a man she once loved.
“But the blame all came down... To point of view...That summer I left you..And we left the EU, “ she sings to a tune that is vaguely reminiscent of Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A Changin’. The song was written last year in New York , she says, where she had retreated to nurse an aching heart. “It came around a very interesting timing in both my personal and political world ; it is a sad song for multiple reasons,” says Arad, adding that she often uses music to process and deal with things. Inevitably, that does mean a lot of love songs, of course, but, “we both try to mix in more universal and social ideas and experiences, “ she smiles.
That’s how the music gets in
It was melody that first drew them together, traversing the 5000 odd kms between London and Montreal via the World Wide Web. “We heard each other online and felt some sort of connection,” says Robitaille. They first met each other in person at a festival and went on to do a tour in Italy last September. By the end of the tour, they had started singing harmony on each other’s songs and doing covers together. Their first single together, 'We got It coming’, released earlier this year —this will also be performed at the November Fest — happened soon after. “I think it is inevitable when you put two musicians together for a long period of time, they are going to start playing together. And now there is demand for more,” laughs Robitaille.
Talking about their upcoming India tour, they both admit to being very excited by it. “We have never been to India before and are awed by the country’s cultural legacy. It is overwhelming,” he says. “India is not on the usual European or North American touring route. It is an incredible opportunity and we consider ourselves very lucky.”
