SuppliedTowers and Trees
with Boreal Sons, Brian Christensen
November 17, 2015 8:00 p.m.
The Buckingham (10439 82 ave)
$8 advanced, $10 at the door
Towers and Trees has come a long way since it’s beginning as a “collaborative, free-spirited solo project” by singer-songwriter Adrian Chalifour. The Victoria-based project has evolved into a group about to go on tour with their first full-length album, The West Coast.
Chalifour says that the project came about as a way to reclaim his own creative identity at a time when he had given up on sharing his music.
“That whole part of my character that I was trying to shut down, and pretend didn’t exist wasn’t going away … Being a musician, and an artist and creator is part of who I am.” says Chalifour.
A month after he began the project, a friend came to him with the idea to collaborate, and they began calling on other musicians they knew. Within a few months, Towers and Trees had transformed into a group of artists getting together to share their talents, and in 2012, they recorded their first EP Broken Record.
Following the release of Broken Record, the band experienced what Chalifour calls a “whirlwind 2013.” Their music was being aired on the radio in B.C., they were touring, playing festivals and shows, and all the while, Adrian was writing new songs. The songs on The West Coast come from a place of both ending and beginning for Chalifour, written while he was learning to navigate the world after the end of his marriage. The title track is a tribute to those feelings, and also to the home where the bulk of his life, and this journey unfolded.
“It’s the line that separates those two chapters — the part that’s about coping with the debris from the hurt, and then the idea of moving forward.” notes Chalifour
From there, the group “holed up” on Vancouver Island to put together arrangements for all the songs, with each artist adding something new to the sound. They paired up with producer and engineer Alex Aligizakis to take their creative vision and make it into the best possible sound, recording the bulk of the album at Electric City Sound in Victoria.
It’s difficult to say what other artists inspire the sound of Towers and Trees, because each member of the group is unique and brings different things to the table. For Chalifour, his writing is inspired by great songwriters and lyricists like Leonard Cohen who he says “manage[s] to frame something common, like falling in love, in a way you’ve never heard it before.”
As a group, however, Chalifour draws his inspiration from great performers. His first great musical influence was when he started playing in church, and he’s always thought of music not as performance, but as a vessel to bring a room full of people together. “It feels like the audience is a part of the experience. Every performance is a little bit different, because every audience is a little different… We try to take a disparate room of people and connect them all around a similar experience, or a similar moment.” says Chalifour
The artists who do that best aren’t necessarily “cool influences to drop”, according to Adrian, but it’s hard to deny the power a good performer has over their audience.
“Artistic merit aside, there’s something about the gift that Bono or U2, or Chris Martin possess that they can make a room full of people feel like they’re part of something … make 20,000 people feel like they’re sharing something.” Chalifour says.
