When Sheila Carabine chose to participate in an immersive cultural program on Canada’s east coast, she never expected it to turn into a revelatory, inspirational and cathartic creative experience. But it’s a great lesson for all those on the profoundly deep and meaningful outcomes that can happen when one chooses to take a leap of faith and venture outside their comfort zone.
Carabine is one of half of the critically lauded and popular folk duo Dala alongside Amanda Walther, and the experience which perhaps has changed the course of both her creative live and her life in general happened during her time working at a French immersion camp in a remote corner of Nova Scotia, in what is one of the last bastions of true, authentic Acadian culture left in Canada. It not only broadened her linguistic and cultural horizons, but led directly to the creation, recording and release of her first ever solo album, All In, which was released independently late last year.
“It was an amazing experience. And it was one that was kind of unexpected and was quite transformative for me in a lot of ways. And it was really musically inspiring; there were so many musicians in this one particular community. I also met a recording engineer [Jean-Pascal Comeau] and everything was pointing to me recording an album while I was out there, just to document it and have a little memento of that experience,” Carabine said from her home in Toronto, as she prepared for a solo show, opening for former Great Big Sea frontman Sean McCann at the Octave Theatre in Kingston as part of the Live Wire Concert Series on Sept. 22.
“I took French Immersion in school, but it’s not the same as speaking the language every day. I had returned to the University of Toronto first to finish my undergrad and now I am doing my Masters, but there was this program where you could get a bursary and they pay your room and board and you can live for five weeks in a French community. So I decided to take advantage of it while I still looked remotely like my student card photo. I headed out there for the first time in 2014 and I didn’t know anybody. It gave me a great insight into how challenging it can be to live in an environment where you don’t speak the language. It’s exhausting and you feel kind of unseen and almost misunderstood. But the upside is you make these great friendships. So I had a great time and that’s really where the whole solo project kind of got its birth. There was a lot of fear – fear of the unknown, fear of rejection – but obviously it was okay and facing those fears is the best thing I ever did.”
What was also a little fearful was releasing the All In project under her own name, not knowing what to expect.
“First of all, so many people can’t pronounce my last name, so I was thinking maybe I had to change my name and call myself something different. I was very nervous because you’re laying it on the line by putting something out under your name, and I am glad I did. But you do go through all these thoughts; you can find a million reasons not to do a project like this. I am glad I put my name on it, and people who are familiar with Dala have been very supportive,” Carabine said.
There is a stillness and almost quietness to All In that belies the profound strength and emotional depth to the album. It is sometimes stark, other times lush, but always able to draw the listener in closer and closer to Carabine’s spirit.
Besides deriving inspiration from her beautiful Acadian surroundings, both in the landscape along the shores of the Gaspe Peninsula and the spirit of its inhabitants, the album also sees Carabine using this inspiration to work through her own existential process coming on the heels of the traumatic end of a relationship.
“I feel a more fully realized person having gone through that experience. It was a very painful experience but obviously it is necessary for growth. And I can only say that now having come out on the other end of it. It’s definitely where a lot of the songs came from. For me, I have to go through something emotionally to write a song. I can’t really sit down and pick a topic and write about it. I think you really end up plumbing the depths of your feelings whatever the starting point is with the song. But my songs are really, almost instinctive,” she explained.
“There is a song called Don’t Go which I probably wrote right in the throes of feeling my lowest. And it’s a song where I didn’t sit down and think about it, I just had to write to kind of get through each day. Music was such a necessary outlet for helping me orient myself through that kind of chaos. It’s funny talking about it now, I feel like I am only in the position of having some kind of a positive perspective on it having gone through it, but music helped me and I am grateful to have that kind of outlet.
“I feel like people will obviously do what they can to feel better and it’s kind of the thing that’s in your grasp in those moments of desperation that you turn to. Luckily my guitar was there. But I can understand how you can reach out for anything in those moments to keep yourself afloat.”
The title track for All In was inspired by her father’s youth.
“When my dad was a young boy his family moved from Ireland to Birmingham, England and they lived in this old Victorian house that was haunted. And it’s one of those stories where you can hear your dad telling it over and over again over the years and it’s still scary. There was one room in the house that nobody went into and they were a big Irish Catholic family so it would have been handy to have been able to use that space. But they didn’t for fear of the kind of chilling feeling they would get from it,” she said, relating it to her relationship ending.
“When I was trying to sift through the painful memories that I had and tried to move forward, I felt like the chambers of the heart or the mind or the memory are much like that – there are rooms that you don’t want to go back into until you are ready. And I guess I found a way to bridge those two ideas and combined it with this neat little guitar hook I had and put it all together.”
Little Girl was written as a tribute to the amazingly courageous and inspirational Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani woman activist in favour of education girls, who was shot by a Taliban gunman in 2012. She recovered and continued her advocacy and human rights activities, eventually winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 alongside another children’s rights activist from India.
“I actually wrote this song the day after she was shot and I can’t even describe how her story touched me. The idea of somebody standing up for a cause that seems so undeniably positive and then become the target of violence was kind of mind boggling. So the song is exploring what it is about her that so upset and scared her adversaries,” Carabine said, adding that the piece has even more resonance when thinking of the sculpture of the ‘Fearless Girl’ in New York City’s financial district.
Dala was helped immeasurably in their career by their appearances on The Vinyl Café tours of beloved CBC broadcaster and author Stuart McLean. Like millions of other Canadians, Carabine and Walther were both saddened to learn of McLean’s death in February of this year, but who also expressed gratitude and having gotten to know McLean on a deeper level than most radio listeners had over the years.
“We did three national tours with him, so we were quite close with him. I mean, where do you even begin when talking about Stuart McLean? He meant so much, and continues to mean so much to so many people. What a comforting and familiar voice, and what a wonderful man. My first impression of him really is so true to who he was and our relationship, because he was very quirky and always had a twinkle in his eye and was kind of eternally young in spirit,” Carabine said.
“Amanda and I were busking on the streets of Toronto and I think he has told this story quite a bit when we were on tour with him. This was back around 2005 or 2006 and suddenly this guy rides by on a bicycle and he’s kind of tall and lanky. Amanda recognized him right away because she kind of grew up in a family that worshipped at the shrine of the Vinyl Café, and went to all the Christmas shows. But our family didn’t listen to it as much, so I didn’t really know who he was. So he stops riding and stands and listens to us playing and then asks us about our music. Amanda can barely speak because she’s so starstruck and I was like, okay I guess we will give this guy a CD. And at the end, as we were parting he was like, ‘oh, by the way I’m Stuart McLean and I have the Vinyl Café.’
“At that moment I realized to be meeting him was like winning the Golden Ticket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because he used his national coast to coast platform, with so many devoted listeners, to help so many artists by giving them a chance to play a couple of songs. To get the nod of approval from him really did launch so many careers. As he rode away he throws some cash into our little guitar case and we both start to geek out. Within about five minutes he comes back and reaches into the case and says, ‘I just need to take some change out for some gum.’ And that really was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. So many artists, ourselves included, are so indebted to Stuart and the Vinyl Café.”
Dala is still a going concern, but things have slowed down a little bit since Walther is the mom of a busy three year old. But the group is playing some dates in the fall and winter, with new music always being created.
“We’re best friends and we hang out all the time and we are going to keep making music together for as long as we can breathe and sing. We are always writing new songs and we might release a new single in the next few weeks. We are continuing to create and I am sure there will be a time when it makes more sense to tour more intensively, but right now we’re still out there, but in just a lower gear. We are getting ready to ramp up for the future,” Carabine said, adding that her solo show in Kingston is a thrill, as she has great admiration for Sean McCann.
“It’s so exciting and I think half my family is coming out to the show because they are so excited too. I have never met him and I am really looking forward to it because it’s a chance to get to know someone who I’ve admired for a while. As much as I am excited to play I am really thrilled to get to see his show.”
For more information on the Sept. 22 show featuring Carabine and McCann, visit https://livewiremusicseries.ca/buy-tickets.
For more information on Carabine, visit http://sheilacarabine.com/index.html. Or to keep tabs on Dala’s activities, visit http://www.dalagirls.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
SHARE THIS POST:
