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Songs We Love: Leif Vollebekk, 'Elegy'

Leif Vollebekk's new album, <em>Twin Solitude</em>, comes out Feb. 24, 2017.
Kyla Gilbert
/
Courtesy of the artist
Leif Vollebekk's new album, Twin Solitude, comes out Feb. 24, 2017.

Just under two years ago, the Montreal singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk released North Americana, a warmly produced collection of soulfully tinged indie-folk songs all cut to tape.

Now comes a devastatingly beautiful new song, "Elegy," from Vollebekk's forthcoming album, Twin Solitude. With its downtempo, contemplative mix of simple piano chords, flourishes of acoustic bass and a metronomic drumbeat, the song grabs you by the heart and pulls you into its hypnotic whorl of melancholia.

Throughout, Vollebekk is down and out: trying to hang on to love, looking back over time and feeling repentant. "Won't you let me in one more time, babe, I want to feel it too / Nothing is alive if you know it ain't true," he sings. Swimming in a pool of emotions that echoes songs like Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" and Ryan Adams' "The Rescue Blues," he projects unfulfilled desire — and endless soul-searching.


Twin Solitude comes out Feb. 24, 2017 on Secret City Records.

Copyright 2016 XPN

Bruce Warren
Bruce Warren is assistant general manager for programming of WXPN in Philadelphia. Besides serving as executive producer of World Café, Warren also contributes to Paste magazine and writes for two blogs: Some Velvet Blog and WXPN's All About The Music Blog.