Le Ren - Leftovers - Yellow - VINYL LP

Leftovers, the debut album from Montreal's Le Ren, stitches together a patchwork of personal songs about different relationships those we share with mothers, lovers, and friends. Lauren Spear, the artist behind Le Ren, created a physical quilt to mirror the assemblage of stories that comprise her album a coming-of-age collage that collects over four years of past experiences and finds their present meaning. Leftovers was originally scheduled to be recorded in LA in early 2020, but the pandemic forced Le Ren to reconsider the kind of album she wanted to make, and how she wanted to make it. Taking the time to revamp old songs and bring the past to bear upon new ones, she distilled years of material into ten tightly executed tracks united by the swooning pluck of her guitar and the crystal clear timbre of her voice. The result is a timeless assemblage of love, heartache, celebration, and lessons hard-learned, written and performed by a musician who has honed the subtleties of her craft. With it's organic yet meticulous folk production and deeply felt lyrics, Leftovers exists outside of trend or time, finding a home among classic icons like Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan, and Karen Dalton, as well as a new class of folk extraordinaires, such as Adrianne Lenker, Jessica Pratt, and Laura Marling. Le Ren writes with a bold clarity that lends her songs the immediate, enduring quality of good stories well-told that, like their album title-namesake, only get better with age. Leftovers is equal parts melancholy, deep love, and levity to lift up the mournful. Le Ren here weaves a rich musical tapestry addressed to loved ones lost, found, and kept that reveals new meanings within a lifetime of relationships.

The Queen Elisabeth Competition for the violin of 1967 proved to be a fertile year for the massive Soviet delegation that had arrived in the attempt to sweep the competition, already won four years previously by the Russian Alexei Michlin. In the final, three of the four laureates are Latvian, something that could not but ruffle the feathers of the Soviet authorities. Philippe Hirschhorn's first place was beyond doubt, he was more than imperial and playing like that had unquestionably not been heard since Leonid Kogan in 1951. Yet on the third step of the podium the public discovered an extraordinary musician in a young man aged barely twenty Gidon Kremer. He presented an unusual programme, performing the Elgar Concerto, a work rarely played in the final of leading competitions. He was disappointed at his ranking, yet such a nature could not leave the members of the jury indifferent, in one way or another! All of Kremer can already be found in these very first recordings of someone who would mark the history of his instrument for the next 50 years. His playing is nervy, at times abrasive, yet always soulful. There is no sense of artificial beauty with Gidon Kremer; he is a fighter for art, an outstanding musical personality that his subsequent immense career has shown every day.

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