Canadian singer-songwriter and musician Dorothea Paas has announced the release of her debut album called Anything Can’t Happen which will be out on May 7th via Telephone Explosion Records. According to the press release, It’s a statement of purpose, the next step in a decade-long process of artistic growth and evolution, and a bridge between the DIY style of Paas’s previous cassette releases and a more refined studio sensibility.
Recorded between Hamilton, ON, and Toronto, and mixed by Max Turnbull (Badge Époque Ensemble and U.S. Girls) and Steve Chahley, these songs bring a diverse range of musical influences into the conversation: inflected with the layered reverberations of Grouper, shot through with the piercing harmonies of the Roches, electrified with the searing energy of Sonic Youth. You can hear Neil Young in the grittiness of the title track’s guitar; Joni Mitchell’s Hejira in the album’s lyrics, Fairport Convention in Paas’s voice. The influence of Stevie Wonder – one of Paas’s greatest musical role models – is present too, in the album’s conceptual foundations.
Watch the official video of the track “Container” and check the list with artists and songs which have inspired her music. It features Grouper, Frank Ocean and many more.
Sheryl Crow – If It Makes You Happy. When I first wrote Anything Can’t Happen but didn’t have a title yet, I called it ‘The Ghost of Sheryl Crow’ as a joke to my bandmates because I wanted her spirit to inhabit the heavy yet uplifting guitar parts. My bandmate Kritty made fun of me because obviously Sheryl is still with us thank god but you know what I mean. This song was one of my references in the studio for the thick, warm guitar sound I wanted on Anything Can’t Happen.
Céline Dion – The Power of Love. I heard this song on the radio a few years ago before I started writing these songs, and I was like, wow, this structure… she simmers in the verses for so long, and even into the first chorus, and then at the second chorus she just lets it rip, but still with so much space. I set out to write a song with simmering verse, initial fake-out chorus and big second chorus, and ended up with Perfect Love. One day I’d like to redo Perfect Love full eighties style with reverbed toms etc.
Joni Mitchell – Hejira. This is probably my most obvious reference point. Learning to play this song on guitar when I was going through a rough time a few years ago laid the foundation for a few songs on my album. It was healing for me to focus on learning this song’s complex and emotionally rich chords. I messed around with Hejira’s odd CGDFGC tuning and ended up at my own weird tunings for Waves Rising, Perfect love and Closer to Mine. Perfect Love specifically was where I let myself go down the Hejira road by trying out the picking pattern too. I do visualize this song as a road: the steady guitar and drums drive us along, and the bass licks and other instruments are fixtures and sights we drive past, birds flying by. It’s such a textural and emotive song.
Frank Ocean – Blonde. This is one of my favourite rnb/pop songs of the past few years, and in particular the switch-up that happens halfway through the song really struck me. I have always written songs by stringing segments together rather than following the typical song structure, so it resonated with me to feel the song change up so dramatically halfway. I used this song as a reference with the song Closer to Mine, because I wanted it to feel like the drums fall out and you open up into a totally new world, a new song within the song.
Chris Bennet, Giorgio Moroder – Theme from Midnight Express. I was listening to this a lot when I was working on the last song, Running Under My Life. I started thinking a lot about simple but evocative synth lines, dramatic chord changes, and a vocal that follows the synth line. Usually my voice acts as a freely-flowing countermelody to the instrument, but I loved the idea of restraining the voice and using it more like an additional texture in a more ambient synth tapestry.
Rubba, De Wolfe Music – Way Star. I came across this song by way of the Freddie Gibbs song Thuggin, in which Madlib samples it to gorgeous effect. When I heard the original song I loved the smoldering tempo, and the way that the slight chord changes felt so impactful and moody. I kept it in my mind as I was figuring out how to develop and arrange Frozen Window, which started out as a chord progression I would play with my band to warm up (I called it Mordor at the time because the chords had a certain misty mountain flavour to me lol). Even though I don’t think Frozen Window really sounds like this song, Way Star helped me figure out where I wanted my composition to go – a dank, slowly burning and spacious guitar song with subtle but mysterious chord changes.
Grouper – Living Room. My reference for mixing the second half of Closer to Mine was the Roches if performed by Grouper. I have loved Liz Harris’s music for a long time, tor the washed-out ambience she creates, her emotionally layered and punk chord progressions, and the meditative repetition she employs. When writing Closer to Mine, I thought of the way that Living Room does so much with a few simple chords; this song affects me really deeply. I came up with some chords I liked and then looped them endlessly, giving space for the voice and harmonies to expand and contract dynamically above that stable foundation.