- Alicia Hansen (and Jess Hill and Julie McGeer), Friday, Jan. 6 at 8 p.m. at The Western Front, 303 East Eighth Ave., Vancouver. Tickets: $12/$15, visit www.brownpapertickets.com.
ALICIA Hansen's musical influences are diverse: free improvised jazz, famed composers including Prokofiev and Stravinsky, and avant-garde and experimental indie forces PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsom and Björk.
While all are evident on her sonically explorative debut record, Fractography, so too is the influence of her personal life, which she explores in dramatic detail.
"It was never something that I set out with an intention to do," says Hansen. "I never thought, 'I'm going to write personal songs,' that's just what came out. I have found that songwriting is the perfect vehicle for me for expressing myself and so I guess that's why they're so personal."
The album of 11 original songs takes its name from the study of surface fractures to determine the cause of failure.
"I happened upon that word and I just thought that it was the perfect metaphor for the album because the songs were all looking at different difficult periods, different difficult things that happened to me in my life," says Hansen. "I was going through a really, really rough, dark period when I made that album. It seems to be kind of an album about looking at and really bringing to light all of the painful and dark things that caused this difficult period."
Songs include "Alcoholic," about being with an addict and "Poison Tree" with a philanderer, and "Fractograph" about her own battle with anorexia.
"Everything sort of culminated in that period of my life and that was sort of the result, I guess, that was the main outcome, was that battle with anorexia," she says.
The Vancouver native and current Bowen Island resident started studying music at age four, piano and then voice. She worked her way through the Royal Conservatory program and went on to study classical voice at the University of British Columbia as well as received a degree in jazz piano from Vancouver Community College.
Hansen sang with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, on and off for half a dozen seasons, most recently from 2008 to 2010.
"Singing with the chamber choir has always been just one of my musical activities," she says. "As soon as I started learning jazz piano I started writing music."
Fractography came about thanks to her being awarded a Canada Council for the Arts Grant.
"It came at just the right time because a lot of things were changing in my life and I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing so I ended up putting all of my energies into that and made this album with all these incredible musicians and quit the chamber choir and now just been focusing totally on my music," she says.
Fractography's instrumental tracks were recorded at The Hive in Burnaby and the vocals at Penticton's The Orchard.
"It was quite a process," says Hansen.
"Producer Aaron Joyce was really fantastic for me to work with, we did a lot of work together on the arrangements ahead of time. He and Jesse Gander, the engineer, were just wonderful creative forces to work with. And, I got to work with the wonderful band that's on the album," she adds.
Joining her on the record are Tommy Babin on bass, Skye Brooks on drums, Ron Samworth, guitar, Peggy Lee, cello and Cory Curtis, bass.
When asked what she's most proud of with the work, Hansen says that it's her own sound and that it's true to who she is, and, "That it feels like an honest look at everything that's going on in my life."
Hansen is set to take the stage tonight at The Western Front at 8 p.m.
Sharing the bill are Vancouver-based singer/songwriter Jess Hill (with Lee Hutzulak and Megg Engel) and Julie McGeer (with Lee and Jeff Younger).
Hansen will be joined by Brooks, Lee, Younger, Ben Brown and Shanto Bhattacharya.
