Krista Muir

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

"My heart is never in one place,"? says Krista Muir, "it's in a million different places. This record really reflects that."

One of those places is the town of Accidental Railway, from whence Muir's new record takes its name. But if you haven't heard of it, it's because it's the product of Muir's famous imagination.

Five songs from this record were released as an independent EP last year (the LP is out on Indica Records), but prior to that, Muir made her name as faux-Bavarian songstress Lederhosen Lucil. Musically, this record displays more sonic depth and range than Lucil's productions did, and its lyrics are more personal and introspective, but elements of the imaginary place that ties it together will no doubt warm the hearts of those who miss the hosen.

"It's my first "concept album," if you will,"? says Muir. "I wrote out a history of the town with some really cute details about the cafes and the floating theatre on the river in the summertime and the hot air balloon tea party that they have every fall. I really got to let my imagination go."?

The Accidental Railway CD comes with recipes, chord charts (so that listeners can play along at home) and a large, intricate map of the town, care of Muir's musical collaborator, Shane Watt. For the launch, Watt will prepare 13 maps, one for each song. Although her input was integral to the map featuring pieces of her hometown of Kingston, Toronto, Montreal and other places she has fond memories of, from Rouyn-Noranda to Athens, Greece the origin of this component of the project was his. For Watt, mapping out real and imaginary places, on roughly 10-foot canvases, is a hobby, to put it mildly.

"It's his way, I think, of dealing with a very overactive brain,"? says Muir. "I don't know if he has OCD, he's never been diagnosed, but he probably does. Not many people I know have the patience to do stuff like that for fun."

Matching the complexity of the maps, the record is the result of a long period of experimentation with stringed and makeshift instruments, vintage microphones and excessive multi-tracking. That said, Muir and Watt's creation (mastered by Fran Ashcroft, who has worked with the likes of Damon Albarn and the Dandy Warhols) is never busy or overwrought. Its deceptively simple pop and folk confections complement the record's main thematic mandate, finding beauty in the everyday.

I just started thinking about all the simple things in life that I truly love, like little rituals. Making the album became kind of ritualistic because it was a daily thing. My equivalent to praying, I guess, would be putting down these melodies.

Buried in the mix are contributions from two collaborators who frequented Watt's studio in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve: a good ghost and an evil ghost.

"The evil one would shut things down and freeze the computer and turn on mics that weren't even plugged in. It was very odd,"? says Muir. "But the good ghost would help with harmonies. Sometimes you'd hear weird tones and be like, What is that? It sounds really nice! Thanks, good ghost!"

CD LAUNCH, PERFORMANCE,
ART INSTALLATION, BAKE SALE AT
CHAPELLE ST-LOUIS (4230 DROLET)
ON WEDNESDAY, OCT. 29, 7 P.M.,
$10, ALL AGES
MIRROR ARCHIVES » Oct 23 Oct 29 2008: - Montreal Mirror

Krista Muir
Mercredi 29 oct 2008
Église St-Jean-Baptiste
4237, ave. Henri-Julien, Mtl
Ma cote :
[Nul] [Moyen] [Bon] [Très bon] [Excellent] [Aucun]
Krista Muir
Voie ferrée


ARTICLE - 9 octobre 2008
Patrick BaillargeonPatrick Baillargeon

Krista Muir s'affranchit de son alter ego, Lederhosen Lucil, en proposant un panorama de son petit monde sur Accidental Railway.

Il y a environ deux ans, plusieurs personnes ont été attristées d'apprendre que la pétillante Lederhosen Lucil, cette petite chanteuse tyrolienne aussi improbable que rigolote, tirait sa révérence pour faire place à Krista LL Muir, la toute aussi pétillante et sympathique musicienne qui l'avait créée. Un premier mini-album sous son propre nom, Leave a Light, a rapidement suivi à l'été 2007. Un disque introspectif, beaucoup moins pop patraque que ceux de la délirante Lucil, qui nous faisait découvrir une chanteuse plus fragile qu'on l'aurait cru. À peine un an plus tard, Krista Muir récidive, cette fois-ci avec un premier album complet: Accidental Railway.

"Je me suis beaucoup inspirée de mes voyages pour cet album. Mes voyages en Grèce, en France, aux États-Unis et partout au Canada. Il y a beaucoup moins de chansons reliées à certaines histoires de coeur que j'ai pu vivre que sur Leave A Light. Il y a moins de chansons mélancoliques, précise la musicienne montréalaise. Leave A Light était un disque assez relié aux sentiments. Là, je dirais que Accidental Railway est plutôt un album de transition; transition entre les villes et l'amour. C'est un voyage psychologique et musical, un voyage avec les sons et dans le temps. Parce qu'on a beaucoup travaillé avec des vieux micros, avec les vieux sons des années 60 et 70. Shane Watt, qui a produit l'album, aime beaucoup les enregistrements des années 50 et 60 et il s'est inspiré des méthodes d'enregistrements d'artistes comme Brian Wilson. Il aime beaucoup expérimenter avec les sons. Les tempos changent, le mood change... non, c'est vraiment un voyage!"

Pour illustrer cette idée de transition et de voyage, Krista, qui chante en anglais, en français et en grec sur ce disque, a demandé à Shane Watt de lui dessiner une pochette vraiment chouette. "J'ai vu des cartes de villes que Shane s'amusait à créer juste pour le plaisir et j'ai beaucoup aimé. Je lui ai donc demandé s'il ne voulait pas en faire une pour mon album. Ainsi, sur la pochette qui se déplie comme une carte, tu as toutes sortes d'endroits que j'ai visités et que j'aime, et aussi des noms de gens avec qui j'ai travaillés pour ce disque, explique celle qui donne des cours de ukulélé aux enfants ces jours-ci. "Donc, tu as quelques quartiers de Montréal, d'autres de Kingston (??) où j'ai longtemps vécu, de certaines régions de France, de Grèce, et y'a même le petit lac où vivent Geneviève et Matthieu à Rouyn-Noranda!"

Une première pour Krista, elle a décidé de faire confiance à une étiquette de disque pour la parution de son premier effort complet sous son vrai nom, et le huitième depuis ses débuts en 1999. "Les gens d'Indica ont bien flashé sur mon mini-album et m'ont proposé de me joindre à eux. Ça me tentait de travailler avec une étiquette de disque, chose que je n'avais jamais fait; je trouvais que c'était le bon temps, même si ça ne va pas très bien pour les compagnies de disques en ce moment", rigole l'ex-Lucil qui avoue que son personnage de Tyrolienne déjantée commence à lui manquer. "Je m'ennuie un peu de Lederhosen Lucil et je crois que je vais la faire renaître dans quelque temps. J'ai des idées de chansons pour elle. J'aimais bien me déguiser, jouer un rôle. Mais pour mon lancement, je vais faire une performance dans laquelle je vais me mettre dans la peau de différents personnages avec plein de costumes!"

Krista Muir
Accidental Railway
(Indica/Outside)
En magasin le 14 octobre

À écouter si vous aimez /
Brian Wilson, Claudine Longet, Geneviève et Matthieu
- Voir Montreal

KRISTA MUIR / L’heure du thé
par Marie Hélène Poitras / photo Roger Aziz

KRISTA MUIR / L’heure du thé

On la connaissait coiffée de tresses, vêtue d'un costume de Tyrolienne, fofolle derrière ses synthés, répondant au nom Lederhosen Lucil. Mais les masques sont tombés l'an dernier lors de la parution d'une première galette signée Krista L.L. Muir. En bonus à l'intérieur du personnage se cachait une folkeuse sensible, en communion avec son ukulélé, que l'on continue de découvrir avec bonheur.

Déjà un nouveau disque, un an pile-poil après la parution de Leave Alight? Hum... pas exactement. La moitié des titres ont fait le voyage à nouveau, tandis que d'autres se sont ajoutés à la liste. Car Miss Muir vient de signer avec Indica: «Ils m'ont repérée après avoir entendu Concrete Lovesong sur la dernière compil du Nightlife! Je n'étais pas à l'aise avec l'idée de faire paraître à nouveau, dans son intégralité, un album que j'avais déjà fait, d'autant plus que je suis rendue ailleurs, déjà . Mais ces chansons n'ont pas vraiment eu leur chance et je suis heureuse de pouvoir la leur donner. Et puis elles s'imbriquent bien avec les nouvelles», raconte-t-elle entre deux gorgées de thé vert au miel.
Krista Muir a la dent sucrée. «Accidental Railway, c'est le titre de l'album et le nom d'un petit café imaginaire situé dans une ville qui n'existe que dans ma tête. C'est pour cette raison que j'ai glissé dans le livret des recettes de thé au gingembre et celles de mes tartes, biscuits et boissons chaudes préférées.»

LOIN, C'EST BIEN
Charmant, non? Tout comme Les Ouaouarons, dans laquelle, sur une mélodie vaporeuse, Krista implore en français qu'on la renvoie à Rouyn-Noranda, où elle se produisait le mois dernier dans le cadre du Festival de musique émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue: «J'aime beaucoup l'esprit qui règne dans cette ville. On y retrouve un peu l'esprit chaleureux de la Côte Est. Cette chanson est un hommage à la ville de Rouyn, j'y parle même de la confiture de carottes que j'ai goûtée dans un café merveilleux.»

Ailleurs, la chanteuse et musicienne originaire de l'Ontario se rembrunit, sur Officer par exemple, inspirée de l'histoire d'un Polonais venu retrouver sa mère, décédé à l'aéroport de Vancouver après s'être fait tirer dessus au Taser. «C'était le soir de Noël, j'ai vu ça à la télé, entourée de ma famille. Ça s'est mis à me hanter. C'est la chanson la plus complexe et la plus politique que j'aie jamais écrite.»

Il y a aussi une toune déballée en grec, puisque Krista se laisse inspirer par ses voyages, «intérieurs et extérieurs, précise-t-elle. Ce que je lance sous mon nom et que je compose avec des instruments plus délicats et acoustiques vient remuer quelque chose d'autre en moi. Ça reflète davantage où j'en suis aujourd'hui. Car même si je ne suis pas bien vieille (33 ans), je commence à réfléchir autrement et ce qui m'inspire est différent.»

À surveiller également: une éventuelle collaboration avec Donzelle. «Elle est fou! Je l'adore.» Le retour du côté givré de Krista Muir?

Le 1er octobre avec Baby Dee dans le cadre
de Pop Montréal / Lancement d'album le 29 octobre à la Chapelle Saint-Louis de l'église Saint-Jean-Baptiste (coin Rachel et Drolet)
myspace.com/kristallmuir


- Nightlife Magazine, Montreal

Krista Muir Accidental Railway (Indica Records)

Playful (with loads of ukulele), yet immensely mature pop, the Montreal-based singer and multi-dimensional artist delivers a self-described soundtrack to her life complete with pull-out map of her journey.

Formerly known under her stage name Lederhosen Lucil, Krista Muir releases her latest record titled Accidental Railway under her real name. Much like the title, she sends us on a musical journey through shaking tambourines and crashing symbols on the track "Summer Eyes" that make you wish for summer. Bass waves send you swimming in "Drugging The Drain", the bubbles that come out through the strings of her ukulele in "Leave Alight" float you to the sky as the silent sounds of busy streets and her whispering words in "When You Were Mine" bring you back down. In between you are left to take a breath of fresh air and take in the sounds brought forth to your body.

To be completely honest, at the first pop of the CD into my CD player I was skeptical. The first words I heard were accompanied with no sound, and I began to give it its worthy chances. I am not one for indie music, but this record has been my week's anthem. It has been like having a full blown marching band follow me wherever I go. Want a change of scenery? Take a trip along Krista's accidental railway and you will never want to come back. She creates a great sense of feeling with all the instruments she uses and then over-topping that with a story-telling of lyrics. Krista bakes the cake that is worth the taste when you get hungry for beauty on that train ride home.

Catch Krista Muir for one of two concerts at Chapelle St-Louis, 4230 rue Drolet, Montreal, October 29th.

www.indicarecords.com/krista

www.myspace.com/kristallmuir


Melissa Rainone - http://www.panpot.ca/reviews/renderAlbumReview.php?id=289

Band of the Month: Krista L.L. Muir
This multi-instrumentalist closets her leather pants for the ukulele

By Jessica Blumensheid
Published: September 4th, 2008 | 10:10am

WHO IT IS
Multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, baker, and traveler Krista L.L. Muir.

LOCATION
Montreal, Quebec

FILE UNDER
A multicultural journey flushed through imaginary ’60s and ’70s poppy waters.

IN A NUTSHELL
For Krista L.L. Muir, traveling creates unbounded music. With a worldly palate, Muir never thought her casual musical compositions would take her this far. In a sense, this exotic singer-songwriter is a beautiful accident — like bumping into a fine-looking stranger with whom you’ll inevitably fall in love.

Although Muir had professional music lessons growing up, her musical career didn’t come to fold until 10 years ago under the pseudonym Lederhosen Lucil. This pop, dance-infused project is the first of Muir’s musical accidents. “I never imagined in a million years that I’d be producing music and performing on a regular basis,� Muir says. “It was a beautiful accident — and I think a lot of things in life really are.�

Muir named herself Lederhose Lucil after a friend gave her a keyboard as a Christmas gift. “I had this funny little martini party, and I performed these songs just for fun. I borrowed some lederhosen from this guy at work to make it quirky and cabaret. It came together in the most bizarre, natural way.�

Muir speaks of Lederhosen Lucil in third-person voice, but the persona is still prominent to the Krista Muir mold. “She was an amazing persona and a tool to test out the waters because I didn’t perform a lot,� Muir says. “It was this magical, inexplicable thing that happened.�

Eight years later, with a handful of releases, a closet-full of handcrafted costumes, and a DIY record label, Muir decided to put Lederhosen Lucil away indefinitely for a newfound love: the ukulele. She also wanted to develop music under her real name. “I really just wanted to do something completely different, and it’s funny that that would just be myself,� she says. “It became much more natural to wear my jeans onstage.�

Performing as Krista Muir, she’s using the opportunity to share her worldly experiences. She often writes lyrics in English but also experiments with Greek, French, and German. “Language is something to play with quite literally and figuratively,� she says. “It adds more of a challenge when you’re working with a different language.�

Muir’s upcoming album, Accidental Railway, will allow listeners to travel along with Muir. “Accidental Railway is an imaginary town, where I live sometimes,� Muir explains. The album’s artwork is a map of the village. The concept behind the album is a reflection of life’s wonderful mistakes.

“The cover is a part of this town, and every street name, every place has a meaning. I think life is kind of like that,� Muir says. “Every place we go has meaning to it. A lot of times, they’re beautiful accidents. Sometimes they’re not pleasant ones, but they help us down a path that leads us where we need to go.�

GOALS
Accidental Railway will be released on October 15 on Indica Records. In the meantime, Muir will work on her untitled Rembetika side project, play Ottawa’s September Lady Fest, and tour Europe in May 2009. Muir will also bring back Lederhosen Lucil in the spring to play Montreal’s Kid’s Pop festival.

MORE INFO
Muir’s Myspace page
Muir’s official Web site
Muir’s “Leave Alright� music video - www.venuszine.com

By LORRAINE CARPENTER

"It's funny",? says Krista L.L. Muir. "The lederhosen started becoming kind of threadbare. Literally, colours were fading on the pants, and the wigs were getting so ratty. She's a very expensive habit, that girl."

Muir is referring, of course, to her former alter-ego, Lederhosen Lucil. Together, they produced several independent CDs, most notably 2003's Tales From the Pantry, and a book, The Joy of Hosen: Lederhosen Lucil Up Close and Pictorial. Muir's Bavarian persona, born in her native Kingston and raised in Montreal, gained notoriety as she and her Yamaha toured North America and Europe, playing alongside the likes of Kid Koala, le Tigre, Carolyn Mark and the Unicorns. She also curated and hosted the annual Soiro Bizarro variety show at la Sala Rossa. But sometime in 2005, the character's spark began to fizzle for its creator. Although Muir had the time of her life on her last European tour, she felt that the upkeep of costumes and wigs was taking time away from songwriting, which itself was becoming difficult.

"I ran out of beats on that keyboard," she admits. "I sucked the marrow out of the bone that was that Yamaha."?

Coinciding with an illness during the tour, the acquisition of a wee baritone ukulele influenced the next phase in Muir's musical life. "I could lie in my sickbed and make these little songs up when I was homesick or lonely,"? she explains, while some upheaval in her personal life fuelled new songs.

"Dark and strange times are a wealth of inspiration and creativity cause you're suddenly forced to look at things from a different perspective. Often, more poetic things will come out of those weird, horrible times and end up making something beautiful."

And that she has. Leave Alight is Muir's new album, a playfully winsome batch of pretty tunes underpinned by melancholy. It was recorded in Toronto with Brian Poirier and Dave MacKinnon (aka the Fembots) and in Montreal with Shane Watt, who also plays and sings with Muir on the record and on stage. The CD will be released independently on Sept. 12, the date of her Casa show, which will feature a percussionist and cellist Becky Foon of Silver Mount Zion, who also plays on the record, as do members of the Weakerthans, Stars, Besnard Lakes and A Northern Chorus.

Muir has already played a pair of shows in Ontario, she's got five U.S. dates booked between her upcoming Montreal gigs, and then she's off to Europe and the U.K. for four dates, with ample help from friends she made on the last Lucil tour. It's not the first time she's played as herself, but after six years of performing behind a mask, so to speak, it presents its challenges.

"The difficult part for me isn't being myself on stage without a costume, it's that the music itself is way more personal and kind of sweet and tender, and I haven't really shown that side of me that often."?

Muir hopes to show her real self to a wider audience by finding a label to release her next record, which is already half written.

"It's not quite starting over, but in a way it is",? Muir muses. "It's taking a chance, taking the plunge, all the things you do when you're moving into a new phase. Lucil was like a cycle, a seven-year cycle, and this is the Krista time." - Montreal Mirror - Vol. 23 No. 10

Krista L.L. Muir's long, strange and sometimes sad journey from her wigged Lucil character to her own true music.

T'CHA DUNLEVY, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, August 23 2007

Even faux-frauleins get the blues. After eight years of campy synth-pop shenanigans, Montreal's Lederhosen Lucil has hung up her fancy pants, left the braided wigs, silly German accent and even the name behind, and picked up the ukulele.

Leave Alight is Krista L.L. Muir's coming-out album, her debut under her own name (she had two albums as Lederhosen Lucil), and a document of a tough time. The collection of emotionally exposed folk-pop songs shows a new side of the talented and charismatic performer.

"It started on tour in Europe, two years ago," said Muir, met in her Mile End home last week. "I was really sick. I had strep throat. I had lost my voice in front of 300 German people. I was delirious, and bedridden for five days in a small town in the south of France, hallucinating, with a fever.
Many know her as Lederhosen Lucil, the bewigged and German-accented bigger than life performer. Now, she's coming out as Krista L.L. Muir, with a new album called Leave Alight.View Larger Image View Larger Image
Many know her as Lederhosen Lucil, the bewigged and German-accented bigger than life performer. Now, she's coming out as Krista L.L. Muir, with a new album called Leave Alight.

"I had this ukulele that I had brought just for fun. I started to doodle around on it, and write all these songs. I got really attached to it. I was like, 'I really like these songs, but they have nothing to do with Yamaha (keyboard) pop.' I came back from tour and didn't know what to do with the songs, so I put them on the shelf."

Muir took the songs back off the shelf last year, after parting ways with her boyfriend at the time. Putting words to the music, she found herself exploring her feelings in a more personal way than she ever had in her previous artistic incarnation. Soon, the old getups didn't seem to fit the new material in quite the same way.

"I was so used to doing the Lederhosen Lucil performance," she said. "It was almost like being in Cats. When you do something 800 times as an artist, after a while you need to evolve. It just came to the point where I had these beautiful new songs, and I didn't want to play them dressed up in lederhosen, with blond hair."

Muir still has a little Lederhosen Lucil in her. She adopts an array of funny voices during our interview. In describing the difficulties that provoked her transformation, she's suddenly Scottish, speaking of herself in the third person:

"She said she was in a bucket of puke! And now she's in a nice tub with champagne and strawberries."

She breaks into laughter at her outburst. "Where was I (at the time)? Ohh, definitely in a wading pool with electric eels. No, that's horrifying. It's really hard to say, because I was in so many places at once that year. I was definitely scattered. And I managed to bring it all together, to make sense of the last couple of years on this album ...

"This is definitely the blue album, the transitional period. There were lots of very challenging things to deal with that came out in the lyrics. There's a bit of a darker side to some of them - still, there's hope."

Particularly in the title track - a swaying hymn that closes the album with Muir alone on ukulele singing, 'I hope that we will live lives that are illuminating / I said everything is going to be alright / Is it going to be alright? / 'Cause we're living in the sea."

When it came to recording the songs, she turned to Toronto folk-rockers the Fembots - who helped her build things up; to Montrealer Shane Watt, who helped strip them back down; and to a varied crew of musician-friends in both cities. - Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL

Just who the hell is Krista L.L. Muir, you ask? She might be more recognizable speaking with a fake German accent and sporting the golden locks of her alter-ego, the Yamaha keyboard-playing one-woman band known as Lederhosen Lucil.

The woman under the wig is leaving the pantry with a new album called Leave Alight that hits stores this week. It's a stark contrast from the infectiously danceable Lederhosen days, as the keyboards have been replaced with a ukulele.

"I kind of ran out of beats on that Yamaha," the Montreal resident says. "I had sucked the marrow right out of it.

"I have become enamoured with the baritone ukulele. I wanted something portable since I usually travel alone."

Muir will play alongside a one-time-only backing band featuring friends Stefan Schneider (Bell Orchestre, drums), Becky Foon (Silver Mt. Zion, cello), Shane Watt (who produced the album and plays guitar) and a french horn player for the album launch party at Montreal's Casa Del Popolo on Wednesday. For other shows, she'll only play with Watt.

A year-and-a-half ago while working on another project and character, an electronic '60s act called Lucille (she calls it a "between phase") Muir left for a tour of Europe with her ukulele. While there, she started writing made-for-ukulele songs that didn't seem to fit her German doppelganger, as they were more personal and indicative of how the real Muir was feeling at the time.

"It wasn't very goofy or kitschy," she says. "It was born from the ukulele as Lucil was born from the Yamaha.

"After playing the same songs for six years, I realized I needed to challenge myself, do something that frightened me, which meant coming out as myself and playing more personal songs."

Leave Alight's tone is more serious and melancholy, and Muir calls it her "bluer album." The new live shows have been interesting for herself and fans, especially those expecting an electro-pop dance party and the simple yet catchy keyboard beats from 2003's Tales From The Pantry and her other independent releases.

"I was struggling the first few shows to not put the fake accent on," admits Muir.

But shedding her fake German persona has opened the creative floodgates and Muir already has enough material for her next album.

Muir says Lucil will never die, much like Elvis Presley, and the hope remains to one day allow our favourite fraulein to spread her wings on a Pee-Wee Herman-type kids show.

Following Muir's Montreal release party, she'll play Ottawa's Workshop Studio & Boutique on Friday.

Erik Leijon - ChartAttack.com

As a songwriter, Krista Muir knows a good metaphor when she experiences one.

Take, for example, one that happened to her last week while housesitting for a friend in Montreal.

"They have a snake named Peanut Butter, it's a corn snake, and it just shed its skin 10 minutes ago," the nomadic Kingston musician said excitedly over the phone.

"I've never seen that before, and it was so incredible. It's like, 'You know what? This is a good sign.' Rebirth. Regeneration. Healing. It was just really cool. Yes! I love symbolism, and this is a good moment."

Muir hasn't performed much in the past decade, but returns to a Kingston stage Friday night to play her new album, The Tides, an album she feels "saved her life."

"I'm coming out again after a few years of being unwell and kind of new insight and new perspective, and definitely some tools I didn't have many years ago," Muir said. "And I have a better attitude about it. I'm feeling much less sorry for myself than I was and much more hopeful in wanting to share my experience and be a part of the community again."

Muir, who some might know by her alter ego, Lederhosen Lucil, has been busy battling a health concern: endometriosis.

"Basically it affects the lining of the uterus. It doesn't shed properly, and adheres and causes scar tissue," she said, adding the illness afflicts one in 10 women.

Before she was diagnosed -- after about 20 years and three laparoscopic surgeries -- her symptoms baffled doctors.

"I ended up in a hospital [while on tour] in France," she recalled. "They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I was kind of starting to lose my mind at that point because I knew it was something and there was no diagnosis."

Once it was identified as endometriosis, she was prescribed pills that managed the pain but didn't eliminate it. Things took a cathartic turn for the better when she discovered a support group in Toronto, where she heard stories from other sufferers, some of whom had worse experiences than she did.

Their stories inspired her, in part, to record The Tides, and she has dedicated it to the Endometriosis Network Canada.

"That's why I say this is the album that saved my life, because at that point I was starting to lose hope," Muir remembered. "I regained it through that group, and then through these songs, and the process of recording them and getting them out."

She recorded and produced the album herself, and also did the graphic design for the album. And she even embroidered the back cover of the limited release by hand (it will be released digitally next month).

She also challenged herself by setting a two-week window in which to record it. She used to record quickly as Lederhosen Lucil, but that was so she could get a record out before an impending tour.

"I had been wanting to record this for quite awhile," said Muir, who is sometimes commissioned to write songs for special occasions. "And when you have these songs that are very timely and intensely emotional, you have to get them out or they will disintegrate or change or be shelved with the other 300 songs I've written."

Her performance Friday night is the second of four shows she has lined up, at least for now. The first half will see her revisiting her decade-old album Leave Alight, the second half will see her doing "psychedelic storytelling" and performing The Tides.

"Because the album in my mind is dreamy and has some folk and psychedelic moments, and because of the pills I have to take for my pain, I thought this was a groovy way to talk about it in a more surreal, less alienating way," she said with a laugh.

Muir hopes that will bring awareness to the illness and comfort to those who suffer from it.

"Music is such a powerful and connective thing that I just had to do it, and it was therapeutic, and helpful," she said, "and I'm hoping it will create some curiosity in people to find out what it is." - Kingston Whig Standard