It's amazing what a little digging turns up. For Ember Swift, digging is a necessary process that is integral to uncovering truths that are “too-often buried”. It was this sort of thinking that helped out queer activist and artist Swift create her ninth album, The Dirty Pulse, which hit stores in April earlier this year.
“The album title comes from the idea that everyone has a pulse. With this pulse then comes a responsibility to examine our pasts, however dirty they may be, in order to find truth. As humans we've contributed to so much destruction in our world. Finding the truth may not be pretty, but it's necessary... that, and I'd also been spending a lot of time digging in my garden,” Swift notes.
Swift, on lead vocals and guitar, along with Lyndell Montgomery on bass, backing vocals, and violin, and Adam Bowman on percussion, has once again released an album that challenges listeners to “be the change”. The Dirty Pulse contains messages that seek to inspire, confront, and entertain any number of issues including family dysfunction, capitalism, politics, the food industry, and bowling. Yes, bowling...(depending on your interpretation of the lyrics).
It is this balance between the pragmatic and poetic, the serious and the playful, and the tender and the fiery that has come to characterize Ember Swift's music. Described by Swift as the “ bilingual love child of Paul Simon and Laurie Anderson who was raised by Joan Jett”, her music tends to be an eclectic mix of nearly all genres, including folk, funk, pop, and jazz. Her lyrics always have a message. The result is a very strong package.
From declaring that “every country's oval office should be tapped and wired” ("Tapped and Wired", Disarming, 2004), to insisting that we teach our children to critique ("Goldilox", The Wage is the Stage, 2000), to discussing a particularly interesting experience at a wedding ("Boinked the Bride", Stiltwalking, 2002), she has earned herself a loyal and dedicated fan-base amongst queer and straight audiences alike. And rightly so, when one considers the amount of work and dedication Swift has given to her music over the years.
Boasting nine albums, a live DVD of her 2005 Australian tour, several concerts across Canada, the U.S., and Australia, an independent record label, a degree in East Asian Studies, and a deep passion for music and commitment to activism that has spanned most of her life, Swift has proven herself to be a modern-day Renaissance woman.
Hailing from Ontario, Canada, Swift recalls being interested in music at a very young age. “Even before I learned any instruments, I used to sing a lot with my mother and grandmother. My family really helped foster a love for music in me.” By the time Swift reached high-school, she had been performing live and composing her own music since she was nine (her first performance of original work happened when she was thirteen).
After a year at the University of Ottawa, she transferred to the University of Toronto and truly immersed herself in her music. She performed live whenever she could and continuing to compose, becoming well-known locally amidst the indie-folk-funk scene.
Toronto was also where she met up with Montgomery, who quickly became an integral addition to Swift's music and someone Swift came to admire and appreciate tremendously. “Lyndell is my musical kindred. And when you've been playing together for as long as we have, it's just another language that you speak together without have to think about it. She's a fantastic poet and adds depth and width to the spectrum of the songs. She finds layers that need to be heard when I didn't realize there was anything missing."
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