Carmel Mikol mounts a full album preview show with a full band, book-ended by local Kim D’Ambrosia and Toronto’s Mattie Leon at The Carleton on Thursday, August 8th. Show time is 8 PM and tickets are $18 advanced or $20 at the door.
“The ice she knows when it’s time to go, but I don’t,” Carmel Mikol admits in When it’s Time to Go, the first song from her new recording, The Ice, due out this fall. With layered piano, electric guitars, and fuzzed bass, the album is made to sound and feel like a moving glacier: absolutely unstoppable.
Building on the momentum of her 2017 album Daughter of a Working Man, which was called “fearless, genuine, and unapologetically original” (Canadian Beats), the new songs showcase a confident, lush sound, carried by Mikol’s warm voice and distilled, often painfully honest, lyric-writing.
Mikol is well-known for her songwriting – both as co-writer on Ria Mae’s platinum single “Ooh Love” and for her international songwriting awards including top spots in the Folk Categories of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the Great American Song contest. She was nominated for three East Coast Music Award and she has toured extensively in North America, playing the legendary Mariposa Folk Festival, Campfire Festival, and Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival.
D’Ambrosia fuses psychedelic rock and country blues, carrying the songs with a sultry vocal sway reminiscent of Cowboy Junkies and Sheryl Crow. Her debut album was released in May 2019. Produced by Mike Trask, the album features collaborations with well-known east coast musicians and was recorded at Halifax’s iconic Echo Chamber studio. Over the past few years, D’Ambrosia has performed at a number of local venues and small Nova Scotia festivals.
Hailing from Toronto, Mattie Leon is a singer/songwriter whose music balances Folk/R&B and Pop. This year he released “WHEN LOVE IS STRONG / CAUGHT UP,” a two song single that returns Leon to the R&B roots he cultivated on his debut EP, TERRACE. It’s the first release since 2017’s SIGNAL HILL, a 7-song collection of rhythmic Canadiana that landed Leon a nomination for Emerging Artist at the 2018 Canadian Folk Music Awards. Canadian Beats said the record is “Full of emotion and passion” and that “Mattie Leon is onto something brilliant.”