the tall tall grasses of spring in the Cariboo
Meet
"One of the freshest new voices in Canadian folk music - some of the sweetest pastoral songs heard in years."
- The Kitchener Waterloo Record
"Not since Kate Rusby surfaced across the pond in the late '90s to galvanize and tastefully transform the purity of traditional folk has an artist so thoroughly and convincingly stoked the fire of the time-honoured form."
- OttawaXpress
Joyful, earthy and delightfully free of pretense, Yael Wand is, quite literally, a breath of fresh air on the Canadian singer-songwriter scene. Based in a rustic home in a small town in northern BC, the Israeli-Canadian environmental studies graduate creates a distinctive acoustic roots music that radiates the simplicity, vitality and bliss of mountain life.
Yael's unique sound draws from a variety of traditional forms - Appalachian, Celtic and Israeli folk to name a few - and adds a touch of jazzy sophistication and global instrumentation. Her mezzo soprano voice is as pure and clear as the air in her Barkerville home, and her arrangements are spacious and rootsy, combining guitar, upright bass and cello with hints of ukulele, tabla, and flugelhorn. On her latest CD, At Your Door, guests Ken Whiteley and Jesse Zubot provide occasional touches of mandolin and fiddle.
Yael's repertoire features stylish urban lullabies alongside tales from rustic cabins in the backwoods. She navigates the political terrain of the middle-east with the same ease and passion as she does the wilderness of the Canadian west. Her definitive statement on her homeland comes in the form of "Jerusalem" from her debut album Antinomy, a powerful lament for the city she describes as "a touch of heaven, a touch of sacred ground, and - a sea of salt tears that the angels have cried." Her songs about the simple pleasures of her adopted home are many. "Strike A Match," from At Your Door, uses a winter power outage as a metaphor for a dark moment in a relationship. "Moonshine Maker" is a jovial bluesy number about hitting up the neighbours up for home-made liquor, while "Restlessnes" is a catchy melody about being cooped up for too long.
For most of the past five years, Yael has pursued her music career in much the same way she lives the rest of her life: in the most grassroots of fashions, crisscrossing the country first in a paisley Volkswagon Van and then in a vegetable-oil powered truck - performing in small theatres and coffee-houses and gradually building up a mailing list of devoted fans.
Great artists however do not remain "underground" forever, and the launch of Yael's sophomore album, 2007's At Your Door, has been met with a chorus of critical praise from at least a dozen different sources. The Kitchener Waterloo Record named Yael "one of the freshest new voices in Canadian folk music," and described her music as "some of the sweetest pastoral songs heard in years." Ottawa Xpress remarked "Not since Kate Rusby surfaced across the pond in the late '90s to galvanize and tastefully transform the purity of traditional folk has an artist so thoroughly and convincingly stoked the fire of the time-honoured form." The Province called Yael a "strong, literate writer," Exclaim praised "the charm of her melodies and the effortless beauty of her voice," and Hour called her work "fine folk of the first order." And that's just a sample of the accolades! 2007 also saw Yael featured on Bravo! News and CBC Radio's Sounds Like Canada and The Arts Tonight.
Born in Haifa, Israel, Yael spent her early childhood traveling with her family between Israel and Canada before finally settling in Vancouver when she was eight. A classically trained vocalist who sang in choirs as a child, Yael began performing small gigs around Vancouver while pursuing a degree in environmental studies at the University of British Columbia. She worked briefly for environmental agencies after graduating, but quickly found herself in the field of arts administration, a career path that brought her to the tiny town of Wells, nine hours north of Vancouver. There, she fell in love with both the place and a guy, moved into a rustic home with a wood cook stove and no running water and eventually decided to "turn pro" as a musician. Summer odd-jobs in nearby Barkerville, the old gold rush town that has been restored as a living museum and tourist attraction, covered her living expenses while she refined her considerable raw talent.
Yael released her debut solo album Antinomy in 2004 (she released Midnight Sun with the Vancouver-based trio Perpetuum in 1999), and earned praise from the folk magazine Penguin Eggs, which remarked that "In a world where there is an overwhelming number of singer songwriters, it is hard at times to tell the wheat from the chaff. This is 100% whole wheat." Her music has also been featured on five compilation albums including Grrrls with Guitars 2005 and the internationally distributed Canoe Songs from the Borealis Recording Company.
Often accompanied in concert by cellist Christina Zaenker, Yael is an amiable and confident performer whose live shows convey warmth and intimacy. Her on-stage charm, combined with her poetic lyrics and catchy easy-going melodies prompted Music Yukon's Mark Smith to remark "Lordy, catch her NOW, folks... this is a full-fledged and export-ready artist at basement prices."