{"id":11050,"date":"2015-09-24T06:38:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T13:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11050"},"modified":"2015-10-05T11:56:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T18:56:59","slug":"sarah-macdougall-the-nexus-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2015\/09\/24\/sarah-macdougall-the-nexus-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah MacDougall: the Nexus<\/em> interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is\u00a0an expanded version of the story which appeared in our September 23, 2015 issue.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Sarah MacDougall, a Swedish-born singer\/songwriter who now calls Whitehorse home, comes with a long list of accolades. For example, her music just won her the West Coast Music Awards Roots Solo Recording of the Year prize (which she\u2019s no stranger to: she also took it home in 2012) for her latest release, Grand Canyon.<\/i> We sat down with Sarah before this year\u2019s West Coast Music Awards to talk to her about her life and her music.<\/p>\n

In the song \u201cCold Night,\u201d the effects of winter on the landscape seem to mirror the effect of loss on the singer\u2019s heart. Is your artistic process linked to landscape?<\/i><\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s a metaphor, but it definitely affects me. That song was written at a time when I was walking a lot. It usually helps me write\u0143to walk, and to move. So maybe that\u2019s why the landscape becomes such a big part of the process. I\u2019m not just sitting in a room, I\u2019m actually moving around.<\/p>\n

There is a stereotype that Nordic people are strongly influenced or shaped by their landscape. Do you think that the landscapes we inhabit affect the people we become?<\/i><\/p>\n

I think so. If you\u2019re from a Nordic country you\u2019re always very close to nature. It\u2019s not like if you\u2019re in Toronto, in southern Ontario, where it\u2019s all kind of suburby and ugly everywhere. That\u2019s going to have a very different effect on you than growing up in Iceland, or in the Yukon, or anywhere where you have much more of a closeness to nature.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sarah MacDougall playing live at this year\u2019s Rifflandia (photo by Keagan Hawthorne\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The themes and undertones of <\/i>Grand Canyon are dark and brooding. On your website you describe it as having sounds of a \u201chopeful outsider trying to figure out their place and make sense of the world.\u201d Are you that outsider?<\/i><\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ve always felt like an outsider in many ways. Growing up in Sweden I had an immigrant parent, and then coming to Canada it was the same. I didn\u2019t understand the humour; I didn\u2019t understand the references. When I\u2019m on tour I\u2019m always on the outside looking in to other people\u2019s lives. So yeah, it\u2019s probably me (laughs).<\/p>\n

You also say it\u2019s about fear, hope, love, and forgiveness. What brought you to write this album? Whom did you have to forgive?<\/i><\/p>\n

Not one specific person. There\u2019s some love stories in there, and there\u2019s forgiving yourself for things that you\u2019ve put yourself through. For me, the record is about figuring out where I am, and who I am. I have these different homes, the Yukon and Sweden, and at the same time I\u2019m never in either. So on purpose I used a lot of Swedish themes on the record. I don\u2019t know why, exactly.<\/p>\n

The album opens with \u201cI Want to See the Light,\u201d a song about racist shootings in Malmo. Do you think the world is a darkening place?<\/i><\/p>\n

I think I felt that when I wrote the song. Europe has been quite dark for the last few years, although I feel a bit more hopeful now. I think a lot of people are overwhelmed, busy in their own worlds and scared. We\u2019re so isolated because we\u2019re constantly on our smartphones, connected in this weird way. With \u201cI Want to See the Light,\u201d I wanted to see more connection and realness.<\/p>\n

What is the role of art or the artist in bringing connection or light?<\/i><\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s a huge part of art. Most of the art I like and think is successful is bringing some kind of light, even if the art is dark, or touching on really serious subjects. It gives you a connection to the world, a reference to history. It lets you know that you\u2019re part of something. And I think art is extremely important in that. Imagine not having any art. That\u2019s a dark world. I can\u2019t even imagine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is\u00a0an expanded version of the story which appeared in our September 23, 2015 issue. Sarah MacDougall, a Swedish-born singer\/songwriter who now calls Whitehorse home, comes with a long list of accolades. For example, her music just won her the West Coast Music Awards Roots Solo Recording of the Year prize (which she\u2019s no stranger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-september-23-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11050"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11092,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11050\/revisions\/11092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}