Biography
Toronto-based Lauren Best, keyboardist for alt-electro group Girl + The Machine on Aporia Records and indie-pop band Beekeeper Society, delivers unique, campy and engaging pop on her self-released full-length solo debut, Sticker Collection.
“The album paints a picture using a series of stories,” says the 20-year-old. “This story, as a whole, is about the characters we all embody at one time or another, and how those characters grow and change as our whole selves do. It’s about how we live as different people.”
Self-produced with associate producers Tyler Wagler and Adam Hall, Lauren wrote all 12 songs by the time she was 17 and is backed on the recording by such acclaimed players as pianist/organist Michael Fonfara (The Downchild Blues Band, Lou Reed), saxophonist Colleen Allan (Ani Di Franco, Anne Murray, Holly Cole) and award-winning jazz drummer Archie Alleyne. Accompanying herself on piano too, Lauren’s alt-pop reveals a quirky singer-songwriter with diverse influences.
Tom Power of CBC’s Deep Roots introduced one song, “Soaked to Soul,” as “sort of Klezmer, sort of Romanian, sort of Leonard Cohen.” But there are many other sounds on Sticker Collection. From the horn-injected lead track, “Sex and Self Destruction” to the jazzy confessional “Biography of a Good Girl” and plaintive ballad “Tangled Up with You”, her detailed lyrics are mini-stories, unique and personal.
“The lyrics, in those that do not have souls allowing them to be infected by music, can at least take the mind of the listener for a spin, give it the opportunity to consider something that was made of passion. And when I say passion, I mean it not just as inspiration, but compulsion,” Lauren says.
Lauren’s own compulsion began in childhood — and hasn’t stopped.
Born in Mississauga, Ontario, she made her big-stage debut at age 7 with the legendary Salome Bey at Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. This kicked off the youngster’s good fortune of working with seasoned professionals that helped shape her musical intuition. After her family moved to Owen Sound, ON, when she was 9, Lauren partook in the youth mentorship program at the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals, mentored by award-winning folk artist/playwright Evalyn Parry.
In time, Lauren started performing cover songs and by high school found the confidence to include her growing repertoire of originals. At 16, she formed her band, Renegade Company, with which she performs to this day in varying configuration, when not playing solo. Their notable gigs include Summerfolk ’07 and the opening ceremonies of Owen Sound’s 150th Homecoming. The poetic nature of Lauren’s songs also led to performances with the local spoken word community and, in June 2008, she was declared Owen Sound’s poet of the month.
By then, in her last semester of grade 12, Lauren began recording her debut album. She commuted between Owen Sound and Toronto to record or work with arrangers until August 2008 when she moved there full time. Since becoming a part of Toronto’s thriving live scene, she has been warmly embraced by such mainstays as David Sereda at his Stray Dog Salon, and Jeff Jones (Burton Cummings, Ocean, Ronnie Hawkins) at his acoustic residency at cafe Le Cantina.
Lauren also joined the improvisational Element Choir, performing with Toronto’s One Hundred Dollars, at the Wavelength concert series, and Kitchener-Waterloo’s Open Ears Festival with world-renown composer R. Murray Schafer. In the summer of 2010, Lauren also received a bursary to perform at the Winnipeg Folk Festival under the mentorship of the Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson.
While Lauren will continue to collaborate with other artists and hone her skills whenever she can, she is excited after three long years to unleash Sticker Collection. “This (album) is a series of monologues from characters that are all fictional and all talking about things that are totally real,” she says. “This is about what goes on when you aren’t trying to make a change, about the struggle to keep it together so you can keep making music, and the only way to talk about it is to make music.”
And that’s what she did.
“Lauren Best’s poetry is a breath of fresh air … Lauren is wise, as they say, beyond her years. And so very talented lyrically and musically. I was entranced and enthralled and recommend that you visit her online at the Sun Times Music Gallery and wherever else she hangs out, until you get the chance to hear her live.” -Liz Zetlin, former Poet Laureate of Owen Sound
