Chris Velan - Songs About Songs (2023)

Montreal songwriter, musician and producer, Chris Velan, had enough sense to get out of the way of the songs that presented themselves over the several years following the release of his last album, “Amateur Hour”, in 2018. There was a lot happening in his life: A budding relationship, a global pandemic, a puppy and then, the unexpected news that he would become a dad. It all made for an emotionally vertiginous mix of joy and anxiety that found their expression in songs that one by one took form and assumed their positions in the star chart that became his latest album, Songs About Songs.

Velan instinctively knew that he wanted to make a document that captured something with enough light to lift him out of the complex ennui of the moment. So he committed himself to the deceptively simple task of keeping things simple and trying to embrace a sense of wonder in the mundane, unfolding moments of an uncertain future. For song subjects, he seized upon what was within reach in his radically-confined reality: Post-it notes, gardening, the ghost of the woman who used to own his house, a run-in on the street with an old lover, a songwriting prompt from an online writers’ workshop, his beloved hometown. What emerged are tunes that grapple with having to reconcile that which we wanted for ourselves and that which we got; that learn to forgive ourselves for not being extraordinary; that seek to accept with gratitude the love we’ve been given.

When it came time for recording, Velan tracked the songs in his home studio over five days with a cohort of stellar Montreal musician friends who made the trip to his house in the country. The resulting tracks, recorded live, mine sounds that feel vintage and nostalgic even as they look forward with hope.

Ironically, in his effort to keep things simple, Velan ended up getting tangled in the messy metaphor of songwriting itself: “I noticed at some point that a lot of these songs were incorporating writing terminiology in their lyrics: Hymns, cover songs, plagiarism, film cameos, sticky notes. It was as though the songs had something to say about themselves.” This lead Velan to pen the final and title track of the album, a wry peaen to the craft he has dedicated himself to for more than two decades. Explains Velan, “It’s a fraught undertaking using a songs to unravel your knots and discover your truths. They’re capable of great things but more often than not as flawed as the one writing them.”