Shadow Child

Description

Every mother has a unique story. One thing is certain for all mothers: there is no deadline more pressing than a pregnancy. Award-winning Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell was pregnant with her first child when she booked a studio on Vancouver Island to record an album about motherhood. The nine songs on Shadow Child — one for each month of pregnancy — had to be ready before that date, and her return flight was booked on the last day she could safely travel during her third trimester. Collaborating with producer Colin Stewart (Dan Mangan, Black Mountain), Lapell finalized her songs in the studio and on countryside walks along the Pacific Ocean. She brought in some of her favorite female singers, all from British Columbia and all mothers: Frazey Ford, Jill Barber, and Pharis Romero. "They are all people with unique and distinctive voices," she says, "and that's what draws me to them." Musically, Lapell aimed for a stripped-down acoustic sound, unlike her 2024 Juno-nominated album "Anniversary" (recorded in Niagara with Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers) and the critically acclaimed "Stolen Time" from 2022 (recorded in Montreal with Howard Bilerman, featuring saxophonist Jake Clemons of the E Street Band). Her path to motherhood was fraught with obstacles, marked by years of in vitro fertilization and a miscarriage in 2023 — which she experienced on stage during a tour. (She finished her show nonetheless.) Her son was born in November 2024. The song cycle "Shadow Child" explores joy and loss, through metaphors inspired by the Maritimes tragedy, "little cannibals," reproductive health, language acquisition, and lives upended by the arrival of a newborn. The title track refers to the ultrasound of "a person in the making, who doesn't quite exist yet," Lapell explains. "Their status is ontologically ambiguous." The album Shadow Child will be released on May 8, Mother's Day weekend, on CD, digital, and lavender vinyl. The singles "Hazel," "Shadow Child," and "So Long" will be available starting in January.