NICOLE ANDREA AUBE FOCUSES ON VOICE,
Nicole Andrea Aube loves New York. “Every time I go there I feel more like myself,” says the singer-songwriter. She’s heading back in a few months. Aube is known for her acclaimed 2013 release “Philosoft.” It was produced by Ron C. Chilton with co-production by Rick Hutt and Dube at Kitchener’s Cedartree Recording Studio. The album featured local players and an impressive supporting cast from acclaimed guitarist Kevin Breit, who has played with Norah Jones and Hugh Laurie, noted beat poet C.R. Avery who has opened for Tom Waits, and violin player Shane Guse of The Western Swing Authority.
Singles from the album including “Ghost of Ignatius,” “Blackbird No. 14” and “Ninth Madder Dream (The Bangladesh Song)” received extensive nationwide radio airplay. Aube also performed in New York, Montreal, and her old home turf in Toronto.
That’s also where Aube met Chilly Gonzales while she was taking a master class.
Turns out the acclaimed Berlin-based pianist/vocalist/songwriter, who worked with Leslie Feist, Daft Punk, and Drake, was a fan.
“I have been songwriting with Chilly Gonzales as my mentor for about three years,” says Aube. “He really loved “Philosoft” but he thought that there was not enough focus on my voice and singing for the modern market,” she says.
“He encouraged me to try to make a record where my voice and singing would be the highlight and in doing so presenting something more commercial. So you will hear that a little bit more in my new songs, (including “Magic Touch,” and Listen To Your Heart,”) with my voice more front and centre,” she says.
“My songwriting process has changed a lot because I am writing songs that are more ‘singable.’
“But that’s not to say my work from before wasn’t,” she adds.
“I have taken voice lessons and mentoring in town with Charmaine Brown. Now I have more tools and more singing chops. My songwriting puts them to good use,” says Aube, who was first drawn into singing from listening to legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday.
Aube is originally from Levis, Quebec, but moved to Kitchener when she was very young. She began to write at the age of five. “Then I would hear music in my head before I went to sleep. I would imagine ballet dancers dancing to it,” says Aube, adding she took ballet as a child which still helps her with everything in life be it the self discipline or practicing everyday on her piano or guitar.
In her late teens and early twenties, Aube attended York University earning degrees in Music and English. She was also writing poems and stories, and published two books, “Waterbird” and “The Red Lantern,” in addition to performing at various festivals including Hillside and the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival.
Aube likes the poetry of Wallace Stevens who is part of the inspiration for “Philosoft” song “Blackbird No. 14.”
“I was on the train coming home from New York visiting a friend of mine I had previously met on 9/11,” she recalls.
“I had gone to New York to attend a book launch for one of my friend’s clients. There were poets and established authors at the party and I I was talking to them a lot in this very literary time. When 9/11 happened I was at university studying literature. I loved (Stevens’) poem “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” So I combined some of the imagery I had in my head with some music,” she explains. Hence “Blackbird No. 14.” “I write music on piano and guitar differently,” Aube says.
“At the piano it is usually music first. I write after. And on guitar it is more about the poetry and the lyrics. I am really trying different things all the time. I go through so many notebooks that I usually have four going at the same time which makes it difficult to travel.”
Aube has recently been in New York working with songwriter Michael Oliver Tighe who toured with late singer Jeff Buckley.
Tighe cowrote songs “Wall of Glass” and “Chinatown” for ex-Oasis singer Liam Gallagher in addition to playing guitar for Adele and Mark Ronson.
“Michael and I had been writing a little bit together online,” says Aube. “I was coming to New York and we decided to book a writing session and see how we sounded together. It worked really well and we clicked really well,” she adds.
Aube is working on a solo record for Canadian release, and a three-song EP worldwide release with co-writer Tighe. Both projects are independent and will be released this year.
She is heading back to New York for another writing session, in addition to a photo session and more vocal lessons.
For her upcoming show Aube will be performing solo, doing originals and some covers from Bob Dylan and Springsteen to Lenny Kravitz.
“I am singing “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” she says.
But Aube-style, it’s not the typical Stones cover.
“I am singing the Claudine Longet version!” she exclaims.