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The Isolator

by L CON

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Art Fin
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Art Fin Some artists cannot be confined to any genre and do something different every album if not every song, like My Brightest Diamond, and perhaps L CON too. Do to a human need to classify things, we might call this avant-pop. L CON's adventurous catalog may include orchestral pop, electropop and improvised synth loops.
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Pressed on black vinyl with a semi gloss jacket and printed inner sleeve with lyrics.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Isolator via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.
2.
Heimatort 04:29
my mother told me there's a place if I'm not enough, I'll be enough maybe the valley knows my name eagle standing tough blood is blood is blood lay down, lay down you're home now it's quite an or dinary place am I not enough? can I be enough? the mountains heavy in the haze if your grandparents knew - what is, what is true? lay down, lay down you're home now
3.
Hold 02:42
hold, wait and see - what’s going on? your energy is not a certain one in her eyes thoughts of light seem blind hold wait and see - you’re uncertain one in the other and the other inside you’re both one and the other and the other in sight not holding on not holding stop holding stop holding
4.
Appear 03:20
what is the word the word to define the weight of it all the weight of the time first we have the words the words that we find soft leaning, tender it’s a state of mind at last she comes she will appear you say you like all that you see in me
5.
holding on to dreams where you belong only sunny days, never felt afraid clear mountain air, wind tangling your hair in the remembering, visions shape-shifting you say you “can’t wait to!” “you’re coming home real soon” but when you can’t wait to you’re coming home real soon the neighbours they go on and on “you must have missed old nature’s song!” “heard city folk are all so cold! aren’t you glad to be back home?...” …away from city haze, lights bet they don’t really know you’ve changed, not stayed the same oo Clara I - I miss our life oo Clara I - I’d never lie
6.
I spot her from across the room heard she sings in perfect tune four languages and a bookshelf of poetry! clutch my drink tight to my chest missed the class on how to dress so effortlessly - she radiates I wanna be I want to be just like you but also me someone you’d think is cool to be an ordinary extraordinary, ordinary extraordinary girl I wanna be I wanna be just like you but also me someone you think you’d like to be an ordinary extraordinary, ordinary extraordinary woman could it be there’s no other? no other I can hold onto? could it be there’s no other, no other who loves me like you? could it be there's no other, no other in the heat of the summer? could it be there’s no other, no other I can hold onto?
7.
The Isolator 03:43
well if the light comes shining on me I’ll be deep in the mountains an island without a sea I could be the one to have it all standing in the ash I’ll never fall “oh what an enigma” they’ll say “how’d she make it through?” yes I could be the one to have it all the anti-social socialite at every ball I could be the one to have it all she’s polite but never answers when you call “oh what an enigma” they’ll say “how’d you know it’s true?” you see the ones you lost carry on without a care or thought you say your friends you knew would save you don’t have time keep pretending maybe one day you’ll feel fine you see the ones you lost
8.
Too Much 02:59
I keep saying that it’s too much I keep saying that it’s too much I keep saying that it’s too much I keep saying that it’s too much I say it in my body I say it with my eyes I say it in my body I say it with my smile
9.
what do I believe in? what do I believe anymore? do I have something to say when the words don’t come? what thoughts am I conceiving? are they really mine anymore? I’m just slipping away and the words won’t come well, am I missing, am I gone? faded away, big pile of nothing am I missing, am I gone? I know we’re one, somewhere within hold it all inside - this might last glimmer of delight - this might last hold it all inside - this might last ever shifting, ever slight - it’s the past
10.

about

Reaching across the Atlantic to the lofty mountain ranges of her Swiss heritage, Lisa Conway (aka L CON) began to write and record "The Isolator" during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Composing music for the German production of a theatrical play remotely from her studio in Guelph, Canada and navigating a calendar otherwise wiped blank, she sought to anchor herself and hone her piano chops by enrolling in online lessons. Encouraged by her teacher to lean into what felt comfortable, Conway found herself repeating short sequences on the piano when it occurred to her to pursue a record that would allow her to exist in her comforts.

“Not that I wasn't striving towards artistic growth and challenging myself on this record,” Conway clarifies, “but I finally gave myself permission to fully live in sound worlds and lean into writing tendencies that are very instinctual and restorative to me.”

The album opens with dusty tape loops of Conway’s compositions for alphorns, traditional wooden horns originally used as a means of alpine communication, and sets the scene for The Isolator as a deeply personal and vulnerable exploration of Conway’s relationship to her dual citizenship with Switzerland. Taking its title from a line on her Swiss passport that indicates one’s “home place” or “place of origin,” lead track "Heimatort" contrasts widescreen, mountainous expanses of sound design with comparably dense minimalist melody lines. While a short, circular musical phrase played on a Prophet synthesizer repeats and inverts, Conway lyrically untangles complex layers of feelings towards her inherited hometown.

“When you're told stories as a child, you create a mythology about a place — my heimatort is a little town in the mountains I was told I could return to if I was ever in trouble and needed to be taken care of,” Conway says. “As an adult, I'm faced with the practical reality of what that would actually look like — many of my family members are buried there, but I don't have a place to stay, or someone to call, and the rest of my family lives in other areas. How at home do I really feel in my ‘home place’?”

A conflicted record bouncing between romanticism and the loneliness of navigating the layers of your identity, "The Isolator" dials into the stories we’ve internalized about nationality, home, our families, and ourselves. Thankfully, this sort of reflective work was not done entirely alone: the album features an array of contributions from musicians including Drew Jurecka, Cedric Noel, Karen Ng, Isla Craig, Victoria Cheong, Morgan Doctor, and more.

Holding Swiss exceptionalism to task, title-track "The Isolator" blossoms from a lonely piano ballad to a sweeping string ensemble suite, while "What If Heidi Likes the City" (a riff on Heidi, the popular and frequently adapted 19th-century Swiss children’s story Conway has known most of her life) flips the script on the traditional pastoral romance to underline an inexpressible emptiness that can be felt after leaving city life for a rural existence. On "Big Pile of Nothing", Conway struggles to take stock of what’s concrete and questions what she can really hold true, singing over a spiraling piano progression and swelling strings.

An intimate, modernist expression from a singular artist whose work in sound art and composition continually pushes her into the unfamiliar, The Isolator arrives as a resolute and deeply lived interrogation of self, wrapped in stunning sonics, lush string arrangements and L CON’s remarkable voice.

credits

released May 12, 2023

written, produced & arranged by lisa conway // lisa conway-bühler.
strings arranged & orchestrated by lisa conway.
final string score prep assisted by cory harper-latkovich.
mixed by scott merritt with lisa conway at the cottaGe, guelph, ontario.
except for tape loop pieces and ordinary girl mixed by lisa at her home studio.
mastered by harris newman.

cover photo & additional photography by raisa durandi, assisted by julia kopp. makeup & hair by najat zinbi. clothes from rose waterfalls vintage. danke für die fahrt zur bergstation und für die gute betreuung, gasthaus bergli.

big big love to my family & friend family. this work wouldn’t be possible without you.

This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters. Ce projet est financé en partie par FACTOR, le gouvernement du Canada et les radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada.

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L CON Montreal, Québec

L CON is the ever-evolving project of composer, producer, singer + sonic adventurer Lisa Conway.

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