Release Date: April 7, 2023

MKB INDEPENDENT RADIO ALBUM OF THE WEEK 20/02/2023 

Lynn Miles has earned her reputation as one of Canada’s most formidable songwriters, having written more than 900 songs and released 15 albums over her remarkable career. She’s racked up multiple Juno Awards, Canadian Folk Music Awards, had two albums voted #1 by readers of Penguin Eggs magazine, and had her songs covered by a multitude of artists including Claire Lynch on her Grammy-nominated album North by South. She is a producer, professor and public speaker, a paragon of excellence in everything she does. You could say she is reliable. The songs on her 16th album, TumbleWeedyWorld, however, are about unreliability. About shaky situations. About a time when cracks begin to appear in everything.

“These are songs that arrive at a moment when global instability illuminated the fragility of personal relationships. They’re about impermanence (“I’m a lonesome drifting girl / In my tumbleweedyworld”). About incompatibility (“I wish you were a night owl, too”). About the left (‘Johnny Without June’) and about the leaving (‘Hide Your Heart’). About spiteful endings (‘All Bitter Never Sweet’). About how those endings are never crystal clear, about the complications of regret (“All these years I’ve been carrying around this heart / There’s always been a tiny missing part / I couldn’t name it or maybe I wouldn’t dare / Cause I know I’d have to walk through fire to go back there”). They’re songs about navigating life’s hurdles, about dodging tumbleweeds, about leaving stuck situations. On the surface, they’re hurtin’ songs about two people who can’t make things work.”

Dig deeper, however - as Lynn Miles does - and they’re about every kind of relationship where ‘Sorry’s Just Not Good Enough’.

TumbleWeedyWorld, as we’ve come to expect from Lynn Miles, sparkles from start to finish. Her emotive, empathetic vocals are situated in bluegrass-style arrangements with nods to pop and country. Surrounded by first-class instrumentalists, Miles’ voice always remains central, carrying each lyric with breathtaking clarity and heart-wrenching emotion, showcasing her talent as a singer and songwriter.