An Evening with Doug Paisley, and guests

Since the release of his self-titled debut fifteen years ago, Doug Paisley has earned accolades for unflinchingly self-reflective songs delivered with simplicity and beauty. Though Paisley has always collaborated with topnotch Canadian musicians including luminaries like Garth Hudson, Leslie Feist, and Mary Margaret O’Hara, his records have drawn poignancy also from moments where the listener hears Paisley as he most often hears himself: unadorned and alone with his guitar. The critical response to Paisley’s sophomore release, Constant Companion, underlined this quality. MOJO, naming the album one of the top ten of 2010, found in its “rare kind of purity” evidence that “an anti-star is born”. While Rolling Stone deemed it to be a “nearly perfect singer-songwriter record”, UNCUT described it as “sure-footed and ageless… uncluttered, sad and unerringly lovely.” The “quiet and contemplative” nature of Paisley’s last record, Starter Home, continued this trend, earning it a place in The New Yorker’s top ten albums of 2018.

Now, Paisley announces his new record, Say What You Like, which underscores his prowess as a songwriter, while exploring new sonic terrain with producer Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas). He’s also sharing the album’s title track, of which Paisley says, “when something important disappears from your life your imagination is sometimes called upon to fill the gaps. You could fill another universe with all the things people imagine other people are saying or thinking about them. The second verse was written ten years after the first.”