artist Brandon Quigley

Brandon Quigley is a restless soul and a reluctant musician, but a relentless songwriter. He’s lived all over the country, moving from Toronto to Iqaluit to Edmonton in just the past few years.  But the whole time he’s been writing songs.  He’s kept on writing until there were so many bubbling up, scrawled on scraps of paper and jotted down in notebooks, that they were impossible to ignore.  Neighbours heard them muffled through walls. Then slowly they were played for audiences: for a few friends, then in bars and house parties, to large festivals. Songs dug up under icy rocks along the frozen shores of Baffin Island, blowing in the prairie winds of Alberta, nestled amid crumbling brick buildings in Toronto, and along the roadsides and jet streams in between.  Songs that are often deeply personal but also tell the story of the people and places in this big country that seems at times so disparate, but remembers that, ultimately, “there’s a thread connecting you and me.”

The final piece in the puzzle for the indie/folk singer/songwriter was connecting first with banjo player Laura Bowman, then percussionist Mikey Muscat. Together, they created a sonically dynamic but straightforward live sound that impressed audiences around Edmonton, and is captured faithfully on Thread. In early 2011, a handful of songs were captured in an intimate home studio, resulting in Thread, Quigley’s first album.
 
The songs on the album run the gamut from old fashioned Hank Williams Sr. style warbling on songs such as “Ain’t No Feeling” and “Our Exes are Getting Married,” to clear-eyed confessionals along the lines of Wilco or Paul Westerberg, such as “Hard Man to Love.”

Quigley has now come full circle, recently moving home to the Toronto area once again, but with the sounds of his experiences documented on Thread. Look for him on tour in the spring of 2012.