L Con + James Irwin

Event Description

L Con + James Irwin

L CON
L CON is the project of Lisa Conway-Bühler, a composer, sound artist, songwriter, producer, recordist, and mix engineer based in Montréal. An artist who continually tries to push herself into the unfamiliar, she has written original scores and songs for documentaries, short films, and theatre productions, created site-specific multi-channel sound and light installations, and collaborated with contemporary dancers and performance artists.

Lisa’s solo releases as L CON have received positive press from publications like CBC, The Fader, Uproxx, Tiny Mix Tapes, Exclaim, and Earmilk, with comparisons drawn to Feist, Agnes Obel, Beth Gibbons, and Jenny Hval. In 2023, she released two albums, the instrumental “SOUNDMILL improvisations” on limited edition tape (via Toronto label Halocline Trance), as well a full-length album of songs (vinyl + digital) on Idée Fixe records.

“avant-garde pop for wayward souls” — Broken Pencil

“Conway is bound for greatness, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.” — Toronto Star

JAMES IRWIN
James Irwin writes songs with a plainspoken beauty in the spirit of Gillian Welch or Bill Callahan. With a voice often likened to Arthur Russell’s, he shares Russell’s curiosity for any and all genres. Stars Blue Wheel, (2020), an album of cosmic country songs written in response to the deaths of Jason Molina, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, David Bowie, and James’s dear friend Katherine Peacock, is the most graceful James Irwin recording yet in terms of sound, lyric, and vibe. A tight palette of blue-lit images gather meaning across all nine songs.

Previous albums Western Transport (2012), Unreal (2015), and Shabbytown (2017) gave James a singular reputation in Montreal as a folksinger at home in the arty, lofty music scene of that city’s heyday. Despite ten years of shifting from outsider folk to low-fi 80s pop to indie rock and back, the mood and lyrical voice of James’s music has always been unmistakable. Bandmates used to call it “Jamesing”. He now lives in Toronto where he’s been on hiatus writing a novel about growing up in a religious commune in Oklahoma.

James also played in bands The Moment, My People Sleeping, Paradise, Poor William, The Coal Choir and has occasionally also released albums under pseudonyms like Transparents and Mamatschi.