TORONTO SINGER-SONGWRITER JULIAN TAYLOR RELEASES INTROSPECTIVE NEW PATHWAYS ALBUM
Featuring “Love Letters”, an Exploration of Unrequited Love
ONTARIO, CA. – (27th September, 2024) – Toronto singer-songwriter and 4x JUNO nominee Julian Taylor is unveiling a new studio album, the genre-spanning work of rich inner reflection that is Pathways.
Co-produced by Taylor and Colin Linden (Emmylou Harris, Bruce Cockburn, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings), Pathways finds Taylor embracing a “simplify” mantra in his writing while showcasing his range as a writer and performer on jazz and blues inflected tracks (“Sixth Line Road,” “Running Away”), nimble and vulnerable folk (“Ain’t Life Strange” and “Weighing Down”), and the album’s stately title track, a ballad featuring none other than Grammy award-winning songstress, Allison Russell.
Listen to Pathways HERE.
Taylor collaborated with co-writer Tyler Ellis to develop the album’s focus track, “Love Letters”, a poetic and earnest folk reflection on unrequited love and how people all throughout time have poured their hearts out and written letters to people that they care about.
Gentle accordion, upright bass, and mandolin provide the track with a warm and nostalgic atmosphere, reflecting the deep history of vulnerable expressions of love which the song mines.
“On this record, I’m sharing in the struggles we all face, and I’m trying to make it better through these songs” shares Taylor. “‘Pathways’ lays down the long, winding trail that leads its listeners toward finding their own personal zen amidst much internal discord. In Taylor’s view, three words sum Pathways up perfectly. “It’s about righteousness, acceptance, and enlightenment.”
It’s another benchmark album by the always searching, always striving career songwriter, an artist who continues to connect with his audience by creating new yet artfully familiar pathways we can all take together — and hopefully come out the other side, all the better for having taken the journey.
ABOUT JULIAN TAYLOR:
Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has been part of the musical fabric and landscape in Canada for two decades. Taylor enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2020, when his second solo acoustic album, The Ridge, earned more than five million plays on Spotify, praise from press worldwide, and airplay across the world. In addition to winning Taylor Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, The Ridge was also nominated for two Juno Awards (Contemporary Folk Album of The Year, Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year), the Polaris Prize Long List, a Summer Solstice Indigenous Award (Contemporary Folk Album of the Year), a Canadian Music Week INDIES Award (Indigenous Artist of the Year), and an additional Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination in the English Songwriter of the Year category. The nominations and awards kept coming in 2022, with Taylor winning best male artist in the International Acoustic Music Awards and scoring five Native American Music Award nominations. In 2023, Taylor received a nomination in the Country Music Association of Ontario Awards in the Roots Artist of the Year category, and a further nomination for a Juno Award in the Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year category.
Formerly associated with the band Staggered Crossing, he has continued to record and perform as a solo artist and has released 12 studio albums since 2001. With his songs being placed in such TV shows as “Haven,” “Private Eyes,” “Kim’s Convenience,” “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” and “Elementary,” his versatility as a songwriter is signature.
Taylor is an explosive and captivating live performer, having toured Canada, U.S. and Europe numerous times and sharing the stage with the likes of Serena Ryder, Blue Rodeo, William Prince, AHI, Rodney Crowell, Keb’ Mo’. Taylor also performed at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and Vancouver.