Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

It's no wonder Cousins is the object of audience affection...” -- The Boston Globe

A native of PEI, now residing in Halifax, Rose Cousins finds insight in solitude and strength in numbers. Supported by a thriving Halifax music scene and welcomed by an equally vibrant Boston community, her latest album We Have Made A Spark (2012) was made in the spirit of community and collaboration. We Have Made A Spark follows Cousins' two multi-award-winning albums The Send Off (2009) produced by Luke Doucet and If You Were For Me (2006) produced by CBC in Halifax. Yet another collection of stunning songs by Rose Cousins, her third album braves weighty topics.

Rooted in authenticity and conviction of voice, from driving opening track "The Darkness" to stark piano ballad "Go First", you feel as though Rose Cousins sings for you, about your life. It is that sincerity that leads some to compare Cousins to our most beloved songwriters, and yet, her passionate delivery is distinctly, Rose. From writing songs in a tiny cabin without electricity on a New Hampshire island ("All The Stars," "The Shell") to the stage of one her many international tour stops her lone voice reaches out to listeners, all of us surrounded by our own forms of darkness, and charges us to have the courage to forge ahead.

“Cousins' latest album, We Have Made A Spark, is nothing short of sublime and was justly nominated earlier this year for the Polaris Music Prize as Best Canadian Album. It didn't win but got lots of votes and is surely one of the best records made in Canada over the past decade let alone the past year. Think Joni Mitchell's Blue or any one of Cohen's poetic manifestos - Spark matches those Canadian classics in its compositional rigour and intense performances.”
-- John Goodman, North Shore News

www.rosecousins.com

Del Barber is the son of a draft dodger. He grew up in southern Manitoba, balanced on the line that separates town from country. His heroes yielded hockey sticks and fishing rods. Del woke up one morning at 19-years-old and he began to run. Any train, bus, road or trail, fuelled his desire to see more at whatever cost. He traded his athletic heroes for writers that died young. He chased Jack Kerouac’s ghost across the continent, working dozens of jobs to get there. Del also planted trees in northern B.C., served coffee and breakfast in Georgia, and drove drug addicts to their court dates in Winnipeg. He worked as mountain guide, a janitor, a construction worker, a groundskeeper, a landscaper, a farmer, a counsellor, an ice-maker, a teacher’s assistant, a driver, a roofer, a fisherman and more; in 15 states and 8 Provinces.

At its core, Del Barber’s album Headwaters is about searching for the source of our desires, and the freedom that comes from understanding the ways in which the sources influence our directions. Rivers can’t change where they begin, or where they run, neither can we change our histories or escape their influence on us. Headwaters is a collection of parables, hymns and manifestos, stories of love and loss, sadness and joy, threaded together by the search for an ultimate source. Headwaters is his third record in four years.

Del is 28-years-old, a guitar player and a songwriter. Sometimes he preaches, sometimes he rhymes and he knows that he will never do anything but this. His world has turned into managers, agents, airports, festivals and promoters, but his source is still just a dashboard, a radio, a guitar and a pen.

www.delbarber.com