She'll be Bach
Dave Jaffer
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Higgs: Blessed with a voice that is both raspy and delicate
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Halifax's Higgs is attracting some intense attention
Rebekah Higgs, warbling Haligonian "folktronica" songstress and advice-giver extraordinaire, can deal with most things. She can deal with getting overstimulated at South by Southwest, the Austin, Texas music and arts festival she attended for the first time in March. She can deal with the pressures attendant to having two music careers on the go, as side project Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees are almost ready to bring their well-dressed electro stylings out of Halifax. What she's not yet accustomed to is the gushing, intense, out-there fan."I had this weird experience with this kid afterwards who came up to me," she says, discussing a recent gig. "He was a classical musician and he was like, 'You are very abstract! I mean, you're like Bach, 400 years later! The evolution of Bach 400 years later! You are the evolution of where classical music is going. I can't wrap my head around it. The time signatures that you use... is this thought out, do you plan this? Tell me your process.'"
Sounds like heavy drug use with a pretension chaser to me. To Higgs?
"I was kind of like, 'This is interesting, but I feel like you've never ever been to a rock show, or never really left your room before.' I don't really think I'm doing anything that's that avant-garde, but he was convinced."
Blessed with a voice that's both raspy and delicate, Higgs is already well known in Eastern Canada and a regular at Halifax's various venues, but 2008 looks to be the year she explodes, as
she's playing too many places to avoid notice. Her schedule, after Ottawa, includes "17 or 18 shows in the month of May." Then, later this year, she anticipates stops at Hillside, Wolfe Island, the Stan Rogers Folk Festival, and most probably Pop Montreal.So, whether she's the second coming of Bach or not, Higgs has, in a very short time, become very relevant in Canadian music, and while some are comfortable discussing her as the next Feist, she's happy being the first Rebekah Higgs. And, in true Higgsian fashion, she wanted me to tell y'all to keep supporting Canadian music.
"People aren't taking chances - just looking at a CD and buying it in a store," she says, championing an old-school approach to being a music fan. "Going to see a show is something you can't download. You can't download a T-shirt, or a pin."
Rebekah Higgs
w/ Amanda Bon
@ Zaphod Beeblebrox
May 3
$8
