The past few years have been some searching ones for Alexandra Levy (aka Ada Lea). Years spent touring the world left the Montreal musician weary and wanting for what she was missing; community and a sense of purpose. She spent time reevaluating her songwriting; figuring out what she was doing with it and whom she was doing it for. She taught classes as a means to get back to understanding where it’s all coming from, teaching a songwriting course at Concordia University and co-facilitating a community-based group called The Songwriting Method. She also took classes in poetry and painting as a means of extending her creative reach. Tired of adhering to what the music industry expected from her, she sought to “engag[e] with the process rather than the product”.
The outcome – from a musical perspective at least – is when i paint my masterpiece, Levy’s most sprawling album to date. It’s a record inquisitive about the world as she tries to capture strands from her surroundings and translate them through a lens of making sense of what her impetus for creation is. Levy notes mythical novelist Olga Tokarczuk and surrealist painter-novelist Leonora Carrington as sources of inspiration during its creation. It’s less experimental and daring than 2021’s one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden, more rooted in capturing acoustic and live creation with a band (which features Tasy Hudson on drums, Chris Hauer on lead guitar, Summer Kodama on bass). Compared to her previous work it feels like her smoothest record to date, but still with plenty of Levy’s own stylings that make it unmistakably her own work.
Perhaps Levy’s most distinguishing feature is her wordy lyricism. She still fills songs with words like she’s up against the clock, determined not to let any detail go unmentioned, or to meet a word count. It’s not overtly stuffy and heady, but can leave the listener spinning a bit afterwards; it can take a few passes to start to unpack the setting, let alone any concise meaning. Her keen lyricism shines through in moments from the start though: “Just like in a museum / We keep a little distance”; “love is a knife pushing its way through a crack / that’s how it gets in, you say, the love.” Levy’s work has always come with an invitation to sit and stay with it for a while; on when i paint my masterpiece she seems to be inviting us to get comfortable and stay the whole afternoon.
Where the album stumbles a little is just how dense it can feel, despite everything feeling very airy and loose. Whittled down from over 200 songs, the 16 tracks on when i paint my masterpiece are as fine a collection of Ada Lea tracks as any that showcase her range, from the lightfooted piano lilt of “midnight magic”, to the Adrianne Lenker-like phrasing on “baby blue frigidaire mini fridge”, to the wistful chorus of “there is only one thing on my mind”. Even when it can sometimes be hard to distinguish where one track ends and the other begins, each song has something to enjoy, be it the sleek and soothing guitar solo on “something in the wind”, the self-reflective wry humour of “bob dylan’s 115th haircut”, or the light touch of accordion against a brisk guitar riff on “down under the van horne overpass”. It’s all likeable and enjoyable (apart, perhaps, from the opening “moon blossom”, which may rub some listeners up the wrong way with it’s loose-fitting vocals), but even with careful listens, dedicated time, and lyrics at hand, like an art gallery with every space on the wall filled, it can feel like too much to take in.
It’s safe and understandable then to say that this isn’t Levy’s masterpiece – which is something she does make clear in the title from the get go – but it feels like a necessary step to get her towards it. She’s such a productive songwriter (again, she wrote over 200 songs for this album) that it feels like just a matter of time before we get a collection of work that captures her true essence in one fell swoop, a record that will be easy to wander about in over and over, and will last for ages. With when i paint my masterpiece and what came before it, she gets closer to this peak; this may not be a step upwards, but it is a step forward in the overall right direction. Like an artist buying more paint, brushes, and canvasses, Levy goes on creating. It’s the process that’s important, and as spacious and enjoyable as the album is at its best moments, it primarily feels like a necessary step to reevaluate inspiration and impetus.
