Vancouver musician Colleen Rennison searches for light in the darkness on her debut solo album Persephone out now on all digital streaming platforms. Listen here.
Produced by Felix Fung, who was tapped for his savant ability to conjure the vintage feel Colleen wanted, the duo’s own handpicked Wrecking Crew—including guitarist Stephen Fischer, bassist Max Sample, keyboardist Alexander Ward and drummer Shawn Mrazek—turned in a record that harkens back to the luxurious, cinematic work of showbiz queens like Bobby Gentry, Dusty Springfield, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt. It’s a fully formed, two-sided album of country, soul, and pop, hitting all the necessary points between Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Motown.
“Persephone is an album that came out of necessity, and is a culmination of my years of working as a singer/songwriter,” says Colleen. “I finally managed to get most of it down after barreling violently through this thing called life. It’s filled with the sounds that have been the tapestry of my life, bleeding Disney and disco, gospel and country, Motown and Mariah through its threadbare seams.”
The song ‘Persephone’ has been slotted as the 3rd single, following the release of ‘I Do‘ back in June. The title track is pure thrills, speeding along like a dissolute partygoer hitching a ride with the Spencer Davis Group, but it’s also loaded with meaning.
“‘Persephone’ is an ode to my motorcycle, which is named after the Greek Goddess Persephone,” says Colleen. “It started as a joke, cause my bike is so old and beat up, and Persephone is such a pretty name, but after I started looking into the story of Persephone, I found a lot of parallels to my own life and an ancient archetype in the journey of falling in love with the dark side despite the purest intentions.”
Colleen burst onto the music scene in 2011 with blues-rock group No Sinner. The band made immediate waves with music critics comparing her to blues belters like Janis Joplin and Maggie Bell, but Colleen is entirely her own invention. Her voice is technically astounding, but the experience behind it inhabits every note. She entered the film industry at the age of five and that rootless existence as a child actor is still there in her undying commitment to the performance—nobody is more explosively honest or vulnerable onstage—and also in the demons that animate her.
No Sinner achieved enormous success abroad before hitting the wall, painfully, in 2016. Attempts to generate a new career in New York and Austin left the singer in a new kind of limbo, while the bad and dangerous situations persisted. Exiling herself to Vancouver Island only deepened the crisis. Back in Vancouver she was spat out into the Downtown Eastside, where things might have gotten worse—but didn’t. Miraculously, Colleen found the help she needed. She found the right friends, the right kind of support, the internal discipline, and, finally, the creative partner she always deserved. Persephone will stand as the truest expression of her art and her first true masterpiece.
Persephone is available now on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services worldwide. For more information, please visit colleenrennison.ca.
