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Leif Vollebekk Sees His Song 'Hot Tears' As Yellow

Leif Vollebekk performing live for World Cafe
Jamie Stow
/
WXPN
Leif Vollebekk performing live for World Cafe

About three years ago, Leif Vollebekk was set to release Twin Solitude,an album he thought might end up being his last. He felt like he wasn't having fun or finding an audience. But once the album came out, that all changed. Twin Solitude was critically lauded, and his shows started filling up. The record was shortlisted for his home country's prestigious Polaris Music Prize. So the Canadian songwriter kept going.

Vollebekk's new album, New Ways,finds him expanding on a technique he used on some of Twin Solitude's most beloved songs: He recorded with only a drummer, adding the other parts later. In this session, he'll explain how that worked. We also talk about what it's like being a musician with synesthesia, plus how that's affected what he likes and doesn't like when it comes to music, as well as how he approaches music videos. We start off with "Hot Tears," a song he has described as appearing "yellow." Hear that and more in the audio player above.

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Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).