DINAH THORPE UNVEILS LATEST ALBUM FOR THE BIRDS TODAY
JOINS MASTER T FROM RX MUSIC ON INSTAGRAM LIVE TODAY AT 3:00 P.M. ET
Toronto, ON – November 27, 2020 – Today, Toronto-based multitalented musician, Dinah Thorpe, shares her newest full-length project, For The Birds. The record showcases the work of an artist who has arrived. It is thoughtful and danceable, intricate and beautiful, which listeners have already been exposed to with the previous releases of lead single, The Spring Flowers, and title track, For The Birds. The record is comprised of 10 new fully original tracks, all written by Thorpe herself, as well as an enchanting cover of the Kacey Musgraves song, Slow Burn, and record closer, Karpas, which features words from the Haggadah. Listen to the full record here. In celebration of her new record, Dinah will be joining Master T from RX Music Live today at 3:00 p.m. ET for an interview and performance session – tune in here.
Thorpe says of the record, “I worked on this record for a really long time – way longer than I have ever worked on anything. The oldest song is six years old and the newest song is six months old. It’s exciting and scary to release something that I have held so close and shaped so carefully.
This is my first album where I feel like I am handing the world my insides – and the first one where I am showing a lot of my outsides,” she continues. “About half of For the Birds was written in COVID times, and I am hoping that my music and my visibility can be of some use to some people in this really scary and isolating time. The songs come from my life, and from the things that thrill and terrify and devastate me.”
Thorpe has been called “a composer of infinite cleverness”, a singer with a “gorgeously deep and weary alto”, “a wicked multi-instrumentalist”, and “provocative and supremely artful”. Drawing on a diverse range of influences – from folk to trip-hop, orchestral to techno – she has created a musical style that is unmistakably her own. The Spring Flowers was written during the beginning stages of the pandemic when everything seemed uncertain and strange. During this time, Spring arrived and shone some beauty into people’s worlds. In contrast, For The Birds was written pre-pandemic but could still be relatable to the times the world is experiencing today, “It’s about feeling trapped and suffocated inside the walls of your home, while also appreciating the people and other animals you live with,” Thorpe notes.
For Thorpe, the album title has three meanings. “First, I realized I was singing about birds a lot, and joked that I should name the album for them. Then I learned the meaning of the phrase – worthless, unimportant, like horse droppings in the street – and I liked the double meaning,” she explains. “It’s a sort of tongue-in-cheek reference to life as a working artist. Most recently, I realized that “for the birds” can also mean “for the women,” and so of course I am down with that one as well. It’s all sort of serious and sort of a joke, which is perhaps a good introduction to my artistic work more generally.”
Thorpe has shared a stage with Jeremy Dutcher, The Cliks, Sondre Lerche, Eternia, and Buck 65. Her festival appearances have included POP Montréal, Hillside, NXNE, Europride, In the Dead of Winter, Mayworks, and Ladyfest. Thorpe’s music has been featured on MTV's Sixteen and Pregnant, Anderson Cooper Specials, NBA Inside Stuff, and the soundtrack for the film Love American Skin. She has also received two JUNO Award nominations for Recording Package of the Year and an Independent Music Award nomination, and recently inked a publishing deal with hard Music Design.
Thorpe’s side projects include The Mistress Class – a workshop series organized with the Canadian Music Centre and the Songwriters Association of Canada, and Superbutch – parties and performances that celebrate queer masculinities. Thorpe is also an active community member, delivering free food by bike and marshalling anti-racist demos with The Toronto Bike Brigade and The People’s Pantry.
