Edmonton indie-pop songster St.Arnaud is a little bit of everywhere to everyone. Working alongside his brother and fellow creative, the YouTube animator GingerPale, St.Arnaud found a loving home on YouTube and Spotify with legions of eager listeners and was swept up in dozens of tour dates across Canada and the USA. His debut album was a DIY tour-de-force of fun-loving melodies overlaying themes of death, loss, and anxiety. His new album, 2022’s Love and the Front Lawn continues the sad lyrics/happy melodies framework but with a new instrumental palette.

“I want the album to continue the thread of self-reflection, vulnerability, and rawness” that made up The Cost of Living (2019) says St.Arnaud, “but with notable departures in texture and form.” Steeping in the likes of the raucous and fun-loving 70s’ Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, the ghostly and intimate Damien Jurado, and the wandering and clever narratives of Charlotte Cornfield, Ian didn’t forget about his innate talent for writing singable hooks and to practice his sha-la-las.  Moving through self-doubt, loving, leaving and being left, and anxiously wasting away through some of the best years of one’s life, Love and the Front Lawn is the catchiest self-reminder to be kinder to yourself, to let go and try to enjoy where you are. Working with producer Graham Lessard (Basia Bulat, Stars) brings out the texture and dark corners of the songs through slippery slide guitar and keyboards through.

By the release of his debut album at 24, St.Arnaud found himself to be an old hand on the folk festival circuit, a University graduate in Neuroscience, an accidental overdose survivor, and at a loss for what to do with himself next. The previous fall his bandmate, friend, and at times antagonist, was hit by a train, thus dissolving his Americana/folk pop trio North of Here. To honour the loss of his friend, St.Arnaud reworked and rewrote the songs he had written for the already hauntingly titled The Cost of Living. Harkening back to 60s protest folk and 70s early indie, Ian’s beaming, clever lyrics belay the more cerebral themes of the songs. Simply orchestrated and impeccably composed, St.Arnaud takes head-on themes of death, loss and resilience with sardonic humour and heart-on-the-sleeve, puppy-love honesty.