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Robitaille has travelling in his blood

His first recording is tinged with Fire, born out of his worldly experience

JASON SCHNEIDER

J.F. Robitaille uses his Arcade Fire connection to produce his first recording.
(Apr 28, 2006)

With a resumé that lists stints in New York, San Francisco, London, as well as his native Montreal, it's not surprising that J.F. Robitaille's music packs a lot of experience. However, it has taken until this point for the 29-year-old singer-songwriter to begin his solo career, and his new six-song EP, The Blood in My Body, is serving as an introduction.

Recorded in Montreal with his old friend Howard Bilerman of the Arcade Fire, along with noted American alt-country producer Brian Paulson, Robitaille says that the pairing proved to be the best possible combination for his songs.

"Howard and I started working together, and he always talked about working with Brian, so I just called him up and invited him to Montreal, and he accepted," Robitaille said. "It turned out to be a great collaborative experience. The best thing about it is Brian liked to do things just as laid-back as Howard and I liked to record."

That's not to suggest The Blood in My Body is a laid-back record. As a writer, Robitaille has a keen sense of drama that sets his work outside of any specific place or time. Perhaps to drive the point home about where his poetic sensibility is rooted, he chose to cover fellow Montrealer Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat.
"A lot of my songs deal with this kind of love-hate relationship I have with my home," he says. "Every time I leave, it's always the beginning of a new chapter in my life, but then I always end up coming back. This recent batch of songs I've done has a lot of Montreal in it, but this time I don't think I'll go back."

Robitaille has lived in Brooklyn for the past year, and has found support with a New York label called Rhythmbank, which plans to issue a full-length album later in the year consisting of the remainder of the material that Robitaille recorded with Bilerman and Paulson. For now, he says the EP is allowing him to start getting in front of audiences before hitting the road full-time with a band.

"I've got a residency coming up in May in New York, and that's when I hope to get my band in shape," he says. "That's the great thing about living there, you can play so much more than any other place I've lived. I think it's definitely made me better in a hurry, even from the first time I got onstage alone there."

It also doesn't hurt having the connection to Montreal at a time when bands like the Arcade Fire are the toast of the Big Apple.

"Musicians there do react immediately when I say I'm from Montreal, but I've been recording with Howard and a lot of those people for so long that I don't really think about it. But I also understand that the label probably wouldn't have been as interested in me if the Arcade Fire stuff hadn't happened."

Robitaille did, however, ultimately make a fan out of the owner of Rhythmbank Records, soul singer Nona Hendryx, although he admits he wasn't familiar with her work prior to signing.

"I knew someone who worked at the label, and they got Nona into my stuff," he says. "The first time I walked into the office, I saw her Rolling Stone cover from 1975 and it was a bit of a surprise. Needless to say, I've become a huge fan of hers ever since."