Originally intended to be part of Vancouver-based musician Michelle Creber‘s 2018 album On Display, a time crunch two years ago meant Storm would find a new home as the title track to her latest release.
“There was so much we were all finishing all at once with On Display, so it made sense to pull it off,” says Creber. “From an emotional standpoint, it made sense to delay as it belonged to a different project, and it carved the whole structure of the new album.”
That project began life as Eleven Letters, an album with each song intended to be written for a person or group of people in Creber’s life.
“I realized though that because Eleven Letters was so personal to me, it might not be accessible to listeners and I wanted to make it more universal,” she explains. “I realized I could take Storm and make it the album title track to represent all of these emotional storms that I went through and what other people also go through.”
The first single off the album, released in February, there is a very retro feel to Storm‘s accompanying music video. It was a vibe amplified with the help of Montreal producer Robert Messier.
“There was something about the synthesizers and the specific loop that he started with,” says Creber. “When I heard what he sent back, there was something a little retro about it, something a bit timeless.”
Storm is an album about self-reflection, perseverance and accepting, but ultimately letting go of the negatives in our lives.
Looking to bend the timeline for the video, Creber turned to Vancouver-based Gibbons Creative. “They have a whole studio of some fantastic old gear,” she says. “The reel-to-reel, the retro mic, the car, it all clicked into place.”
More recently, Creber released the second single off the album, Like It Never Happened. And while the accompanying music video is in contrast to the slickly produced Storm, it is very much a result of the time we find ourselves in right now.
“I originally wanted to do a music video of us all together in a big production, but of course, everything happened with the virus,” says Creber.
With the dancers scattered to their homes following physical distancing requirements, Creber looked for a way to bring them together. “It is quite beautiful to see everybody dancing to the same song and isolated,” she says. “It turned out better than I thought it would for a quarantine music video.”
Moving forward with the music video for Like It Never Happened was very much part of Creber’s decision to release the album during the pandemic.
“I was weighing all of my options and considering whether it was even appropriate to be releasing music right now,” she says. “But the theme of Storm is about healing. I went ahead with it as planned as people were eager to hear it, and I was happy to share it with them.”
Planning to take some time for herself following the launch of Storm, Creber continues to look forward. “I’d love to play the escape room board game that has been sitting for a month in my basement,” she says with a laugh. “I’m going to take it easy next week and then get back to writing. I’m always looking at the next project.”