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 Alanis Morissette’s twin brother Wade Imre, is a yoga instructor who has produced an album that combines chants with different musical rhythms. Strong As Diamonds comes out Tuesday. (FILE PHOTO) |
It’s kind of ironic how yoga ended up leading Wade Imre Morissette to his record deal.
First of all, the older brother to Ottawa singer-songwriter Alanis — older by 12 minutes that is, as the pair are twins — is a yoga teacher himself.
And it was while attending yoga classes in Vancouver that Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride became captivated by Morissette’s music playing in the background.
What he was hearing was Morissette’s self-released 2004 debut Sargam Scales of Music, which he sold while travelling the world in his role as an ambassador for popular yoga-wear company Lululemon.
The two connected late last year and McBride signed Morissette on for a three-album Nettwerk deal. Strong As Diamonds is due out Tuesday.
The album is a departure from his indie release, which was “more grassroots with more mellow, heartfelt lyrics, and more introspective,” Morissette tells Sun Media via e-mail from Australia, where he is finishing two weeks of yoga teacher training.
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The studio album, he says, is more upbeat, celebratory and uplifting than the first, a spiritual mix that incorporates kirtan, a form of yoga chanting.
The idea behind the music, explains Morissette, is that combining chants with different musical rhythms stills the mind, opens the heart and dissolves worries.
“Lots more production with a few mainstream English tunes added in for the fun of it,” he writes, “but still accessible to the yoga, holistic wellness world.”
Morissette was first drawn to yoga and Eastern philosophies when he was 18. He’d enrolled in political science at the University of Western Ontario with an eye to becoming an environmental lawyer but lasted just three months.
He began reading up on Buddhism and made a transformative trip to India. It was there he began to practise bhakti nada yoga — using sound as a path to spiritual fulfillment — and fell in love with the kirtan. Morissette took piano lessons for years, adding guitar and djembe when he was 18.
Now 32, he and wife Quentin — they were married by a Buddhist monk in Thailand — have an 18-month-old son, Beck. Though there are times his family can’t join him on the road, mostly they have been able to fashion a life Morissette calls “a nice mix of travel and roots” in Vancouver.
These days Morissette cites his sister as one of the biggest influences in his life. But when it comes to music, for now at least, he’s on his own.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way unless it was intended to be some sort of collaboration,” reports Morissette.
Speaking of his famous sibling, Morissette was a fan of her recent popular YouTube spoof of The Black Eyed Peas’ My Humps, the one she has so far said nothing about.
“I was outraged and disgusted!” he jokes. “Just kidding ... it was really funny and humour always works well for me.”