Jade McNelis

"Jade McNelis first started plucking out piano melodies as a toddler. By four and a half, the Taiwan-born American wunderkind was taking piano lessons. And, like all good prodigies, when she reached fifth grade, her musical training was rounded out by music theory and violin lessons. After more than a decade of classical music training, McNelis abandoned her home and high school in Tallahassee to live the itinerant, romantic life. During her teens, while traveling around from Pennsylvania to Florida, McNelis became tangentially involved in the alternative music scene. With her return to Tallahassee, at seventeen, McNelis embarked on her own songwriting career. Though she had dabbled with writing and singing during her forays into America, it was at the ripe old age of seventeen that she began performing her own songs back in her Florida hometown. While many artists may wait years or decades to be discovered, McNelis' obvious predisposition for living at an accelerated pace was reinforced at age nineteen when she opened up for Canadian pop band Stars in 2005. Shortly after her set, she was lured away from her pizza parlour job and occasional gigs, by the sugary pop band, and quickly signed to the Montreal-based label, Good Fences. By the summer of 2006, at the tender but tough age of twenty, McNelis settled due north, in Montreal, and recorded her debut EP, All the Fables, with Good Fences. With the help of producers Chris Seligman of Stars, and Drew Malamud (The Dears, Death From Above 1979, Stars), McNelis recorded All the Fables at Studio Plateau and mixed the EP at Seattle's famed Bear Creek Studio. All the Fables showcases McNelis' stirring voice as it traverses cabaret, raucous rock, and classical styles. Sophisticated and raw, edgy yet innocent, these brief, eclectic songs are epic in their pop and orchestral range. Nestled in this shifting world of musical forms, McNelis' luxurious sonic elegance is reminiscent of Metric's Emily Haines' and Aimee Mann's hypnotic piano-laid confessionals and cryptic themes. Like a fable, each song is a cribbed life lesson told in the form of succinct song-story. All the Fables is not only a glimpse into an exceptional talent, it's the sound of an old soul who discovers herself embodied in sylph form, as she traces her brutal and enchanted struggle for identity and home."