Neema

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Last Show: Saturday 8 th April 2017

PizzaExpress Jazz Club (Soho)

Former First Nation community manager, traveller of the world and mentored by Leonard Cohen, Neema brings a wealth of experience to the stories she sets to contemporary folk music. She has opened for Elton John, Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker and Cyndi Lauper, and in 2011 performed across thirteen countries on a European tour. Her third and most recent studio album, ‘Painting My Wall Gold’, is a sophisticated, globally-infused, and electronically-enhanced album of modern folk music that draws heavily on themes of acceptance and equanimity. The opening ‘For You’, Neema’s mettā song, has been selected as a finalist for the International Acoustic Music Awards 2017. 

“With various musical soundscapes and cultural influences throughout the album, Neema's understanding of people and artistic forms far and wide gives here the ability to create remarkable music.“

Top 100 Canadian Blog March 12, 2016

Painting My Wall Gold is a beautiful, sophisticated, globally-infused, and electronically-enhanced album of modern folk music that draws heavily on themes of acceptance and equanimity.  Neema’s lyrics, poetic in their ambiguity and sprinkled with visual metaphors and spiritual allusions, transcend the personal triumphs and tragedies that gave them life, evoking instead the raw emotional essence of the situations that inspired them.  

Her second album Watching You Think was released in June 2010 and was produced with Leonard Cohen and long-time Sarah McLachlan collaborator Pierre Marchand. The Globe and Mail called it “A stunner." Cohen also drew a portrait of her as the album’s cover and has said of her “in the midst of all the static, a voice of true feeling arises - a rare event”.

She spent 2010 and 2011 touring with her band.  After launch shows in Montreal, New York and Los Angeles, appearances at Folk Alliance in Memphis and Austin’s South by South-West, Neema toured as a support act for Jesse Winchester through the USA.  She performed over 150 shows that year, then in the summer of 2011 Neema headed out on a tour of Europe that would see her and the band play twenty-two shows across thirteen countries. As well as her headline performances, she had the honor of opening shows for Joe Cocker, Jeff Beck, Lyle Lovett and Elton John. She also opened for and sang with Cindy Lauper.

She released a digital collection of live recordings from those tours, Leave the Light On, in 2014.