NLFB PROFILE: ANSLEY SIMPSON

We’ve been busy getting ready for NLFB over here at Our Crater! The festival takes over Bell Park July 4^th – 7^th with four jam-packed days of music, art, and fun in the sun! One of such artist gracing the stage over the course of the weekend is Ansley Simpson, an Anishinaabe singer-songwriter joining us from Alderville First Nation. Her first album Breakwall was released in 2017 and has went on to garner Simpson critical acclaim and awards from imagineNative, Indigenous Music Awards to name a few. Her haunting and thoughtful lyrics are certain to leave an impression on you. Next up Simpson will be releasing her latest effort She Fell From the Sky in fall of 2019.

You can catch Ansley Simpson performing at the festival Saturday @2PM on the Canvas Cabaret Stage, Sunday @2PM backing up her sister Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and @4PM participating in the Dreamscapes workshop on the Acoustic Stage. Read on to learn more about Ansley Simpson ahead of NLFB!

We’re very excited to have you in the nickel city for Northern Lights Festival this year! Please tell us a bit about yourself as a performer and your style?

I’m an Anishinaabe singer/songwriter from Alderville First Nation currently living with my daughter in Toronto.  I’ve been writing songs for a little over 5 years now, and performing for about 4 years now. Somewhere along the line my style was referred to as  “Dream Folk”, and I suppose that’s pretty accurate. I mostly play acoustic guitar and as of late I’ve been mixing in some effects pedals to expand the sound a bit more, give it a dreamy feel. I also really love to sing unaccompanied, especially the track “Witness”.  There’s something really powerful about standing in front of an audience using only your voice, there’s nothing to hide behind and nothing between you and the listeners. 

Your debut album Breakwall was release in 2017, since then you’ve had the privilege of being considered for awards from imagineNative, Indigenous Music Awards and participated in a Indigenous Music Residency with Manitoba Music. Tell us about your first album and what has changed for you since its release?

My first album came about more as a personal project, and I didn’t think too many people would ever really hear it outside of family and friends. I had been approached by producer James Bunton after we’d finished recording my sister Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s album “f(l)ight”. That was my first time in a recording studio, and James came up to me afterward and asked me if I ever thought of recording my own music. I had a handful of songs written at that point, and the only live performance experience I think I had was a few open stages, but I said yes and sent him a few tracks. I had wanted to be able to record some songs to share with my daughter who was 4 at the time, she was the reason I started to write them in the first place. So from there, we worked one or two songs at a time in his studio shaping and forming what eventually became “Breakwall”.

Once it was out in the world, it sort of took on a life of its own. I won the ImagineNative Bullseye Emerging Artist award, then went on tour with New Constellations and yeah, the Indigenous Music Award for Best New Artist last year as well. It’s been a trip!

For me, the biggest change is that now music is the way I feed myself and my daughter. That’s not always a good thing, as this industry is just that, an industry, and it has a way of extracting a lot from you if you’re not careful and approach everything in a good way. 


For the title track of your album Breakwall you collaborated with award-winning Métis filmmaker Shane Belcourt. The video won the first ever Bull’sEye competition at imagineNATIVE Film & Video Festival in 2016. Take us behind the scenes of writing Breakwall and creating a video as raw and honest as the song?

“Breakwall” was my first co-write actually, with James Bunton. He came to me with a song he’d been working on, and asked if I happened to have lyrics that might work with it. I remember sitting on the couch in his studio with my writing book leafing through it. I’d been working on a number of tracks and whenever a solid line stuck out, but couldn’t be used in the song I was writing I would circle it and maybe come back to it later. So I pulled a few of those lines, and combined it with the frame of a poem I had been writing while sitting down at the lake watching the waves thrash against a breakwall. James mic’d me and played the song. I started singing what I had grabbed, rearranging it and then combining it with lyrics that came to mind in the moment and ended up with this beautiful dreamy track.

Part of the imagiNATIVE award was to use the prize money to make a video, and I’d met Shane Belcourt at a Banff residency that fall. I was really excited when he agreed to work with me, I really liked how he shows the world through his films. When we got together to make this video he had a very simple but engaging idea to just show me in my space, trying to gain clarity on this wave and breakwall, the dissolution of a relationship between lovers, as I went about my day. I had wanted to include where I wrote the song too, to ground things visually, so we headed down to the beach I wrote at and grabbed these beautiful shots of the waves smashing into the breakwall. It was a really great experience! 

In 2018 you were nominated for two awards at the Indigenous Music Awards and took home Best New Artist. Tell us what this recognition from your peers has meant for you?

This was a really proud moment for me, to both take home the Best New Artist award and to be nominated alongside Buffy Sainte-Marie. That’s why I was so sad this year to see how poorly the IMA’s treated the Inuit throat singers when another artist nominated in the Best Folk album award appropriated throat singing. I’ve watched these awards for years, and the Indigenous Music world works very differently from the settler music industry. Awards like this one celebrate and honour our own people for the work they’ve been doing with their music, work that often goes unnoticed by the mainstream. I’m really hoping changes are made at the IMA’s to support the Inuit so we can continue to have these awards feel like a real celebration of our talent as Indigenous Musicians from our many different unique Nations. 

Your sophomore album She Fell From the Sky is scheduled for release later in 2019. It is described as “an 11 track journey to indigenous reclamation”. What else can you tell us about the record? Will you be trying out any of your new material out for NLFB audiences?

I’m really proud of this album, I’ve been working on it for a while now, and it’s taken a lot out of me. Really looking forward to releasing it into the world, starting this fall. I had wanted to do something that built on my first album, and when I started writing this album it became apparent very early on that the songs were related. As I continued to write I realized a story was emerging, a really beautiful strong story, so I worked with that framework, adjusting things here and there to strengthen the storyline. For me, one of my absolute favourite parts of being a musician is making an album.  From writing it to working in the studio and watching it grow. “She Fell From the Sky” touches on a number of elements that are dear to me, namely the earth, what we’ve done to her, and how we as indigenous nations can help her. I’ll be bringing a few of the new songs with me to Northern Lights fest for sure! 

Not only will you be performing solo at the festival, we’ll also be able to catch you playing with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and participating in the Dreamscapes Workshop over the weekend. Talk to us about collaborating on music with other artists and performers that keep you inspired?

Well, collaborating with my sister Leanne has been really incredible, and I’ve learned so much from her both in her writing and performing with her as well as my bandmates, Nick Ferrio and Cris Derkson. We’ve been working on writing the music for Leanne’s new album as well, “The Theory of Ice”. Collaborations like this one mean working with two other musicians who are strong solo artists in their own right, so we all bring those strengths to the table. Combine that with the strength of Leanne’s writing and the results are potent. Every one of us has a different approach to the process and it’s not without challenge, but once it clicks it’s so amazing to witness what comes out of it. Leanne’s writing is some of the most challenging composition work I’ve ever done.  It’s very different to work with compared to songwriting. You can’t time the delivery in the same way you do while singing, you almost have to sculpt around the words and phrases, especially when you’re used to the cadence of singing. You can’t just sit down and speak the words, and try to play along, so it stretches the boundary of what I do as a songwriter in a way I’m very grateful for. Songwriting can be incredibly isolating too, so when the opportunity comes to collaborate with other musicians, it’s hard to say no. 

Where can readers follow for more information as we await the release of She Fell From the Sky?

You can find me on all the socials, and I tend to put the most up on Instagram under @ansleysmusic and my website www.ansleysimpson.com. That’s where I’ll be announcing the roll-out for “She Fell from the Sky”

You can still nab your tickets to the festival July 4-7th by heading to nlfb.ca. Get in on all the action with a FULL FESTIVAL PASS still available at advance pricing for just $90, grab DAY PASSES starting at $35-50, get in on the all new FLEX PASS and enjoy the full day Satuday or Sunday, or enjoy an AFTERNOON PASS for $15 at the gate. This is a family friendly event, bring the kids for children’s entertainment, activities and all the memories (free admission for children under 14 with an adult).

For more info on this years fest check out these links:

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR NLFB WEEKEND

NLFB PROFILE: BROOKE BRUCE

NLFB VENDOR HIGHLIGHTS

10 ACTS TO CHECK OUT AT NLFB 2019

SONGCRAFT TAKES CENTRE STAGE AT NLFB 2019

SUDBURY 2019 SUMMER FESTIVALS