Worry the Jury by Madviolet

Led by the rousing opening track and first single, "Light It Up," the album documents a six-week recording blitz in London, England that Brenley calls "absolutely magic, a dream creative experience."

John Reynolds, best known for his central role on O'Connor's classic albums and whose dazzling C/V includes work with U2, Peter Gabriel and Simply Red, helmed the warm, intimate sessions at his Notting Hill home studio 18d (formerly Ghost Rooms). His close-knit circle of musicians - among them guitarist Jon Klein (Siouxsie and the Banshees) and bass players Claire Kenny (Indigo Girls) and Matthew Seligman (Tori Amos, The Soft Boys) - served as Madviolet's backing band. Vocal tracks were recorded in the same tiled bathroom where O'Connor sang "Fire On Babylon." Among the guests who dropped in for a taste of Reynold's post-session cooking was his neighbor Brian Eno.

"We got over being starstruck pretty quickly - it was such an everyday, down-to-earth atmosphere," explains Brenley, an equally earthy type raised in Kincardine, Ont. Not that there was any shortage of pinch-me moments. "One day I looked up from recording a part and theres Sinead sitting in a chair and listening," says Lisa, the youngest of Cape Breton's celebrated MacIsaac family of fiddle players and the quieter, charmingly sardonic one in Madviolet. "That was a bit freaky."

Fate showed its hand long before Brenley first met Lisa in 2000 and invited her to join her trip-hop band zoebliss. It turned out that their fathers had known one another as teenagers back in Creignish, Nova Scotia. Lisa went to school and played hockey with Brenley's cousins. Although the young Brenley spent her summers in Cape Breton, she never crossed paths with Lisa, who by the age of 12 was winning local Miss Congeniality crowns and playing fiddle at country fairs.

Brenley formed Zoebliss in 1997 and recorded two well-received independent albums that earned her comparisions with Beth Orton and Portishead's Beth Gibbons. A second-stage Lilith Fair gig in 1999 was a definite highlight, in part because she met Reynolds, then touring with the Indigo Girls.

Lisa, meanwhile, had moved on from teaching step-dancing to become a first-call touring musician gracing stages with her brother Ashley, Bruce Guthro, Mary Jane Lamond, Gordie Sampson and Adam Gregory, among others.

After meeting by chance in Toronto bar The Green Room, Brenley and Lisa became fast friends and were soon forging a creative partnership after band rehearsals. "I was comfortable enough to bring out songs that I'd never play for the band," explains Brenley. "The tunes were a little more folky, even a bit country-oriented, and that was a total change from what Zoebliss was about."

Destiny rode in again when Lisa was invited to London to audition for The Alice Band, the girl group English music executive Rob Dickens was assembling for his Instant Karma label. Brenley tagged along and contacted Reynolds, who invited her to cut a track with his band Ghostland. Neither venture panned out, yet a new chapter in their lives was underway when Reynolds promised that if the two formed a band, he'd produce them.

Fuelling up Charlie and making space on the dashboard for their monkey mascot Schweetheart, the pair set off on an epic songwriting roadtrip that eventually led to a remote campground in the New Mexico desert not far from Roswell. "The name of the woman who checked us in was Violet," reveals Brenley, "and she was absolutely mad." They understood why the next morning after an eerie Twilight Zone of a night under the stars. (The band's name is also an apt choice for two plant enthusiasts who have daily pep talks with their potted pals Layla, Lilo, Ernie and Scratchy. "Some people will say we're the mad ones," says Lisa, "but I think you can cultivate a relationship with anything if you formally introduce yourself first.") Half of Worry The Jury's songs were completed between marathon backgammon tournaments on the American roadtrip.

Others were penned during a rainy few weeks in Geneva, Switzerland, among them "Take Your Things," inspired by a heated argument heard through paper-thin hotel walls. "Haight Ashbury," co-written in Toronto with Damhnait Doyle, gets its mellifluous uplift from a sunny riff crafted by Lisa just prior to a stint with Denny Doherty's Mamas and Papas touring production Dream A Little Dream.

After a false start that saw a half-dozen completed songs (including a ska version of Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion") lost to a computer glitch, the disc was cut in six weeks at 18d in London. Consciously heeding Sum 41's "all killer no filler" credo, Worry The Jury features 10 songs that range from big beat, radio-friendly anthems ("Light It Up") to shimmering ambient pop built around Lisa's multi-tracked strings ("Scarlett." "I'm Alright") and rootsier numbers that reflect the live show ("Save A Song," "Left Foot").

Lisa and Brenley have occasionally been tagged a Celtic act because of the MacIsaac name and their Cape Breton roots. Worry The Jury, however, proves that Madviolet is restricted by neither genre nor geography. "I'm a Celtic fiddle player, but this is definitely not a Celtic band," says Lisa. That said, the 18d sessions did at times evolve into the next best thing to a Maritimes kitchen party.

"Mississhippie,""the brief, album-closing instrumental, captures the fun. "That's Jamiroquai's lighting man you hear at the beginning asking Lisa about her fiddle playing," explains Brenley. "We'd all started jamming one night and drinking I don't know how many bottles of red wine. That snippet just had to be on the record."

While Reynolds and crew are a dream band, Madviolet is perfectly comfortable as a duo, either performing their own headlining dates or touring with the likes of Ron Sexsmith, Chantal Kreviazuk and Jimmy Rankin. They call on a group of Toronto musicians for support at major shows, such as a March, 2004 opening slot for the Indigo Girls at Massey Hall. As with most of their concerts, there was plenty of between-song dialogue that night. "Yes," laughs Brenley, "we're talkative. People seem to enjoy the banter as much as the music." Adds Lisa about the occasional bum note: "Whenever we hit a real wanker, we stop the song and admit it. It's a great way to get people rooting for you."

Worry The Jury derives its title from the judgemental nature of both the music industry and society at large. "People are constantly 'worrying the jury'and wondering what others think," explains Lisa. The only opinion that ultimately counts is one's own, they argue. And on that score they're happy. "This is the first time I've wanted to work like a dog on behalf of a record," says Brenley.

"I'm still as proud of these songs as the day I first heard the mixes. People need to hear this record, and we'll make sure of it." Blanche, the new Japanese-egineered recruit to the band, is revving her motor in agreement.

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