When it came time to work on his latest album, Ghost Notes, Matt Barber envisioned a leaner, retro process.
“I look at it like how a visual artist chooses their medium, and whether they work with oils or water colour,” said Barber, who performs at Ginger’s on Friday. “I like to record with analogue gear and do it on tape, and do like a live mix, with all hands on the faders. It was fun to do it that way,” added the Toronto-based writer, whose album is a collection of mature and personal songs about love, hope and fear.
For the last month and a half, Barber has been touring with his sister, the Juno-nominated Jill Barber. It was playfully called the Sibling Revelry Tour and featured stops across Eastern Canada.
“We have had close to full houses everywhere we’ve gone, with good shows, good responses,” said the male Barber. “We’ve had a lot of fun. We get along really well actually.
“We live in different cities so we don’t get to see each other often. This is definitely the most time we have spent with each other since we were teenagers.”
While the Ginger’s show is not a sibling’s performance, he said Jill will be at the show and singing along with him. He is also eschewing a band, preferring to go the singer-songwriter route.
“My most recent album is a little more closer to Jill’s style, there is not too much of a stretch between our styles,” Barber said. “I tended to go, on past albums, a little more rock ’n’ roll than Jill has in the past.”
