“One of my most memorable vinyl experiences began with a postcard I received from my best friend throughout my early twenties.”
“We had both gone to school together and had shared all kinds of strange and wonderful experiences, one of which included being thrown out of a total bro house party for socking one of the bros in the mouth after he tried to kiss one of us.
She was traveling around and living in Japan and sent me a postcard with cherry blossoms on the cover. On the back she had written only the lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s “Amelia;” ‘Then your life becomes a travelogue of picture postcard charms.’
I’d always been a huge Joni Mitchell fan, we both had, but I’d never listened to Hejira. I went out and bought it new at a local record store and when “Amelia” began to play, I remember being struck with thoughts about travel and sadness and loneliness all in the most romanticized ways that occur as a result of Mitchell’s songwriting—a strange closeness that comes, even when you know you haven’t lived any of her experiences—you haven’t traveled by car alone, routinely checking into dusty motels to sleep off wanderlust, but you can feel yourself in those places, those rooms.
Hejira was one of the first times in my early adulthood that I remember listening to an album in its entirety and it feeling so intimate.”
—Amanda Balsys
The Wilderness of Manitoba’s EP “The Leslieville Sessions” hits store shelves on April 9th.
