Ellen Froese found her way home with ‘Solitary Songs’
Photo Credit : Little Jack Films
Ellen Froese was a name I first found by shamelessly stalking a friend’s playlist, pulled in by “I Wish I Had a Foot-Long Cigarette,” searching for anything else that felt that honest. Froese is Saskatoon’s multifaceted musician, who could be described as a a writer who makes a combination of warm, raw, and deeply aching folk music. Her newest album, Solitary Songs, recorded at RecHall Studios is already earning non-skip status among listeners, and this summer, she is bringing it to Western Canada, making stops in British Columbia, Alberta and of course, her home province for a run of shows with some good pals, starting June 13.
The album, filled with playful country-folk gems, came together in 2024, shortly after Froese returned from Toronto to Saskatchewan: back on the prairies, where she went into the studio with her friends and did what she’s always done, wrote through it. “It was a tough time,” she says, “and it was pretty healing to go into the studio and record these songs with friends, and kind of finish some of them right there in the room.”
This feeling of honesty, of being lived-in and easy to simply listen to and love front to back, is baked into every corner of it. Don’t let the title fool you, Froese says the word doesn’t quite fit her life anymore. She’s got people around her, in fact, a band-full coming on the road. For some dates in the tour, Froese is linking up with the Marmalads, a crew of longtime Regina friends, including drummer Tanner Wilhelm Hale, who played on the album. “Just good pals. Great musicians. It’s going to be fun.”
Before this tour, Froese turned 30, took some time away from music to study horticulture and went through some reckoning with what performing means to her. Anxiety crept into something she’d been doing since she was 17. “It’s funny being on the road all of a sudden, the past couple of years. It's like, oh, this is freaky: being transient.”
There’s a level of candidness with Froese, but simultaneously, it seems like she has her anchor. “I just need to stay grounded in the fact that I’m playing songs with my friends. I always feel good after I sing.”
Froese is playing rooms on this tour like The Aviary in Edmonton, where that kind of honesty fills the whole space and with Solitary Songs, an outcome of facing non-stop anxiety with songwriting, she has a whole record’s worth of it to give. She’s also talked about wanting the shows to feel like she’s playing for the joy of it, and with a setlist that includes the fast, kinetic version of the title track, proving to be one of listeners’ favourites, that joy isn’t hard to imagine. “It’s just so fun to play.”
The tour wraps up exactly where it should be: the Artesian in Regina, then Amigos in Saskatoon. Home turf, home crowds and a record that was made right there in the middle of it all.
To find the closest show to you, visit her website for the full list of tour dates, tickets and details.