Lisa Conway-Bühler, also known as LCON, is a Canadian musician, vocalist, composer and producer. She has performed as part of The Owle Bird, Chrome and the Ice Queen, and is the former singer and lyricist of Toronto-based Del Bel. Since 2016 she has co-owned and operated the recording and production studio Wildlife Sanctuary Sound in
Grey County, Ontario
Grey County is a county of the Canadian province of Ontario. The county seat is in Owen Sound. It is located in the subregion of Southern Ontario named Southwestern Ontario. Grey County is also a part of the Georgian Triangle. At the time of t ...
.
Early life and education
Conway grew up in northern British Columbia where she started playing music as a child.
She began playing the violin at the age of four and learned to play the guitar before developing an interest in songwriting.
Her father worked as an elementary school music teacher and at the age of 13 she used his recording equipment to record and produced an album for her high school band.
Influenced by Canadian composer
Oliver Schroer
Oliver Schroer (June 18, 1956 – July 3, 2008) was a Canadian fiddler, composer, and music producer.
Early life
Oliver Schroer grew up in Vandeleur, Ontario, a small farming community near Markdale in rural Grey County. He attended Grey Highl ...
while attending camp as a teenager, she later moved to Ontario to attend
York University
York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...
in Toronto, where Schroer had studied.
Conway holds a
BFA of in music from York University and an
MA in Sonic Arts from
Queen's University Belfast
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, Northern Ireland.
She completed a residency with the Canadian Film Center in 2016.
Two years later she was selected to participate in the
Red Bull Music Academy
The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is a world-traveling series of music workshops and festivals that was founded in 1998 by Red Bull GmbH. The main five-week event is held in a different city each year. The public portion of its program is a festiv ...
in
Berlin, Germany
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...
.
Career
Conway has released music as The Owle Bird, the ''
Twin Peaks
''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...
''-inspired project Chrome and the Ice Queen and, since 2012, as L CON.
She began singing with Toronto-based Del Bel in 2011, in addition to taking on songwriting duties alongside bandleader Tyler Belluz.
''Toronto Star'' reviewer Ben Rayner called the band's release ''Oneiric'' "one of the most accomplished albums, Canadian or otherwise, released in 2011."
She stepped away from Del Bel in 2017 to focus on her solo work shortly after the release of the band's third album, ''III''.
In addition to writing and production work, Conway frequently collaborates with other artists and incorporates multi-media elements to her performances and releases. The 2016 video for her song "The Form of Space", directed by Victoria Long, featured an amateur dance troupe based in Guelph, Ontario.
She worked with Long on a second video in 2018 following the release for the L CON album ''Insecurities in Being''.
Conway co-owns and operates Wildlife Sanctuary Sound, a recording and production studio in
Grey County
Grey County is a county of the Canadian province of Ontario. The county seat is in Owen Sound. It is located in the subregion of Southern Ontario named Southwestern Ontario. Grey County is also a part of the Georgian Triangle. At the time of the ...
, just north of
Durham, Ontario
Durham is a community in the municipality of West Grey, Grey County, Ontario, Canada. Durham is located near the base of the Bruce Peninsula.
Location
Durham, Ontario is 44 kilometres South of Owen Sound and 89 kilometres North of Guelph on Ont ...
, with her partner, musician and producer Andrew Collins. The couple met as music students at York University.
Situated on 2.5 acres of land, the space is surrounded by forest and formerly served as a yoga studio.
The first album recorded and produced in the studio was Conway's 2016 L CON release ''Moon Milk''.
Playing, performing and producing music since her teens, Conway has been vocal about her experiences as a woman in the music industry. In a 2016 interview with ''
The Silhouette
''The Silhouette'' (founded circa 1930) is a student newspaper at McMaster University, located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The masthead staff consists of the Editor-in-Chief, a recently graduated student from McMaster, and approximately 15 pai ...
'' she explained that: "As a woman in the music industry a lot of people make assumptions about you and I found especially as a vocalist I get pegged as somebody who just sings; who doesn’t know anything about recording or production."
The sentiment was echoed in a 2018 interview with Canadian music blog ''Grayowl Point'', where she explained that her production work had been glossed over for the majority of her career.
L CON
Conway performs as L CON both alone and with a band that includes Andrew Collins, Jordan Howard and
Karen Ng
Karen Ng is a Canadian improvisational musician, teacher and event organizer based in Toronto, Ontario. Best known as a saxophonist, she is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed internationally with acts including Andy Shauf, Do Make Say Thi ...
.
She began releasing music under the
moniker
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
in 2012 with the six-song
EP ''The Ballad Project'', which she wrote, arranged, orchestrated and co-produced the contributions of 20 musicians.
It was followed a year later by ''The Ballads Reimagined,'' an electronic reinterpretation of the album with two new songs. Released by Daps Records, the EP was recorded by Conway while living in Toronto and mixed by
Ohbijou
Ohbijou was a Canadian indie pop band that was based in Toronto, Ontario. The music of Ohbijou draws on pop, folk and bluegrass influences.
History
Ohbijou began as the solo project of Brantford singer-songwriter Casey Mecija.Sayej, Nadja. "Und ...
bass player Heather Kirby.
L CON's 2016 release ''Moon Milk'' was based on
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...
's 1965 science fiction short-story collection ''
Cosmicomics
''Cosmicomics'' ( it, Le cosmicomiche) is a collection of twelve short stories by Italo Calvino first published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968. The stories were originally published between 1964 and 1965 in the Italian periodicals ''I ...
''.
Each of the album's songs is inspired by and named after one of the stories in the collection.
They were written during a three week residency in Sackville, New Brunswick, during the summer of 2013.
Conway's third album as L CON, ''Insecurities in Being,'' was released on May 25, 2018.
Writing for ''
Now
Now most commonly refers
to the present time.
Now, NOW, or The Now may also refer to:
Organizations
* Natal Organisation of Women, a South African women's organization
* National Organization for Women, an American feminist organization
* Now ...
'', reviewer Mark Streeter noted the refinement Conway brought to her work, explaining that the release was "recorded like a rock record but treated and mixed with pop sensibilities
..full of intricate arrangements and careful playing".
Discography
L CON
*''Insecurities in Being'' (2018)
*''Moon Milk'' (2016)
*''The Ballads Reimagined'' (2013)
*''The Ballad Project'' (2012)
Del Bel
*''III'' (2017)
*''Del Bel'' (2015)
*''Oneiric'' (2011)
Chome and the Ice Queen
*''Diane'' (2011)
Owle Bird
*''The Abesence Of'' (2008)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conway, Lisa
Canadian indie pop musicians
York University alumni
Canadian record producers
Canadian women record producers
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people