Danny Michel reaches for the stars by recording on icebreaker with Chris Hadfield

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There’s no dust on Ontario musician Danny Michel.
 Michel, who just released  the CD “Matadora” earlier the year, already put the finishing touches on his next  CD “Khlebnikov,” which he recorded  over 18 days in the Arctic on a  the Russian icebreaker  Khlebnikov.” with a little help from Canadian astronaut and musician Chris Hadfield.


“ He sings one song in Russian because Danny Michel returns to lethbridge to play the Geomatic Attic this week. photo by Richard Ameryhe’s fluent in  Russian and he sings another song with me,” said Michel, who returns to Lethbridge, Dec. 4 to play a sold out show at the Geomatic Attic.
Michel has known Hadfield for several years.


“I’ve known him since he did his duties on the space station,” Michel said.


Recording on  an icebreaker ship in the middle of the Arctic Ocean was one of many musical adventures Michel has had in his career, including touring the world and recording in Belize with some of the musicians there.


This time he spent 18 days in close quarters on the ship with a camera crew, bloggers, photographers and film makers and Hadfield who invited him.

everyone along, traveling  from Nunavut to Greenland and wrote the entire CD  based on his inspiration from the journey.
“ It was great. There was lots of inspiration. I recorded it on the ship then brought it back  home to Toronto to work with my buddy Rob Carli who is a classical composer and film score composer . So we added classical musicians to add brass and strings, ” he said.
 We’ve been looking for an excuse to  do something like this, so this seemed like cool project to do it on. I absolutely love how it  has grown,” he said.
He will be playing some of the new songs at the Lethbridge show.

“I won’t have a little symphony with me, but all of the songs began on acoustic guitar,” he said.

 


“And I just released Matadora this year, so I want to promote that,” he said.
 The new album, which he doesn’t expect to be released until later in 2017, is  a complete contrast to ‘Matadora.’
“That’s more of what I usually do. I just recorded  it in my studio. It‘s nice to do a CD like I did when I first started. It’s a complete contrast to  the Cds I did in Belize,” he said.


He always enjoys exploring different styles of music.
“I always love experiencing new music and experimenting with it and learning it. If I had to spent my career playing the same music, it would be like a prison sentence,” he said.

While he is finished  the next album, his mind is already on the next project.
“ We’ve recorded  the album, now we’re in the realm of CDdesign, so it‘s not over yet. But as soon as I was done recording,  I got all excited and asked myself what the next project will be,” he said.
He always enjoys coming to Lethbridge, so he tries to stop here every tour.
“I love it. I always put Lethbridge on the list when I tour. And it’s been awhile since I played the Geomatic Attic,” he said.
 The show begins at 8 p.m., Dec. 4, but unfortunately it is already sold out.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. beat Editor
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