Le Ren

Taking influence from the likes of Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan, and Karen Dalton, Le Ren’s Lauren Spear complements her warm, articulate singing voice and reflective melodies with textured acoustic accompaniment. She first presented her gentle indie folk songs in full-length form on the Chris Cohen-produced Leftovers in 2021.
Spear’s teenage years on Bowen Island/Nexwlélexm along Canada’s west coast included bluegrass study, but she expanded her interests into contemporary folk, country, and rock after relocating to Montreal’s music scene as an adult. Her first few songs appeared online in the mid-2010s. Plans to record her first album in Los Angeles in 2020 were scrapped, but she eventually rented a house in Portland, Oregon in April 2021 to record with Chris Cohen, who both produced and played on the songs. The sparse arrangements of her Le Ren debut, Leftovers, also included contributions from Big Thief’s Buck Meek and Mauno’s Eliza Niemi, among others. It arrived on Secretly Canadian in October of that year. ~ Marcy Donelson