When we reach acclaimed Montreal singer-songwriter Basia Bulat, she is on Prince Edward Island, enjoying a last bit of summer holiday. She has since launched her fall tour but is first happy to talk about her new album before hitting the road.
Bouquet, which came out August 28, is an acoustic reimagining of Basia’s Palace, her high-energy, dance-forward record released in February 2025.
The idea for revisiting the songs acoustically first came while she was touring with Basia’s Palace.
“We’d have this acoustic moment in the middle of every show. I called it ‘The Basia Solo All-Acoustic All-Requests Extravaganza Eleganza,’” she laughs. “And it took on a life of its own.”
She’d also had her first taste of revisiting older songs a couple of years earlier, with an album called The Garden.
“It was a little retrospective reinterpretation of all these different songs from across all my records,” she says. “And I wished I had something like that for Basia’s Palace.”
“This is like the baby sister of that album. It’s not the full garden but it’s a little bouquet.”
Bulat has also been doing pop-up shows where she plays a handful of songs from Bouquet live in public. She generally gives fans about 24 hours notice.
“I’ve been doing this professionally for almost 20 years,” she says. “And the world of the arts is a very fragile place; it’s a precarious place to live. So I wanted to say thank you. These tiny pop-up surprise Bouquet shows are like little offerings.”
Her new tour, which takes her across Canada and the US, will be solo and acoustic.
“I’m bringing all my instruments, kind of taking it back to where I started,” she says.
Bulat is known for her soulful voice, expressive songwriting and multi-instrumentalism, including piano, saxophone, guitar and her signature instrument, the autoharp. She first arrived on the Canadian music scene in 2008 with her debut album, Oh My Darling.
Now a veteran, her songwriting ebbs and flows in seasons, she says. Having two young daughters motivates her to value any available time.
“I’m more consistent now than I’ve ever been in my life because I have less time. So I just try to pack what I can into the time I have.”
She notes that just letting time pass is still important.
“Especially when you’re young, you have to fritter away the hours and daydream and stare at the clouds, just live in your own mind a little bit,” she says. “It’s something I’m hoping I can teach my girls, how to be able to just sit around and waste time a little bit and not feel like we need to fill every moment being entertained.”
Bulat’s upcoming tour has one Alberta stop, in Sherwood Park, September 16. All details can be found on her website.
