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Rhaye excited for Mosaiq
Times & Transcript
By Eric Lewis
July 22, 2010

Saint John songstress continues to ride busy wave of activity

When she's not on the stage this Saturday night at the Mosaiq Concert Series in downtown Moncton, expect to find Saint John singer-songwriter Jessica Rhaye in Mosaiq's World Village marketplace amid the hundreds of arts and crafts offered up for sale.

"If it's arts and crafts, I will definitely be at that tent," she says with a laugh.

A graphic designer by trade who designs websites for a variety of east coast musicians, Rhaye surrounds herself with art, only putting original works on her walls at home."I appreciate the arts, so everywhere I go I usually tend to buy something," she says.

The folk-pop songstress is joining a lineup of stellar New Brunswick talent for N.B. Night, presented by Moosehead, at Mosaiq on Saturday. The show gets underway at 7 p.m. and also features Dominique Dupuis, Annie Blanchard, David Myles, Nathalie Renault and Chris Colepaugh & The Cosmic Crew.

With her art and her music, Rhaye has been keeping herself busy lately.
She released her latest album, Good Things, in summer of last year and has since released a DVD and a live EP that can be downloaded from her website.

Plus, Rhaye performed at the Vancouver Olympics earlier this year and represented the city of Saint John in Ottawa on Canada Day this year, performing at Major's Hill Park right next to Parliament Hill."That was the first time I've ever been in Ottawa for Canada Day ... it was crazy. Just thousands of people and the craziest ways to wear flags: tube-top flags, skirt flags, dress flags, cape flags, everything was flags, it was crazy," she laughs.

Performing at these kinds of large events isn't her usual type of gig as she's used to playing theatres and coffeehouse-style events. "For me and the band, I guess we just kind of up our sound" at outdoor festivals, she explains. "We make it maybe a little more aggressive because it's not like people are just going to be sitting and intimately listening, so I make sure I pick out more upbeat songs and more fun songs and things that will go over well in a festival kind of situation."

Rhaye has been singing all her life, but her profile in the New Brunswick music scene was raised when she released her self-titled debut album in 2000. She drifted away for a time while she was in school working to become a graphic designer, but since releasing her sophomore record Short Stories in 2006, she has been performing and releasing music non-stop.

This year, she received no less than three East Coast Music Award nominations, including Solo Female Artist of the Year, Folk Recording of the Year and Visual Artist of the Year.

Rhaye has worked with an impressive lineup of fellow songwriters, including Ron Sexsmith, Ken Tobias and Dave Gunning, friends she refers to as her "song doctors."

Most recently, she collaborated with acclaimed Saint John singer-songwriter Brent Mason on a tune she's planning to record and produce.

Rhaye says she's currently writing new songs for her next release, and she's aiming to jump on board some more music festivals this summer and fall.

She's not sure when her next album will be released though and, in fact, Rhaye isn't sure whether her next project will even be an album.

"I'm kind of starting to wonder if it's even worth doing an entire album again. It might be worth it to just do a few songs ... just the way music is now, people are more interested in one or two of your songs, so I don't know. We're going to kind of talk about it and maybe approach things a little bit differently."

Check out Rhaye on stage Saturday night at Mosaiq.