FME 2025: Ada Lea – when i paint my masterpiece

It’s quite amazing how an album can set you in a time and place. It could be due to its themes or sounds, or the actual location you were when you first heard it. For me and Ada Lea’s when i paint my masterpiece, it’s the latter. I’m brought back to the misty and wet coast of Vancouver Island, water building on my forehead and hands as Ada Lea sings about a buzzing mini fridge while some twee indie folk and rock plays on.

The album begins with two acoustic instrumentals and then jumps into “baby blue frigidaire mini fridge” an ode to faraway love that brings to mind the work of Adrienne Lenker/Big Thief and Neil Young.

We get quirky musings and observations in Ada’s quintessential, and playful way. She knows when to be serious and when to throw in a weird line about Bob Dylan’s hair. The instrumentals are also sprawling and grooving, like during the underwater guitar lead of “something in the wind.”

A great album that will be revisited time and time again, I assure you.