Arranging vocal harmonies with AV and the Inner City

Established in Edmonton’s inner city neighbourhood of McCauley, AV & The Inner City is a recently formed, all-female Soul/Roots vocal group, originating from the weekly collaborative porch concerts put on during the pandemic by multi-award winning local artist AV (Ann Vriend). 

In a testament to their incredible talent, the diverse group of Edmontonian singers brought home their very first award while touring Western Canada in the Summer of 2023: the Edmonton Folk Music Festival’s “Emerging Artist Award”, before having released any of their own music.

The Soul infused vocal group is comprised of JUNO-nominated Indigenous vocalist Debbie Houle; Jazz singer Johwanna Alleyne; Pop/R&B band “Mercy Funk” lead singer Crystal Eyo; Czech Republic songwriter Alenka Lundell; and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jenn Dahlen; and is led by celebrated Edmonton artist AV. Legendary concert promoter Vic Bell calls the group “an act that could have closed the Main Stage any night of the festival.”

AV and the Inner City shared their song Music Always. Download the lyrics to follow along.

We talked about:

• Ann’s first appearance on the podcast in 2022 as a solo artist
• How Ann uses scale tone numbers to communicate her melodic ideas to the rest of the band
• How the band uses Dropbox to share recordings for practice, like multiple demo mixdowns excluding each person’s part
• They are starting to introduce fully acapella in their performances
• Getting together to “just jam” vs. rehearsing and developing songs
• Do you lose out on the “messy” factor when you develop harmonies more specifically?
• As a band leader, do you prefer to be called picky or meticulous? 🙂
• Our conversation about achieving a “flow state” when you’re performing