About Meredith Lazowski

After spending the last seven years working in the healthcare tech industry as a User Experience Designer and Lead Product Designer, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Meredith Lazowski has returned to her creative roots with her debut album, Other Way Home, out in June 2022. On the album, Meredith blends strong vocals with alluring lyrics and a unique voice for our times. Other Way Home presents a collection of 10 distinctive songs, each beckoning like a siren tempting us to take risks and face our undying desires. It offers an exciting array of soundscapes mirrored to the landscapes of life – from the vast spaces of the prairie, to the haze of the urban bar, and to the solitude of a cemetery. In this monumental album, Meredith combines the genres of alternative-folk and country. 

As soon as the album begins, you are transported to the vast expanses of the landscape in “Prairie,” a mesmerizing listening experience of sound and lyric, accented with definitive drumming. This song also reflects multiple family visits to her grandmother’s homestead in northern Saskatchewan and how the landscape calls us back. “Bring me back now and then, now and then; the west wind blows to the east to remind me,” she sings. 

“...a stirring listening experience that transports you...

marries Americana and folk music with Meredith’s

enchanting vocals and sparse yet textured instrumentation...”

– Glide Magazine

“In many ways, this album was a way of coming ‘home’ for me,” she says. “We had a lot of guitars in the house, and my dad played guitar while I was growing up. My sister and I took conservatory piano lessons, but I really wanted to learn guitar. So at 13, I ended up teaching myself the guitar, and I have never stopped.” She and her family often played music together, and this provided the real impetus to write her own songs and perform them. Her sister, Bronwyn, is featured on background vocals; her father, Brian, has a guitar solo on “December;” and her mother, Kathryn, helping create the marketing materials. “It was important for me to include my family in this project, as they have been a part of this since the beginning,” Meredith says. 

Inspired by the souls of Gillian Welch, Mavis Staples, Neko Case, Norah Jones, Rosanne Cash, and classic country sounds, Meredith began to compose and eventually sing her songs on local stages, at schools, and at universities. You can feel the sense of community rooted in these songs, which were first enjoyed by friends and family in living rooms and around campfires across the country. “Prairie” and “December” were composed in her high school years, while others like “Navigator” and “Running Circles” were written later in her 20s as reflections of lost friendships and love. Each song is uniquely independent, both in style and sound, but the collection coalesces as a comprehensive retrospective. Other Way Home captures the stylistic range of Meredith, from the country twang of “Running Circles,” to the sultry, late-night slide – reminiscent of the aforementioned Norah Jones and Mavis Staples – of the title track “Other Way Home,” and to the lively, Americana-rock vibe of “The Other Side.”

With her real-world experience in design, Meredith’s involvement in album production was comprehensive: she was involved in all aspects of the album’s creation using her skills from her design and art background to create an artistic whole, combining music, composition, visual art, photography, videography, and branding. She envisioned this album as an experience meant to be listened to while in motion – driving, cycling, running, walking – on our personal journeys where we reflect and pause to see our lives in perspective. 

“It came together like magic thanks to the wonderful production of Juno Award-winner Justin Rutledge,” says Meredith of the five-day recording session. “He matched the soundscapes to my original visions.” Rutledge brought together a notable team of musicians to perform on this album – with Burke Carroll on pedal steel guitar; Miranda Mulholland on fiddle; Devon Henderson on bass; Tom Juhas on electric guitar; Kelsey McNulty on piano, whirly, organ, and accordion; and the fine work of Joshua Van Tassel on drums.

Other Way Home offers listeners a journey of new beginnings, of familiarity, of both the place and the feeling of home, of old chapters not forgotten. It is an album for those looking to get lost on a journey and then find their way, encouraging the listener to rethink love and friendships, and blending landscape and soundscape in a unique fashion. Indeed, we could say that Meredith’s creative journey on this album becomes our journey as well.