Montreal songwriter Le Ren has released her second album, Don’t Be Funny Without Me, today, August 28, through Royal Mountain Records. The ten-track record arrives five years after her 2021 debut, Leftovers, and follows an extended period touring with artists including Jeff Tweedy, Devendra Banhart and Men I Trust. Written primarily by Le Ren’s Lauren Spear, it expands the close, restrained folk of her earlier work into fuller country and Americana arrangements.
Spear produced the album alongside Fez Gielen and Jonas Bonnetta after returning to Ontario, recording much of the material in Mountain Grove. Gielen contributes guitar, lap steel, bass, drums and programming, while Bonnetta plays drums, banjo, percussion and keyboards. The wider cast includes Caylie Runciman, Cedric Noel, Raiden Louie, Trent Freeman, Ella Korth, Georgia Harmer and cellist Eliza Niemi, with Marcus Paquin mixing and Heather Kirby mastering the record.
The album opens with A Song Can Love You Back and closes by returning to the same idea on Epilogue. Between those bookends, Spear writes through a breakup without leaning on anger as an easy exit. Love, jealousy and self-scrutiny sit beside dry humour, particularly on the title track, where the thought of an ex making somebody else laugh becomes its own specific kind of loss.
Musically, Don’t Be Funny Without Me moves beyond the sparseness of Leftovers without burying Spear’s writing. Lap steel, fiddle, banjo, cello and layered harmonies give songs such as Every Age and Die Inside more room to breathe, while Gold in California and Otherwise, I’m Fine push into a firmer rhythmic frame. Kacy Lee Anderson co-wrote and appears on Die Inside, the only song on the album not written solely by Spear.
The release follows the singles Free Wheeling, Gold in California and Every Age.
Le Ren will bring the record home next month with a sold-out POP Montreal performance at the Rialto Rooftop on September 25.
