Jane Siberry: Unyielding Muse To 30 Years Of Independent Music
In an industry famously shaped by trends and market fluctuations, few artists have navigated their careers with the fierce independence and artistic integrity of Jane Siberry.
For over 45 years, the Canadian singer-songwriter has defied categorization and expectation, charting her own course through the fickle waters of popular music. Celebrated for her emotive vocal style, multi octave range and avant-garde compositions, Siberry has become a symbol of resilience in a landscape where many musicians succumb to the pressures of conformity and commercialism.
Born Jane Stewart on October 12, 1955, in Toronto, Ontario, Siberry’s journey began in the suburban enclave of Etobicoke. From an early age, music was both a refuge and an expression of her identity.
Learning piano at the tender age of four, she crafted her own system of notation while simultaneously mastering conventional theory and exploring the raw nerve of Leonard Cohen’s lyrics on guitar. By the age of seventeen, she had penned her first song, yet it would take years of growth and exploration for her to truly find her voice.
After graduating from Richview Collegiate, Siberry pursued music studies at the University of Guelph. The regimented world of academia would proved too stifling for her burgeoning creativity, prompting her to switch her focus to microbiology. Her experiences there, however, were not in vain; later helping inform her lyrical explorations of the human condition.
The late 1970s ushered in a new era for Siberry as she aligned herself with the folk music scene in Guelph, Ontario. Joining the band Java Jive, she honed her performance chops and began to capture the attention of audiences. Following the band’s dissolution in 1979, Siberry embarked on a solo career, using her earnings as a waitress to finance her independent debut, the self-titled Jane Siberry album released in 1981. The record marked the beginning of her artistic ascent, melding folk inspirations with her unique perspective.
With a newfound deal at A&M Records through Windham Hill, Siberry assembled a supporting band which included world renowned Canadian drummer Al Cross to record her second album, No Borders Here, released in 1984. For this project, she largely moved away from her folk roots, embracing an 80s electro art pop sound. This transition coincided with a thriving new wave and independent music scene within Canadian media outlets, particularly Toronto radio station CFNY and the emerging new 24 hour video channel MuchMusic, both of which became ardent advocates for Siberry, featuring her prominently on their playlists.
Her first major success came with the single “Mimi on the Beach” from the No Borders Here album, a seven-and-a-half-minute art rock track. The song found a favorable reception thanks, in large part, due to its innovative video and extensive college radio play, establishing her niche within Canada’s popular music scene at the time. The album went on to win Siberry a CASBY Award (Canadian Artists Selected By You, formerly known as the U-Knows, a pun on Canada’s mainstream music awards the Junos) for Best Female Vocalist.
Siberry’s third album, The Speckless Sky from 1985 was another commercial and critical success. The album went Gold in Canada, continuing the momentum created by her previous record, firmly establishing Siberry as a Canadian pop star. The album won the 1985 CASBY for Best Album, with Siberry also picking up the award for Best Producer.
In 1986 Siberry signed with Warner Brothers subsidiary Reprise Records which picked up her American contract from Windham Hill, while honouring the existing Canadian arrangement with Duke Street Records.
Siberry’s fourth album, Bound By The Beauty was released in 1989, three years after signing with Reprise. This time around Siberry utilized a simpler more direct writing approach, abandoning the 80s electro pop in favour of a more acoustic sound drawing on a variety of elements including country western and latin music. While retaining her quirky conceptual approach, the overall feel of the album is substantially lighter than her previous efforts. At the time of its release Bound by the Beauty became Siberry’s bestselling album, charting on Canada’s RPM Top 100 Albums.
The release of her following album When I Was a Boy in 1993 marked a reawakening of sorts for Siberry. During a transformative period, she sought collaboration with producers Michael Brook and Brian Eno, ultimately giving voice to her exploration of sensuality and spirituality in her music.
In stark contrast to its predecessor, When I Was a Boy features a variety of fresh new sounds from Siberry including funk, dance and gospel, making use of the layering and sampler technology in pop music, trip-hop and R&B at the time. The album features one of Siberry’s best-known songs, Calling All Angels which initially appeared on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ film Until The End Of The World and later re-recorded for the movie Pay It Forward. The album introduced tones and deeply personal themes surrounding belief that would go on to inform much of Siberry’s later works.
For her tour of the When I Was a Boy album Siberry chose not to utilize a backing band opting instead to perform solo, encouraging audience interaction and even including spoken word material, much to the puzzlement of many critics at the time.
Prior to the release of When I Was A Boy, Siberry suffered a disastrous performance in Edinburgh, Scotland opening for Mike Oldfield’s world premiere of Tubular Bells 2. The incident caused Siberry to make a serious reassessment of the way she perceived the value of her work. Looking back Siberry noted:
“I took back all the power back that I had put outside myself trying to please (others). The worst show of my life has become the best show because it’s given me the ultimate freedom to care only about what I think is really good. How my career does is secondary.”
Following the incident Siberry began to assert full control over all areas of her work, from songwriting to stage presentation and video direction, emerging clearer and more resolute than ever. This moment of reckoning not only reinvigorated her artistic vision but also catalyzed her ultimate decision to reclaim her power artistically.
Towards the end of 1993, she collaborated with Holly Cole, Rebecca Jenkins, Mary Margaret O’Hara and Victoria Williams for a live concert of Christmas music that was broadcast on December 25, 1993 before being released as the Count Your Blessings album of seasonal music the following year.
In 1995, following the dismissal sales performance of her 7th studio album Maria, Siberry parted ways with Reprise Records. While the move to independence came with its own set of struggles, it allowed her to fully explore artistic endeavors on her terms. Siberry explained:
“They wanted me to work with a producer and that severed any sense of loyalty. I realized they truly didn’t understand what I was doing so I took my leave.”
Maria would prove to be the very final major label album of her career. In 1996, Siberry started her own independent record label, Sheeba Records, and for close to 30 years now she has released all of her subsequent recordings on the label. In spite of the fact that her public profile diminished somewhat in becoming an independent artist, Siberry has managed to retain an extremely loyal and devoted cult following over the years.
To finance her label Siberry began experimenting with new and inventive promotional packages like her “Siberry Salon” as she called it, a weekend long concert and seminar event featuring two performances plus a workshop and dinner. These soirées were often hosted at intimate and unusual venues such as art galleries and loft apartments. Through her Sheeba umbrella company she also sold soft toys and auctioned off collectible items from her career including autographed lyric sheets, her first guitar and even the pink bra she wore on the cover of the Maria album.
Despite her apparent productivity, Siberry continued to find her independent career and business efforts challenging and problematic. She recorded and distributed a series of independent live albums as a relatively inexpensive way to raise the necessary funds to record original material.
Siberry has often criticized the competitive nature of commercial radio and the recording industry saying:
“I really thought it was going to be much, much easier. The whole label thing. It wasn’t. Those records, Shushan and Hush, were to pay for studio time.”
In early 2006, Siberry closed her Sheeba office and sold practically all of her personal belongings including her Toronto home and musical instruments. She held onto one travelling guitar, but nothing else. In a 2006 article in The Globe and Mail she stated that she had kept a few of her most precious possessions in storage including her collection of Miles Davis CDs.
On June 3rd, 2006, at an undisclosed location in northwestern Europe, Siberry changed her name to Issa, revealing her identity change to the public two weeks later in a Globe and Mail article explaining that her pre-existing music would remain available for sale under her former name “Jane Siberry”, while her new material would be released as Issa. At the time she said:
“I had to do it right. I had to be serious about it and I had to convey that. When I put Jane away, I went silent for 24 hours. Not a word to anyone. And then Issa from that point on.”
“Moving into Issa, I didn’t know if I’d be in the music business any more. I just started writing. I wanted to let go of any expectations and just try to get closer to what I heard in my head. I just tried to write as precisely as I could to what I heard in my head. I slowed everything down and took one note at a time, and just waited until I heard the next note.”
Inspired by her difficulty in finding suitable international concert promoters, Siberry initiated what she called “microtours” through her fan mailing list. She offered to play small venues ranging from intimate cafés to fans’ homes in any location in Europe where one or more fans could organize a space, an audience of up to 20 or 30 people and a night of accommodation.
Later on, commenting on the three years from 2006 to 2009 she inhabited the identity known as Issa, she would say:
“I felt the need to make some strong changes in my life. It seemed important to change my name, so I did. I changed it to a name that I thought was simple, an empty cup. I had never heard the name Issa before, and it turns out to have some wonderful meanings, including a haiku poet in Japan, and the name that Jesus had in India. But two weeks ago I officially changed my name back to Jane Siberry. I felt with the name change, I had gotten in my own way, in terms of devoting myself to my career, making my work available to people. So, Jane Siberry is my name again until further notice, but I feel richer from having been Issa for three years.”
Following the name change back to Siberry, her 14th studio album, Meshach Dreams Back, was released December 15, 2011, the first album to be credited to “Jane Siberry” for eight years.
In 2014 she utilized crowdfunding in order to raise the capital required to produce her 15th studio album, Ulysses’ Purse, a limited edition CD, released February 26, 2016. Her next and most recent album to date, Angels Bend Closer, was released later the same year on November 18, 2016
After close to a decade of no new recordings and a relatively low profile, Siberry found herself back in the spotlight once again when her 1985 album The Speckless Sky won the jury vote for the Heritage Prize at Canada’s prestigious 2025 Polaris Music Prize, September 16, 2025, at the storied Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada.
In her acceptance speech Siberry announced the forthcoming 2025 release of In the Thicket of Our Own Unconsciousness, her first new album in close to a decade. When it is released it will be her 17th studio album in the 44 years since the release of her eponymously titled 1981 debut album.
As Siberry embraces her legacy, the world watches the ongoing evolution of an artist who has fiercely championed her autonomy in the music industry for nearly three decades. In a realm often dictated by fleeting trends and commercial pressures, Jane Siberry stands out as a beacon of independence and authenticity, a true icon whose journey continues to inspire both fans and fellow musicians alike.
Click below to hear the debut single from Jane Siberry’s upcoming album Season One: In the Thicket of Our Own Unconsciousness, her first album of new material in a decade. Enjoy!
Everything You Need To Know About Jane Siberry’s New Music
Season One: IN THE THICKET OF OUR OWN UNCONSCIOUSNESS
After a ten-year hiatus, Jane Siberry’s new material has blossomed over three separate recordings, to be experienced by the listener as Seasons One, Two and Three. The three separate albums of new music unfold like a musical Netflix series, interweaving songs with spoken word segues Siberry calls “the matrix”, where a revolving cast of characters comment and even argue about the songs. Themes include the flickering consciousness, compassion, and rigorous self-reckoning.
Co-produced with Renée Cologne, the album features longtime Siberry collaborators Peter Kiesewalter, Ken Myhr, Rich Brown, Rebecca Jenkins, Rebecca Campbell, David Ramsden, Marlon Saunders, Alyson Palmer and Jacob Switzer.
The first single from the project, BOUNTIFUL BEAUTIFUL was released October 10, 2025 with the next single BAILOUT scheduled to drop this coming Friday, October 24, 2025,
Season One is scheduled to be released on an unspecified date in November 2025, with Seasons Two and Three to follow in 2026.
Siberry’s highly anticipated upcoming solo tour of North America with guitarist Ken Myhr is set to commence in November 2025. Subscribe to Siberry’s mailing list via her official website for info on tickets and show dates.
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Love yous…
HAPPY MUSIC!NG!