“I love Philadelphia as a city,” said Canadian singer/songwriter Rose Cousins, who drops her fourth full-length album, “Natural Conclusion,” on Feb. 3.
The Philadelphia Folksong Society presents a concert with Cousins and her band at the Ardmore Music Hall Feb. 9. It is the second stop on a two-month tour.
A collection of songs that Cousins said in a phone interview she felt “vulnerable about,” she felt “Natural Conclusion”‘s songs about sadness, pain and longing should pack an even greater punch with people watching.
On the track “My Friend,” Cousins sings: “Stabbed in the back with my own knife/it’s just about all I can take. To trust was my mistake, my friend.”
She said the real-life story that inspired the song “is not one that I would tell,” but believes it expresses a universal “passing sentiment that we’ve all felt at one time or another.”
Giving “Natural Conclusion” added clout is its producer, three-rime Grammy-winner singer and guitarist Joe Henry. Henry co-wrote Madonna’s 2000 hit “Don’t Tell Me.”
“He’s a good friend … Joe Henry is a beautiful poet,” she said, pleased that Henry brought the same aesthetic to the proceedings as he does with his own music.
Cousins’ 2012 album, “We Have Made a Spark,” won a Juno Award, three East Coast Music Awards, a Canadian Folk Music Award, was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize, and made picks/best of lists by NPR Music and Oprah Magazine.
Her song “Let the Light Come” was featured on a season finale episode of the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy.”
A resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia, when Cousins was asked what Americans ought to know about her home province that they probably do not, she said: “It’s not as far away as you think.”
Check out www.rosecousins.com.