{"id":2430153,"date":"2026-05-24T11:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2430153"},"modified":"2026-05-24T11:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:26:07","slug":"in-with-the-new-phantom-finds-her-footing-as-a-sonic-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/in-with-the-new-phantom-finds-her-footing-as-a-sonic-storyteller\/","title":{"rendered":"In With the New: Phantom finds her footing as a sonic storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We asked five Vancouver musicians to each recommend a local artist. Here are their suggestions.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As reflected by her detail-rich songs, Claris Figueira has something of a natural gift for storytelling. To illustrate this, start with \u201cIrene\u201d where, over spectral neon-glow guitars, the singer creates a Polaroid-perfect title character with lines like \u201cCigarette in hand and your IV stand\/Dressed up in the shirt that you wore to the Stones\u201d and \u201cYou\u2019re the last woman alive in the suburbs\/Dancing under your kitchen light\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went out to a dive bar in Nanaimo, and I was kind of writing while I was there because it felt like the right environment,\u201d Figueira explains, speaking to the Straight<\/em> from Montreal. \u201cI wasn\u2019t writing the song\u2014more details about this person who ended up in the song. Strangely, there was a reggaeton dance night happening with a whole band with all these older people there. I looked out onto the dancefloor at one point, and there was this older woman with really big, platinum, poofed-up hair. She was salsa-dancing with someone on the dance floor. And I was like, \u2018That\u2019s Irene!\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised in Vancouver, Figueira is currently bouncing between the West Coast and Montreal, writing songs under the name Phantom. To date, her recorded output consists of a handful of tracks released on streaming platforms, with a debut EP planned for later this year. Scan the credits on her Bandcamp page, and it becomes clear the singer-songwriter has some heavy hitters in her corner.<\/p>\n

Vancouver Americana-soul alchemist Frazey Ford is a major fan-girl, coproducing both \u201cIrene\u201d and the slow-dance country-noir stunner \u201cGet It Right\u201d, where Figueira parks herself at the same lonely end of the bar as the ghost of Patsy Cline.<\/p>\n

And Celebrated West Coast producer Howard Redekopp, who\u2019s worked with acts including Dear Rouge, Tegan & Sara, Mother Mother, and Hannah Georgas, produced her first recording, the incandescent folk confessional \u201cPunchline\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now in her early 30s, Figueira has written songs since her teens, embracing the idea of using art to work through things when the dark thoughts take over. She notes with a laugh that the inspiration for \u201cPunchline\u201d\u2014consisting largely of rattled-off lines such as \u201cLike a straight-to-VHS version of your life\/Like reversing down the freeway at night\/Like smiling when a man on the street tells you to smile\u201d\u2014sprung from a visit to her therapist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe song was kind of a response to the \u2018How does that make you feel?\u2019 question,\u201d Figueira shares. \u201cSo I wrote the whole song like that. Like describing how it feels to be depressed because I was struggling with depression at the time. My therapist was like, \u2018You use humour as a defence mechanism.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Well, I\u2019ll show you, Barbara!\u2019 No shade to her, because she was also like \u2018Why don\u2019t you just make art if that\u2019s what makes you happy?\u2019 And she had a point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Figueira had busked in university, playing Fleetwood Mac and Joni Mitchell songs at farmers\u2019 markets while studying in Halifax. Performing her own material live, however, was terrifying. But while living in Nanaimo a couple of years back, she found the music community to be supportive and uplifting. That led to a series of fortunate coincidences that helped launch her career as Phantom.<\/p>\n

One of her first shows was at a friend\u2019s shop, where she was more than a little freaked out, even though she was only playing for 10 people. Unbeknownst to her, one of the attendees was Redekopp.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came up to me, and I said something like, \u2018I don\u2019t really do this\u2014I\u2019m just playing this one show,\u2019\u200a\u201d Figueira recalls. \u201cHe was like, \u2018What do you mean you don\u2019t do this? You should be recording. You know I have a studio right across the street from you right? You should come over and we\u2019ll do some demos.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n