Ready to record her second solo album, Larra Skye knew what she had to do. “I wanted to get back to playing my guitar with a band,” she says. “A girl and her guitar; those are my roots and it’s at the core of most of Wishing Tree.” Working with producers Karen Kosowski and Marc Rogers, Skye has created a synthesis of pop, rock and folk anchored by her strong songwriting and winsome voice, which can range from a husky alto to a crystalline soprano. The chorus of Explode includes the line “a small apartment on the second floor,” which refers to where she was living at the time that she wrote most of the new album. (She also wrote some songs at her parent’s bookstore in rural Williamsford, Ontario, on an out-of-tune Mason & Risch upright piano.) There are collaborations with other writers. Mavillette was co-written in French with Franco-Ontarian musician (and former CANO guitarist) Marcel Aymar. Grain of Sand, a dreamy ballad co-written with singer-songwriter Emma-Lee, features a compelling chorus in which Skye’s voice dips into its rich lower register as she sings, “Don’t pinch me/I know I’m dreaming/You can’t drag me back without kicking and screaming…” The title song, which has a Paris café-style ambience – it sounds as though it could have been part of the soundtrack to the Oscar-nominated romantic comedy, Amélie – evokes the image of a tree that, according to spiritual custom, will fulfill wishes when believers leave coins, cloth or other offerings. It was, for Skye, all about hopes, wishes and longings being expressed. Could there be a better symbol for the album, Wishing Tree?