Kluane-originated artist Diyet van Lieshout talks new music, upcoming shows and representing Canada’s North on the international stage
“It’s very much an honour to be able to play music that’s very firmly rooted in the North, outside of the North”
We spoke with Diyet van Lieshout recently about her collaborative work on Matthew Lien’s The Kluane Compositions project, but with new music starting to roll out from Diyet’s own band, Diyet & The Love Soldiers, it was only fitting to give her a feature of her own. With a new album titled Seeds of Dreaming, slated for a September release, Diyet has unveiled its first single, “Running Through The Great Divide.”
“So far it’s been really great,” Diyet says of the reception to her new song and its accompanying video. “I think we’re getting a lot of reach with it and it’s pretty exciting.”
The new album took shape over the course of a few years, says Diyet. Originally, she planned to bring out new music a few years ago but was stalled by the pandemic, plus the singer-songwriter didn’t feel it was the right time for her to bring to life her vision, especially with distancing measures in place, as she’d hoped to gather a number of musicians to record together. Last year, she revisited the project, choosing which songs she wanted to be part of it and starting to make plans to record them.
“I was able to pull together a whole bunch of northern musicians to come into Bob [Hamilton’s] Old Crow Recording Studios, and for a week we sat and hashed out tunes,” she says. “What ended up happening was [that] we pressed record and we got more than what we’d hoped for.”
These initial sessions were only meant to be to demo the music, but Diyet was so excited by what she, Hamilton and their collaborators were able to capture right away that the recordings they produced ended up serving as bed tracks for the album.
“It was pretty awesome,” says Diyet. “Over the course of a year, we recorded, polished and settled on Seeds of Dreaming. Out of that, this first single, “Running Through The Great Divide,” was a song that also is a new sound for Diyet & The Love Soldiers, so we’re really excited to bring that out.”
Diyet & The Love Soldiers have previously incorporated primarily Folk and Americana elements into their music, and while not discarding that, Diyet says they are pushing the boundaries of their own sound, bringing in Folk/Pop and R&B stylings as well.
“What we wanted to do with this album and with this music is [to] make songs in the vein of what we love,” she explains. “We spend so many hours driving when we’re on tour, and we end up listening to so much music, and we love the sounds from the ‘70s and ‘80s, and we’re paying homage to the music we love in the way that we can as a trio.”
Diyet & The Love Soldiers are rounded by Diyet’s husband, Robert van Lieshout, on acoustic guitar, drums; and Hamilton himself on electric guitar, pedal steel and mandolin. The three have been on the road a lot lately, playing nationally and even globally. Being able to represent the Yukon across Canada and in other countries is something Diyet says she never takes lightly.
“It’s very much an honour to be able to play music that’s very firmly rooted in the North, outside of the North,” she says. “To have that opportunity to share the, in my opinion, most special place on the planet, with the rest of the world, is a really incredible experience.”
Diyet’s band is gearing up for a performance in Vancouver for National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21, and other upcoming summer and fall dates in Ontario and Alaska. In April, Diyet & The Love Soldiers played in Japan at Osaka’s Expo 2025 at the Canada Pavilion and on stages around the site, over the course of a week.
“I could never take that moment for granted,” says Diyet. “When you can see the faces of people who dream about or only have an idea of where we live, from pictures, and be able to bring that music to people with sound and stories and to see their imagination light up, [it’s] pretty amazing. I think I love that the most about playing music and being that unofficial ambassador of the Yukon, especially where I’m from in Kluane.”
Being part of the Yukon’s creative community is another thing Diyet is grateful for. She recounts a recent encounter with another local artist in a grocery store, and how happy the two were to hear about what the other had going on.
“The Yukon music scene is so alive,” she says. “The community of musicians and artists and writers and players is really a big family. People are very supportive.”
“This album has been several years in the making, but It’s very much about this connection to the land and to that space of where I’m from, and looking at the wider world through this little lens,” says Diyet. “One thing I have come to understand and realize is that everything that is happening in the world, good and bad, happens to all of us. It looks different wherever you are, in your own place on the planet, but it’s the same feelings, the same emotions, the same problems and the same things we deal with. You can plop that lens down in any place in the world and you’ll find a similar story. I think that’s what Seeds of Dreaming evolved into for me — very close stories from the heart that can resonate with everyone else. We always think we’re so individual, but at the same time we’re also very much the same.”
To keep up with Diyet & The Love Soldiers and to find information and tickets for upcoming shows, visit diyetmusic.com. Keep an eye out for more new singles on the horizon and the release of Seeds of Dreaming this fall.
