Julie Blanche
I've previously mentioned Les Francouvertes, the annual French-Canadian music festival in Montreal, which acts as a spotlight for emerging francophone artists.
Previous finalists have been known to appear sooner or later in Guuz's Filles Sourires or these very pages themselves - Émilie Proulx (OK, so Émilie falls into the 'later' category), Fanny Bloom from La Patère Rose, Chloé Lacasse, the delightful Les sœurs Boulay, to last years' winners - those crazy Chiac-parlezing, New Brunswick interlopers - Les Hay Babies.
Les Francouvertes sees several rounds of competition until arriving at a trio of finalists; the ultimate winner walking-off with the accolade of 'Best New Artist of the Year', a shed load of cash and enough sundry prizes that will hopefully catapult their career...
And from the 2014 edition of Les Francouvertes (and the runner-up to winner Philippe Brach) here's a short post on singer-songwriter Julie Blanche, whom if her eponymous EP is anything to go by, will certainly be featuring in the pages of this blog in the future...
Released last year - and to which - désolé - I appear to have criminally overlooked - this EP is less of a showcase, more of a teaser, as after listening to the three songs here there's an overwhelming yearning to discover much, much more...
Eschewing the more familiar country-folk chemin of a number of her contemporaries, Julie instead veers towards an acoustic indie-pop path that is chock-full of dark, bitter-sweet melancholic rhythms.
The EP's opener, "Comme un décor" features those same haunting analogue synths as appears on Catherine Leduc's "Les vieu hiboux", but is definitely a far more sombre affair. The lyrics hint at loss and betrayal - in many respects the words jar with the lilting melody; but the haunting bridge that as it builds creates a delicious frisson of suspense expertly ties everything together.
The first thing that hits you about "La maison d'hier" is the pounding, metronomic beat. This is probably my favourite track - there's a Gothic tinge to both the lyrics and music. I mention in my introduction that there's a definite indie-pop texture woven through all the songs here - but I'd love to hear a fully-plugged in version especially with additional orchestral strings here - there's more than a hint of Hôtel Morphée's Gothic-infused indie-pop on display here.
The closing track of this all to short EP's "Presque" features yet another effortless haunting melody and the one song here where Julie's flat, affecting vocals are deliberately centre-stage.
As one of the prizes awarded to the runner-up in this years' Francouvertes competition, Julie won 20 hours of studio-time complete with the services of a recording engineer. Meanwhile via her website Julie's still searching for a friendly recording label. Hopefully given the exposure that the contest provides, the end result of these recording sessions will find a deserved home.
Having said that if Julie has to resort to crowd-sourced funding, where do I sign-up?
Previous finalists have been known to appear sooner or later in Guuz's Filles Sourires or these very pages themselves - Émilie Proulx (OK, so Émilie falls into the 'later' category), Fanny Bloom from La Patère Rose, Chloé Lacasse, the delightful Les sœurs Boulay, to last years' winners - those crazy Chiac-parlezing, New Brunswick interlopers - Les Hay Babies.
Les Francouvertes sees several rounds of competition until arriving at a trio of finalists; the ultimate winner walking-off with the accolade of 'Best New Artist of the Year', a shed load of cash and enough sundry prizes that will hopefully catapult their career...
And from the 2014 edition of Les Francouvertes (and the runner-up to winner Philippe Brach) here's a short post on singer-songwriter Julie Blanche, whom if her eponymous EP is anything to go by, will certainly be featuring in the pages of this blog in the future...
Released last year - and to which - désolé - I appear to have criminally overlooked - this EP is less of a showcase, more of a teaser, as after listening to the three songs here there's an overwhelming yearning to discover much, much more...
Eschewing the more familiar country-folk chemin of a number of her contemporaries, Julie instead veers towards an acoustic indie-pop path that is chock-full of dark, bitter-sweet melancholic rhythms.
The EP's opener, "Comme un décor" features those same haunting analogue synths as appears on Catherine Leduc's "Les vieu hiboux", but is definitely a far more sombre affair. The lyrics hint at loss and betrayal - in many respects the words jar with the lilting melody; but the haunting bridge that as it builds creates a delicious frisson of suspense expertly ties everything together.
The first thing that hits you about "La maison d'hier" is the pounding, metronomic beat. This is probably my favourite track - there's a Gothic tinge to both the lyrics and music. I mention in my introduction that there's a definite indie-pop texture woven through all the songs here - but I'd love to hear a fully-plugged in version especially with additional orchestral strings here - there's more than a hint of Hôtel Morphée's Gothic-infused indie-pop on display here.
The closing track of this all to short EP's "Presque" features yet another effortless haunting melody and the one song here where Julie's flat, affecting vocals are deliberately centre-stage.
As one of the prizes awarded to the runner-up in this years' Francouvertes competition, Julie won 20 hours of studio-time complete with the services of a recording engineer. Meanwhile via her website Julie's still searching for a friendly recording label. Hopefully given the exposure that the contest provides, the end result of these recording sessions will find a deserved home.
Having said that if Julie has to resort to crowd-sourced funding, where do I sign-up?
Julie Blanche Website
Julie Blanche Bandcamp page
Julie Blanche Bandcamp page
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