Veronica Winter

As I may have previously mentioned, there is far too much great music out there  for one 'ickle part-time blogger to cover and - as by the large I'm not exactly being showered with freebies (but to those labels, agencies and artists that have - merci and gracias!!!) - a finite budget with which to indulge my hobby (which my CFO just about 'tolerates'). But there are always those records languishing in my Bandcamp wishlist that ultimately deserve a wider audience - and a dip into the music fund - as this next post will hopefully demonstrate...

To be honest I really don't know that much about Veronica Winter, save that she comes from Sherbrooke in La belle province and is a member of Eager Dance, a collective of like-minded artists and musicians from nearby Magog  (there's an excellent interview in LaPresse with the collective's Raphael Favreau and Dominique Lemire - it's in French, naturellement). Even the notoriously partisan Montréal-based Québec press seems to have not picked up on her - which may be because she comes from Sherbrooke rather than the Big City...

She's also probably better known to family and friends as Véronique Bazin. However - and for the purposes of this Blog - she has more importantly released her debut solo album "Small Bird."

Three years in the making, "Small Bird" is a beautiful collection of nine bilingual - three in French, the remainder in English - folk and indie-pop songs which opens with  the humorous "Le moucheron" and a tale about a rather annoying gnat buzzing drunkenly around Veronica who wishes that it would indeed "buzz off." And yes it's light hearted, but - and as Veronica points out, "...Un peu bête, mais loin d'être con..." / "...A little silly, but far from stupid..." - indeed there's nothing con about this delightful folk-tinged pop song; gentle percussion fixes the song's natural cadence, there's an incredibly warming glow left by the uptempo acoustic guitar and everything is  underpinned by Veronica's pitch-perfect crystalline vocals.

And from français we switch seamlessly to english as "Monsters" not only demonstrates Veronica's bilingual fluency but also highlights the change in vocal inflection - something that Béatrice Martin has also remarked upon as she switched from performing in her native French to English for the 2014 album "Trauma" - here softer and with a touching sibilance. While the song again follows a gentle, meandering indie-folk path, the lyrics narrate the tale of a young girl - her voice betrays just a hint of fragility - not quite sure of herself, battling to rid inner demons of self-doubt (the "Monsters" of the song's title).

As I mentioned there are three French language tracks on the album. The second of the trio, "Ferme les lumières" is a poetic - post-coital - love song and follows a theme reminiscent of "Gab des Îles" from Les sœurs Boulay's "4488 de l'Amour." Which if that song suggested the blossoming of Mélanie and Stéphanie from two shy young girls from the Gaspé Peninsula to confident and cosmopolitan young women whose song-writing reflects their growing maturity, the same has to be said of a young girl from Sherbrooke. Here acoustic guitar and percussion steer a more pop-infused course as the uplifting chorus sees Veronica pleads with her lover to turn out the light as she finally cries with an audible gasp; "...J'ai le souffle coupé..." However, if the image of "Ferme les lumières" is of two bodies intertwined in a bed, "Raconte-moi" is one of the aftermath of yet another betrayal; "...Raconte-moi l'histoire, comme tu la veux, Tout dépend de comment je l'entends, J'ai plus l'goût d'entendre les mêmes conneries..." exasperates Veronica; ("...Tell me the story how you want to, It all depends on how I hear it, I'm fed with hearing the same crap...") The song demands a strong vocal performance - and Veronica delivers - her voice fluctuating between despair, anguish and resentment, conveying the conflicting emotions of the song.

There's a melancholic beauty which - while I'm hoping isn't autobiographical - really stamps Veronica's personality all over this album. "Let it go" sees Veronica analogise and antagonise over the application of  a coat of paint to hide the imperfections of a grimy wall to that of papering over the ever-widening chasm of a fracturing relationship. She already knows the answer, her voice carries that air of would weary resignation  - the walls will still look dirty - cheap, plastic flowers will never - like this relationship - blossom... Time to let go, if she possibly can.

Letting go would appear to also be the problem faced being faced on "Crystal clear." I love how the song's demo-like quality adds a certain rawness to proceedings and which heightens the feeling of paralysis. There's the clever addition of harmonica to the middle-eight which not only adds to the air of melancholy but ensures that - alongside guitar - the song doesn't deviate far from Veronica's contemporary folk-inspired template.

Meanwhile the downbeat "Goodbye" is - as the song suggests - all about breaking-up and its aftermath. Here Veronica tries her hardest to convince everyone that this going of separate ways is for the best. Again her vocals perfectly capture the song's mood; there's a fragility tinged with sadness which suggests that her words must may be for show.

In fact breaking-up is a bit of  a recurring theme (see what I mean when I say I hope these songs aren't autobiographical?) There's a hypnotic beauty to the plaintive acoustic guitar and gentle folk-pop melody of "Hope this finds you well" which finds Veronica embracing the smouldering embers of a relationship that has long since cooled. The soft assuredness to her voice perfectly captures the song's sentiment; it may be that parting wasn't totally her idea - "...To be safe and empty and tell me how safe is it?" - but the hand and shoulder of friendship will always be there. It's a thought that the album's closer, "Is the tide coming in or going out" develops upon. While the lyrics again revisit another rupture, the confidence of Veronica's voice conveys the promise that everything is going to work out alright in the end ("...And I hope you smile when you think of us, And I hope you smile when your hands are touched...") "Is the tide coming in or going out" is arguably the most assured of the English language songs on the album even though the composition doesn't stray far from her folk-pop comfort zone. Here though the piano that emerges between the pauses of the guitar adds warmth and texture that is perfectly married to her dulcet tones.

"Small Bird" is an album that sticks fairly close to that familiar folk-trodden chemin that in many respects is the typical Québec sound. Indeed when Veronica writes and performs in French her compositions are incredibly reminiscent of a number of her contemporaries (many of whom have featured on these very pages - with Véronique Bilodeau and Geneviève Racette readily springing to mind...)

Listening to the English language songs it seems to me that Veronica has deliberately pushed herself - once or twice the lyrics don't appear to flow as well as the those of the French-language songs - but it's a risk that was well worth taking (and remember, this is Veronica's debut album, even Béatrice Martin had recorded her two stellar cent-pour-cent Francophone albums before tackling the bilingual "Roses") and I'd argue that "Is the tide coming in or going out" is probably this album's outstanding track.

Ultimately "Small Bird" is an enchanting and melancholy-tinged collection of contemporary and bilingual folk-pop. It's also suggest that in Veronica (or Véronique), Sherbrooke has an artist who deserves to shine under those same spotlights as those from Montréal or Québec City...

Veronica Winter
"Small Bird" (Bandcamp)