Lovely Salomé adds French vocals to a song by Vancouver neo-folkster Joshua Hyslop. On his album, one Anna Scouten is Joshua’s English duet partner. Switching between English and French duet partners is common practice for Canadian artists (I guess it has something to do with gaining radioplay this way), for instance, Simple Plan duetted with Natasha Bedingfield and Marie-Mai. It’s that stupid Jetlag song, by the way, so click at your own risk.
Title track from her last years solo debut ‘Sous Les Arbres’. Video is shot by visual artist Pascal Grandmaison. Simply briljant.
It took Salomé Leclerc almost four years to release her debut ‘Sous Les Arbres’. These years of writing, fine-tuning, re-arranging and rehearsing resulted in a very intimate, subtle and layered album that reveals its treasures slowly but surely. Together with Emily Loizeau (they met each other for the first time at ‘Les Rencontres d’Astaffort’) she managed to record a rudimentary album with lots of folk-influences that nonetheless doesn’t get on the nerves. A tour de force in itself, but she succeeded. The darkhaired beauty from Québec is blessed with a very versatile voice that is hoarse when needed (Dans la prairie), bright and strong (Partir Ensemble) and ominous and exciting (Volcan). The guitar-driven songs are the perfect field for her voice to play on and simultaneously kidnap the listeners mind to drop it somewhere under the trees.
Salomé Leclerc made an outstanding debut (but I still wonder why a stunningly beautiful song as ‘Est-il Cassé ?’ – see video below – isn’t on it).
Guuzbourg was right, yearlist-material people.
Salomé Leclerc – Tourne encore
Salomé Leclerc – Est-il Cassé ? (live at ‘Les Rencontres d’Astaffort’)
As regular visitors of this blog know, Canada (Quebec) has A LOT to offer when it comes to gorgeous, very talented female singers. Coeur de Pirate, Marie Pierre Arthur, Catherine Major, Fanny Grosjean (of La Patere Rose, she will release a soloalbum!), Amylie, this list could go on for a while. And now there’s Salomé LeClerc. FS-contributor Maks was already infatuated by her (see here), I can assure you that you will be too. I’ve listened to a few tracks on her album (out September 6), it’s yearlist-material people. You must admit that first single Partir Ensemble looks and sounds very, very promising. More to come.
Salomé Leclerc – Partir ensembe
There were some pretty cool debuts last year like Lafille, ZAZ and Brune to just mention some. Others filles like Élodie Frégé, Cécile Hercule or Babet ‘simply’ consolidated their position as certified filles fragile. Let’s just hope that next year will bring us at least the same high quality in French music as this last year did.
One release with high expectations that is already announced by herself for 2011, is the debut from yet another darkhaired beauty, 23 years old from Canada: Salomé Leclerc.
Unlike others who prefer the intimacy of a studio, Salomé played a lot of festivals (among which FrancoFolies) and clubs the past few years to discover her own style just by playing her songs over and over again for live audiences.
Together with her music director Philippe B., former frontman for Gwenwed and guitarist for Pierre Lapointe, she is now working on her debut. In this interview she isn’t sure yet of the direction in which her debut will move, but according to her MySpace and YouTube, we may expect quite some exciting and sultry moments of joy. Think Marie Daguerre, think Cat Power, think Geneviève Toupin, think Salomé. Don’t let us wait too long!
Happy New Year Y’all!
Salomé Leclerc @ MySpace
Salomé Leclerc @ YouTube
(ps: even more exciting releases next year? Let us know in the comments!)