Grenadine
This year is already shaping up to be a great one for filles fragiles, with a number of albums coming out from favorites from years gone by. Perhaps a coincidence with Valentine’s Day, but I have found my first new love of 2014, Julie Brunet, aka Grenadine.
Julie’s been around for a while on the Quebec music scene, playing many concerts, having put out an EP in 2010 with help from Fanny Bloom. Julie’s first full album, “Grenadine”, just came out last month. Julie’s music is varied, but her style is simple, accompanied by guitar, piano and drums, with her voice front and center, unaugmented. She’s receiving some press coverage, here’s a recent interview, where Julie names Vanessa Paradis as one of her musical influences. (Not mentioned in the article, one odd tidbit is Julie has degrees in anthropology and archeology.)
One of the songs from the “Grenadine” album, “Je Veux, Je Veux” reminded me so strongly of a young France Gall, I wondered if it was a cover (it’s not). A free download of “Saint-Flavie”, from her EP, on Bandcamp (see below). Besides “Je Veux, Je Veux”, another favorite is “Petits Mensonges” – tough to choose, as I enjoyed them all.
(Thanks David for this guestpost!)
Streaming some of the songs from her label’s website. This is really good and very confident – it reminds me of the new Angel Olsen album “Burn Your Fire For No Witness” in the way that there’s a little bit of indie sensibility to be detected and how the sound has been layered… It’s certainly more expansive and assured than her 2010 debut and I reckon could be there or there abouts come the end of the year… now all it needs is a legal download south of the 49th…