David’s spoiling us with another guestpost, on exotic beauty Wendy Nazaré.

I don’t know if others are the same way, but it is rare that I can listen to a new CD all the way through without getting bored at some point. Usually, the music begins to sound somewhat the same, and I find it’s better to come back to it. So, when I listened to Wendy Nazare’s “A tire d’ailes” straight through twice, I was very pleasantly surprised. (This happened to me earlier this year with Porcelaine’s new album, see the post on Filles Sourires here. While I’m thinking about it, there are some excellent videos from Porcelaine’s concert at Francofolies here, here and (my favorite) here.)

Back to Wendy. Her family comes originally from Algeria, reaching Belgium by way of Portugal and England, per her Myspace site. There are traces of all these places in her music. The instrumentals stand out: clean, varied and complex. Wendy’s voice ranges from soft and clouded to ringing clear and full, a sound like some recent artists out of Quebec, such as Chloe LaCasse, Marie-Pierre Arthur or Ingrid St-Pierre (Ingrid’s got a new album out, by the bye, “L’Escapade”). It may not be coincidence that her first record contract was with a record company out of Quebec. “Nairobi River” is a fair example, with a video here. There are other videos, each tending to remind me of Wendy’s Myspace description of how she sang at family gatherings as a little girl – the videos are happy and somewhat chaste, as if she were still singing with Mom, Dad and the family watching. “Au gout eighties” video is another example, or a duet with Pep’s, “Lisboa”. Her music lifts, filles fragile.

While Wendy’s first album from four years ago is not quite on the same level, it showed promise, with songs such as “Amabi”, or “Y’a une bombe”. I’ve attached a couple favorites from “A tires d’ailes”.

Wendy Nazaré – Juliana
Wendy Nazaré – Galway