Chantal Bellavance, yet another promising singer-songwriter emerges from Québec… And when the songs are tagged as “cutting crystalline pop” they have got to be worth a listen, n’est-ce pas?

It would appear that 27 year-old, classically trained, Chantal Bellavance – sometime budding actress, model, cash-strapped fashionista (or “fashionista sans budget” as she writes) – could quite easily add another string to her bow as a singer-songwriter, if her recently released four-track EP “J’attends” is anything to go by.

“J’attends” hits you with a blast of retro-80’s influenced synthesiser-pop – four vignettes of bitter-sweet slices of life, love, despondency and disillusionment – that are nigh on perfect. The EP is perfectly balanced; two up-tempo numbers “J’attends” and the down-right foot-tapping “Le matériau ne convient pas”, both neatly sandwiching and counterpoising the slower yet still poppy “Serial lover” and the subdued ballad “Qui”.

And then there is Chantal’s (and yes it has to be said) crystal-clear voice, which like the middle-eight of the title track rises and soars, none more so than on “Qui” – which is rapidly positioning itself as the standout track – with its sympathetic piano accompaniment and her laser-like vocals… cutting like a searchlight through the gloom.

There’s also a nice video to accompany “J’attends”… Chantal’s model deportment is put to good use in this one…

Lovely cover of Que vais-je en faire? by Pendentif. Original version by Jerome Echenoz, who re-released is album from 2012 with several remixes and reworks, like this one. Full album on Bandcamp.

Growing up on a farm in rural Burgundy, the lure of music was stronger than a life of agriculture for Clémence Freschard; at 12 she started putting on gigs in the barn. At 18 she moved to Paris where she worked in a café, meeting regular customer Andre Herman Dune, the sterling lo-fi pop genius who has worked with FS favourite Françoiz Breut. He wrote some songs for Freschard. She then decamped to New York, where she picked up an old electric guitar and started writing her own material. Now a long-time resident of Berlin, her fifth album, Boom Biddy Boom, is out on the ace UK label WIAIWYA (Where It’s At Is Where You Are) on lovely orange vinyl and from her Bandcamp in. let’s face it, marginally less lovely digital formats. The album’s sung in a great accented English, with slack guitars and sparse instrumentation. It’s lovely stuff in any language.

(Thanks Adrian for this guestpost)