For the Spring Fever Festival, improvised music trio Les Poules, featuring musicians Joane Hétu, Danielle Palardy Roger and Diane Labrosse, will play live at Halifax’s North Street Church (NS) Sunday ,May 16, 2004,. For the second half of the show, they will be joined by Janice Jackson, Suzanne Lemieux, Norman Adams and Paul Cram.

A first visit to Spain for the trio Les Poules. They will take part in the multi-disciplinary festival Sensxperiment at Lucena’s San Juan de Dios church (Cordoba) on October 24, 2003.

With the notable exception of sugary pop, all music styles are dominated by the male. Whether he’s grunting into the microphone, strumming his guitar, or blowing his lungs out on the saxophone, the manly man monopolizes the image of the musician, be it in corporate rock or on the new music scene. When women venture into his domain, they are often coerced into fitting the mold of the industry.

That’s why it is so surprising to find this many creative, challenging, talented women in DAME’s catalog. But one should not forget that early in its lifetime the collective Ambiances Magnétiques welcomed three artists whose musical activities, organizing minds and determination provided a force of attraction for other women. Of course, I am talking about Joane Hétu, Diane Labrosse and Danielle Palardy Roger.

Our three protagonists met at the turn of the ‘80s in Wondeur Brass and pursued their association into Les Poules and Justine. First an anarchist/feminist big band, Wondeur Brass was a laboratory to Joane, Diane and Danielle. They honed their skills — Joane, self-taught, literally learned to play music while playing music in it. Their own blend of modern poetry, free jazz and rock-in-opposition already took center stage on the LP Ravir. From the sextet featured on this first effort, the group scaled down to a quartet (with bassist Marie Trudeau as the fourth member) by the time of Simoneda, reine des esclaves. This line-up soon took the name Justine for three more albums (credited to the name of the individual musicians, La légende de la pluie can be seen as a collaboration between Justine, Zeena Parkins and Tenko) and the feminist discourse got gradually subsumed, making way for a growing playfulness that reached its peak on the phenomenal album Langages fantastiques.

Soon after the release of Langages fantastiques, the three girls launched their solo careers. Linguistic marvel and a rough delivery keep singer and saxophonist Joane Hétu close to the field of outsider art. First she formed her own group Castor et compagnie (with Labrosse, Jean Derome and Pierre Tanguay) which has recorded two albums of sensual and twisted songs in direct relation to Justine’s music. Later she turned to improvisation, first in a duo with her life partner Jean Derome as Nous perçons les oreilles (We Pierce Ears) and later solo with the intensely intimate album Seule dans les chants. She recently proved her worth in large-scale composition with her marvelous Musique d’hiver.

Toward the end of Justine’s life, Diane Labrosse traded in her keyboard for a sampler. After a solo album, Face cachée des choses, a duo album with percussionist Michel F Côté (Duo déconstructiviste) and a guest spot in the latter’s group Bruire (on Les Fleurs de Léo), she wrote a piece for improvisers (Petit traité de sagesse pratique) before devoting her time to improvisation. Parasites (her ongoing collaboration with Martin Tétreault) and Télépathie (with Aimé Dontigny) show how it is possible to handle a sampler with grace and sensibility.

Since the disbanding of Justine, Danielle Palardy Roger’s discography has been growing slowly — she’s very busy organizing concerts as head of Productions SuperMusique. Her children’s tale L’oreille enflée (featuring the voices and instruments of Derome, Hétu and André Duchesne among others) speaks to a young audience with an intelligence too rarely found in such projects. And Tricotage, her improv session with French bassist Joëlle Léandre, reminds us how refined her drumming can be.

In 1986, Joane, Diane and Danielle took a vacation away from Wondeur Brass to investigate the limits of the pop song format under the name Les Poules — The Chicks (Contes de l’amère loi, freshly reissued). Recently they reformed the trio, this time pushing the music toward a form of improvisation rich in subtle textures, blending quiet noise, active listening, and lyricism. Prairie orange is the first effort from this awaited return to collective work.

The presence within Ambiances Magnétiques of these three creators has attracted to the label other female artists with similar interests. The first one to join the roaster was Geneviève Letarte, who has recorded two beautiful albums of poetic songs (Vous seriez un ange and Chansons d’un jour). Lately, DAME’s catalog has welcomed performer Nathalie Derome, guitarist Sylvie Chenard, pianist Pui Ming Lee, along with Queen Mab members Lori Freedman and Marilyn Lerner who each delivered a solo album (À un moment donné and Luminance).

So, is musique actuelle a man’s world? Listen to these few hints and you’ll see for yourself.

One of the most fundamental trio of Québec’s new music, Les Poules are musicians and producers Joane Hétu, Danielle Palardy Roger and Diane Labrosse. More than 15 years after Les contes de l’amère loi they have a new full-lenght for us, the intriguing Prairie orange full of brand new tracks which paints a landscape of electronic and acoustic sounds, cracklings and rustles.

Les Poules began as a side project for Joane Hétu (vocals, sax), Diane Labrosse (keyboards) and Danielle Palardy Roger (drums), three members of the feminist collective Wondeur Brass. The release of their first LP in 1986 cemented the relationships and the musical approach of this trio: a partly improvised form of synthetic avant-pop. The members went on to participate in many other projects. In 2000 the trio itself was resurrected as a free improv unit and a new CD came out in 2002.

The year is 1986, the location Montréal. A group of avant-rock feminists has been active for a few years under the name Wondeur Brass. Started as a political music theatre, it has evolved into a provoking experimental pop group. At that point Hétu, Labrosse and Roger, the three most avant-gardist elements of the collective, felt the need to retract from the large ensemble (which has counted as many as nine members at one point) to work on their own small-scale project, christened Les Poules — “the chicks,” a bitter name for feminists. The music on Les contes de l’amère loi, released in 1986, shows a sharper focus than Wondeur Brass’ Ravir (1985): post-new-wave in spirit, cold and chaotic, the songs left more room to improvisation and yet packed more punch. Instead of bringing back the other members of WB, on hiatus, the trio decided to sack them and hire bassist Marie Trudeau. This quartet recorded Simoneda, Reine des esclaves under the moniker Wondeur Brass before switching to Justine and releasing two more albums in the 1990s. Hétu, Labrosse and Roger continued to work on each other’s solo projects and co-run the production company SuperMusique, but everyone believed Les Poules was a project of the past.

In 2000, Hétu, Labrosse and Roger performed in Victoria and Vancouver (Canada) as a trio again and the use of their old group name came naturally. A year later, Ambiances Magnétiques reissued Les contes de l’amère loi on CD and the trio presented a concert in Montréal. No nostalgia is involved, the old repertoire has been buried. The new Poules play quiet free improvisation. Lyrics have devolved into abstract vocalizations, the keyboard licks have become treated samples, the beats have turned into textural percussion work. Prairie Orange came out in 2002.

Double Ambiances Magnétiques CD launch Thursday November 21, 2002! First, starting at 9 pm at Montréal’s Espace chorégraphique Jean-Pierre Perrault, guitar player and composer Tim Brady presents his first Ambiances Magnétiques album, the dazing Twenty Quarter Inch Jacks. Then at 9 pm the Casa del Popolo (Montréal) Les Poules (Joane Hétu, Danielle Palardy Roger, Diane Labrosse) launches — more than 15 years after Les contes de l’amère loi! — their new full-lenght, the intriguing Prairie orange. as