Geneviève Letarte is an artist before being a singer. Her musical career is only one of many facets she has integrated to her art. A poet, novelist, lyricist, and performance artist, she is loosely associated with the Montréal avant-garde music collective Ambiances Magnétiques, but also with the poetry/spoken word scene (both francophone and anglophone). Her albums are few and far between.

Letarte was born in Quebec City in 1955. At age 20 she went to Paris to study literature and cinema for two years — at the time an obligatory sojourn for Quebecer intellectuals. She had already started to write for various literary magazines (her name would appear in La Vie en Rose, La Nouvelle Barre du Jour, Estuaire, Moebius, and the New York magazine Bomb, among others). She launched her professional career in 1982 with her first interdisciplinary performance “Transit Station” (also the title of her firstbook). The next year she presented “Sirène Serpent Zoulou,” a show of music and poetry with Serge Boisvert. From there she developed a growing interest in music. She briefly collaborated with the all-female group Wondeur Brass with which she shared a feminist philosophy, but her first musical break came in 1987 when Ambiances Magnétiques member René Lussier invited her for a guest appearance at his duo concert with guitarist Fred Frith at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. Lussier and drummer Michel F Côté (also of AM) helped her write, arrange, and produce her first album Vous seriez un ange (“You’d be an angel”), released in 1990 on the collective’s label.

During the next decade Letarte juggled writing, songwriting and performance art. She wrote the lyrics to La légende de la pluie, a 1992 performance and album by Justine, Tenko, and Zeena Parkins. She appeared at the Victo festival (1990), the Vancouver Jazz Festival (1995), and a number of poetry events in America and Europe. 2000 saw her focus again on music, first with a word/sound performance with electroacoustic artist Chantal Dumas, then with a new CD, Chansons d’un jour, co-written with guitarist Claude Fradette (of Les 4 Guitaristes de l’Apocalypso-Bar).

Canadienne également, Geneviève Letarte évolue dans un autre registre, plus intimiste et sensuel, celui de la chanson. Épaulée par un singulier quintette (accordéon, guitare électrique,trompette, basse et batterie) elle offre ses Chansons d’un jour,légères et subtiles, à la frontière de la poésie.

Genevieve Letarte is a singer that is a poet and novelist as well. Her developed ability to communicate and express emotions comes across on this warm and personal disc. Sparse, almost Western, accompaniment by electric guitar and drums joins Letarte in delivering her original songs that strike the listener as familiar and nostalgic.

What? You weren’t out looking for an eclectic album by a 45-year-old French-Canadian multidisciplinary artist? Geneviève Letarte appears before us anyway with this beautiful, surprising disc. A poet, spoken word performer and author of three novels, Letarte sings with an offhanded grace, and her songs sound like lyrical conversations with a close friend — one you might not be able to follow, if you’re not a French speaker, but Letarte’s entrancing voice and the easygoing warmth of the songs make that seem like a negligible problem. Chansons d’un jour (“Songs of One Day”) mixes smoky jazz and mid-tempo rock with Old World folk music and light touches supplied by accordian and dobro. The crisply produced album includes some unusual arrangements, such as the double-tracked vocals that provide counterpoint rather than harmony, and songs that are well worth hearing whether you understand them or not. The music here succeeds in transcending the boundaries of language.

Pour un beau retour, c’est tout un beau retour! Après un premier disque fort, Vous seriez un ange paru en 1990, l’artiste mutidisciplinaire Geneviève Letarte récidive, 10 ans plus tard, avec un petit bijou d’album auquel on revient souvent. Quelque part entre Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Nathalie Derome, Marie-Jo Thério, Buffy Ste-Marie et la saine folie de Justine et des Poules, Letarte nous entraîne dans son univers particulier, tout en nuances. Sa musique est à la fois actuelle et très accessible, remplie d’ambiances envoûtantes. Elle puise autant dans le folk que dans l’expérimental, le blues, la valse, le tango et les atmosphères jazzées (la magnifique Je ne tremble plus avec trompette en sourdine à la Miles Davis, courtoisie de Serge Boisvert, est un point fort). Ses textes en français, épicés de quelques mots anglais, italiens et inventés, sont à la fois simples et incisifs, drolatiques et poétiques et leurs accents souvent nostalgiques touchent la cible à tout coup. Le ton est intime et des plus sensuels et la voix douce et caressante de Letarte vous bercera. Un disque tranquille et subtil qui transporte l’auditeur dans un monde magique, sécurisant. A savourer d’un bout à l’autre, paisiblement. Superbe. (9/10)

Après une longue absence de 10 ans, l’écrivaine Geneviève Letarte remet son chapeau de chanteuse et nous offre ces Chansons d’un jour, dont elle a écrit les textes et la plupart des musiques, sur fond musical hybride. Côté paroles, l’album est décidément très fort et la vision lucide de l’artiste est drôlement bien amenée, ce qui devrait plaire grandement aux amateurs de chansons à textes. L’album se distingue aussi par son style résolument novateur et actuel.