(3/6/5) 021: Myriam Gendron - Look Down That Lonesome Road
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After a weekend of sunshine for most, the aurora borealis for some, the world alive in sight and smell, today is grey and wet, the world smudged in grey pencil. Such shifts do things to the atmosphere, to the music and how it sounds.
Under most circumstances, Myriam Gendron's work feels achingly sad but it takes on even greater weight under heavy clouds. There's little you can do but stare off into the distance as her quiet, weighted voice wanders away from you. A songwriter from Montreal, who sings in both English and French-Canadian, Gendron has just released her third album, Mayday, and it's every bit as consuming as that which has preceded it.
I was lucky enough to write a new bio for a recent UK re-release of her astonishing debut record - via the excellent Basin Rock label - a collection of songs released in 2014 that followed Myriam's unique path to recording; her primary musical focus before its release was busking in Paris Metro stations, performing the songs of Leonard Cohen and others, accompanying herself on guitar.
There was a seven year gap between that release and it's arresting follow-up, the double LP Ma délire which saw Myriam leaning more into the avant-garde, with its arrangements and music flourishes. Such blushes are embraced once more on Mayday, where subtle folk songs are quietly met with occasional bursts of skewed abandon - most notably the other-worldly saxophone that ribbon-ties the albums final moments with a unique and startling manner.
Today, though, through rain-streaked windows, it's the quieter moments that truly grab. 'Look Down That Lonely Road' hangs in the air, all heavy-hearted but full of grace. There's a Nico/Sibylle Baier air of loneliness to the song, Gendron's voice seemingly crawling in from some other time and place, different from the here and now but not obviously tied to somewhere specific; like a radio song, like a spell repeated over centuries, carried in the breeze.
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