Rembobine

For the past 10 years, the Québécois band Mélisande [éléctrotrad] has been creating dance-floor electro versions of traditional French-Canadian songs with wild visuals. One of the most ground-breaking Québécois trad bands, they brought a deep breath of creativity and dug deep into the tradition to focus especially on songs from women’s voices, often with biting messages that have been carried over the years by many unknown women. For their 10th anniversary, lead singer Mélisande is breaking out under her own name with a retrospective, Rembobine (meaning “Rewind”), of the band’s best songs, reworked acoustically. Where 'Ti-Pétard Allard' rolled out originally with a heavy funk bassline on their 2019 album, here it’s more intimate, powered by the acoustic guitar of Jean Desrochers and Gabriel Girouard’s fiddling. 'Le Pied Su’l Cant' features a powerhouse fiddle and flute duet with Mélisande’s partner Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand (formerly of Genticorum). On Rembobine, Mélisande touches on all the great tropes of Québécois song, from mystical bird messenger songs to surreal lying songs and especially the beloved drinking song genre. But she brings a much-needed feminine perspective, sometimes funny and sometimes poignant, to a tradition that usually focuses on male groups. With Rembobine, Mélisande also takes her place as a focused and dedicated bandleader in a tradition with very few women at the helm. It’s about time!