And then, my friends, there is reality. Reality, whilst never actually popular, is forever with us and is often seen reflected, but perhaps not recognised, in the music of our times. Whilst the computer that is our lord and master can never see, sense or create reality, the mixed metaphor that is the smoky clarity of Marianne Dissard’s voice can and is infused with the complementary gifts of shadows and light. Her voice is that of reality. Her voice is that of a torch singer.
These songs, drawn from her extensive back catalogue and reinterpreted, drift in the wind yet remain firmly focussed on, and motivated by, the heart with the journey from Tucson to Europe serving to blow the scant covering of dusk from them and being sung, as such things are, in French does not prevent them from making a connection to your otherwise culturally bankrupt soul.
Accordingly, it is no surprise that there is a sense of dislocation or, perhaps more accurately, a disconnection from expectation that pervades all that is here. As in nature though, a balance is nonetheless achieved with, for example, the echoing emptiness of “Les Draps Sourds” being precisely balanced by the reverberating, almost maternal, warmth of her voice. Similarly, she takes the soul searching of “Oiseau” and places it, fully lit by spotlight, on the stage. Drama, after all, comes naturally to her.
Even the short, sharp up-tempo discord that powers “Election” cannot disguise theatrical intent with her breathless delivery suggesting that escape is never inevitable but the curtain fall is.
Assisted in her artistic efforts by the redoubtable Yan Péchin and the exquisitely intense Allyson Ezell, Marianne Dissard proves, once more, that her talent works as well in the captured spell of live performance as it does in the studio. In reality, as she herself might preach, there will always be time to dream.
Available from Bandcamp and other download sites.