Marianne Dissard

Marianne Dissard is a photographer, filmmaker, performance-artist and chanteuse – she’s collaborated with Giant Sand and Calexico and spent most of the 00s in Tucson where she released a small handful of interesting records when, at her best, as I said here in a review of “The Cat. Not Me”, she is able to sell the idea of breathy French chanteuse remade as indie-rocker, riding between the Gallic balladry and the southern Gothic.

So here, the perfect entrée – a collection featuring her best takes from most of the last decade, a summation of “The Tucson Years” – she’s now living in Europe and a new chapter, no doubt, will unfold.

But here you’ll hear the driving R’n’B backing and sly slide guitars on The One And Only, the gently finger-picked guitar reverie of Cayenne, the windswept (and interesting) Le confettis.

There’s a Bad Seeds feel to the music of Tortue and something very Tom Waits-esque (if a little Tom Waits-lite) to Almas perversas. The phrasing, the placement, the tone, the feel of her vocals – it’s all very Francois Hardy, which is intoxicating of course, and easy bait when you don’t know the meaning of the lyrics. Thoughtfully she translates them all at her website.

Dissard’s music is at its best when the country-swirl of the American desert bubbles up and over (Un gros chat is a fine example of gothic-dark storytelling with this torch approach backed by sandy storms of musical textures; the brushed drums, the shimmer of guitar…)

And so Cibola Gold is a nice wee grab-bag, maybe it’ll send you back to the individual long- and short-players; maybe it’s enough on its own. Either way it’s a fine thing to have.