Myriam Gendron's Not So Deep As A Well via Basin Rock
Myriam Gendron
Not So Deep As A Well
Album re-issued and available for the first time in Europe on 17th November 2023 via Basin Rock
Listen to a new track Bric-á-brac included on the new expanded version:
https://myriamgendron.bandcamp.com/track/bric-brac
"It felt like both a trove of unearthed ancient folk and a fresh, immediate expression of a new voice." Pitchfork
Equal parts soft and sorrowful, Myriam Gendron’s stunning Not So Deep As A Well LP became something of a sleeper hit upon its initial release back in 2014. Her debut album, unintentional both in its recording and release, shone a warm lamp-light glow upon a curious and captivating new voice in the Québécois folk world.
Nearly ten years on from its release in her native Canada and America, Not So Deep As A Well gets a European release for the first time this autumn, with a new pressing on the Basin Rock label (Julie Byrne, Aoife Nessa Frances, Trevor Beales, Juni Habel) which features two tracks not included on the original release ‘Bric-à-brac’ and ‘The Small Hours’, both written in the early days of 2014.
Recorded alone in her apartment, with no knowledge of sound engineering, it could almost be a lost artefact, a dust-lined document of a forgotten time and place. Taking the poems of Dorothy Parker, whose work Gendron stumbled upon by chance in a Montreal bookstore, she imbues the words with a graceful, gentle expression, a lingering sense of sorrow always present, always casting a spell.
“I came across a beautiful 1936 anthology of her poetry, and I was attracted by the pink clothed cover and the gold lettering,” Myriam explains of that introduction. “I knew the name but in my mind she was a satirist. I had no idea she had written poetry.”
A stark, spellbinding collection, Not So Deep As A Well is raw and unyielding in so many ways we no longer expect to hear. As if sitting in the room with her, Gendron’s voice is cracked and unadorned, quietly forced into a push and pull between the quietude of the songs and the noisy world outside her apartment.
“I discovered a whole other side of Dorothy Parker, and it probably helped me to understand myself a little better,” Gendron says reflecting on the inspiration behind her debut album. “Her infinite sadness really resonated in me, and I think channelling all that emotion made me grow as an artist and as a person.” In so many ways, Not So Deep As A Well places Gendron on an equally compelling footing, creating a language all of her own; as beguiling as that which inspired it.
