Hélène Barbier signs with Bonsound

Bonsound is thrilled to welcome Hélène Barbier to our label roster!

Hailing from France and based in Montreal over the last decade, the singer and bassist made her mark on the city's underground scene, first by playing in multiple bands, then with her solo albums Have You Met Elliot ? (2019) and Regulus (2021).

Hélène Barbier seeds melodies that ferment and blossom in the shadows, pairing hummable lines with alien tunes conjured in someone else’s psyche across time and space. Siamese fragments. She creates an imbalance through juxtaposition. Four simple notes become evocative alongside four disorienting, different notes, and this simplistic rule has become a basis for complex play.

Barbier enlists musicians based on willingness to break from tired chords, worn fills, and needless flourish—expertise aside. She switches between English and French atop aggressively anti-complicated avant-pop melodies. Off-kilter beauty ensues. Pretension and contrived professionalism are kept far away as these sketches find mature forms in an album that keeps the tedium of square music at bay.