Not So Deep as a Well

For Québec-based musician, Myriam Gendron, it started with a book – a 1936 anthology of the poetry of Dorothy Parker, attractively bound in pink cloth with gold lettering. Gendron, who had never previously encountered the works of the American satirist and writer, gradually sank into Parker’s unique world, and surfaced with a handful of songs, which she subsequently recorded at home. These recordings, initially released in 2014 via boutique label/shop, Feeding Tube, are made available here in Europe for the first time, together with two previously unheard tracks of contemporary origin.

The sound is intimate and enveloping, featuring just Gendron, her voice and acoustic guitar. Her rolling, finger-picking style proves the perfect accompaniment for Parker’s words, at once forceful and gentle, rising and falling with a dusty, sunny beauty. Gendron’s rounded, relatively deep vocals, together with her natural slight twang, sound entirely fitting, leaving little wonder as to the singer-songwriter’s evident affinity with the source material. The songs themselves offer more than enough variety in terms of style and approach to carry this set through, ranging from shuffling, sparkling, mid-tempo numbers to delicately bittersweet, all of which are curiously affecting.