SXSW 2012

Ariane Moffatt is an adventurer. The Montreal singer-songwriter’s illustrious career is marked by curiosity ¬– sonic, musical and emotional – and it’s contagious. She has built a devoted following in Quebec over the past decade, making inroads to France with her evocative blend of electro, pop, soul and rock.
At the heart of her success is that voice – an instrument of arresting intimacy that tugs on your heartstrings as it floats through the atmosphere, at once earthy, ethereal and capable of surprising power.
Yet it is underwater that Moffatt makes her grand entrance, splashing onto the scene with her runaway 2002 debut Aquanaute. An entrancing collection of post-trip-hop confessionals blending acoustic and electronic textures, sung just above a whisper, the album strikes a chord. It sells 120,000 copies and wins three ADISQ Awards (Quebec’s Grammys) including Discovery of the Year and Pop-Rock Album of the Year.
Meanwhile, Moffatt is making her reputation as a mesmerizing performer, her live shows bringing a whole new dimension to her dreamy sound. The submersive audio-visual experience is captured on the live CD/DVD Ariane Moffatt à la Station C, which appears in 2005, six months before her second album, Le coeur dans la tête.
Without losing the lightness of her earlier material, the new work surprises with gritty forays into rock, reggae and drum-and-bass. Two things become immediately obvious: this girl can do anything; and, held together by her voice, it all fits.
“It’s like I want to master the essence of each kind of groove,” Moffatt says. “I want to submerge myself in these sounds; I feel more creative when I make stylistic clashes, borrowing ingredients from all kinds of things I love.”
At the heart of her inclusive vibe is an artistic integrity and emotional honesty that cut through her aesthetic choices.
“The emotion in a song is like the glue that picks it all up,” she says, “my identity, my personality, poetry. Maybe that’s my musical identity – that whole mix. I’m very sensitive; I ask a lot of questions. I listen to what’s happening inside myself and music is a great channel to express those feelings.”
Moffatt is introduced to the French public in February, 2006, opening for Alain Souchon at the fabled Olympia de Paris. Shortly after, Le coeur dans la tête is released in France, where her star continues to rise as she is taken under the wing of flamboyant pop songsmith M (aka Mathieu Chedid).
A few years later, Moffatt seduces the French public with Je veux tout, the irresistible hit single off her third album Tous les sens, released in April, 2008. The song cycle finds the singer dabbling in what she does best, from airy introspection to folky ragtime and funky electro.
The electronic elements of her music are highlighted on the followup EP Tous les sens - remix, featuring inspired reworkings of her songs by acclaimed Montreal techno artists Akufen, Deadbeat and Pheek. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in 2010 she releases Trauma – musique de la série TV, a collection of stripped down, English-language covers of songs by everyone from The Ronettes to Cat Power, Tom Waits, R.E.M. and Leonard Cohen recorded for the Grey’s Anatomy-style Quebec hospital drama.
Now, as she prepares to unveil her most ambitious album yet, Moffatt is more comfortable than ever with the various incarnations of her artistic expression.
“Music takes us places that aren’t in any guidebook or on a map,” she says. “It’s like a quest, a search for what is beautiful – to make tangible the things which cannot be named, to give substance to emotions and create a common denominator for everything people feel.”