Executive Producer
And A&R Laurent Bizot
Assisted By Thibaut Mullings
Artwork: Element- S
Engraving: Olivier Gonties
Photo: Jean-Marc Lubrano
Produced By Lisa Patterson And Mélissa Laveaux
Except Dodo Titit, Produced By Majiker,
Akeelah’s Heel, Produced By Mélissa Laveaux,
Needle In The Hay And I Want To Be Evil,
Produced By Lisa Patterson And Bénédicte Schmitt
All Tracks Recorded By Lisa Patterson
At Imaginit Music Studio, Toronto
Except Akeelah’s Heel, Recorded By Bénédicte Schmitt
At Labomatic Studios, Pa R I S ,
And Dodo Titit, Recorded By Majiker In His Studio
Additional recordings on, My Boat By Majiker In His Studio
Additional recordings on Tracks 3,4,6,8,12
Bénédicte Schmitt at Labomatic Studios, Paris
Mix And Additional Production By Bénédicte Schmitt
At Labomatic Studios
Mastering Dominique Blanc-Francard And Bénédicte Schmitt
At Labomatic Studios
All Songs Written And Composed By Mélissa Laveaux
Except Dodo Titit (traditional) ,
Needle In The Hay (Elliott Smith)
And I Want To Be Evil(L.Judson - R.Tyler)
All Songs Published
By No Format! And 3d Family
Except Dodo Titit (Traditional),
Needle In The Hay
And I Want To Be Evil
(Universal Music Publishing)
Scissors
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Tabla - Rob Reid
My Boat
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Tabla - Rob Reid
Double Bass - Martin Gamet
Chère Trahison
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Melodica - Lisa Patterson
Cajon - Rob Reid
Double Bass - Martin Gamet
Ulysses
Guitar, Vocals, Claps, Bell
Mélissa Laveaux
Koudlo
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveau
Saxophone - Lisa Patterson
Cajon - Rob Reid
Double Bass - Martin Gamet
Shaker - Inor Sotolongo
Dodo Titit
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Additional Guitars - Majiker
Background Vocals - Majiker,
Mélissa Laveaux
Needle In The Hay
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Double Bass, Claps - Martin Gamet
Drums - Morgan Doctor
Games Of Unrest
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Tabla - Rob Reid
Akeelah’s Heel
Guitar, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Percussion - Inor Sotolongo
Double Bass - Martin Gamet
I Want To Be Evil
Ukulélé, Vocals - Mélissa Laveaux
Trumpet - Brownman Aka Nick Ali
Accordion - Ferruccio Sardella
Tambourine - Lisa Patterson
Percussion - Inor Sotolongo
When she lost the cheque that was supposed to pay for her piano lessons, the young Mélissa Laveaux sealed her own fate: she had to teach herself music. By ear, and by reading books. It was a good thing that her mother used to comb her daughter's hair listening to Haitian jazz and songs with a meaningful lyric; it was also good that Melissa's father, himself something of a musician, gave his daughter a second-hand guitar when she was thirteen.
So, Mélissa Laveaux has a style that draws on several cultures? No doubt. How could it be any other way? Mélissa was born in French-speaking Canada (Montreal, 1985), where her parents had recently emigrated from Haiti. She grew up in Ottawa, where most people speak English rather than French, and so she had to get used to a new environment while losing none of her own French-Creole culture.
So many identities quickly made her aware of the shift between her own persona and this new world. Or so she supposed. As an adolescent she used music as a refuge, and spent much of her time making mix-tapes of songs heard on radio, to the despair of her parents who had dreamed of their daughter becoming a doctor. In no particular order, but in a kind of feeding-frenzy, Mélissa discovered independent Canadian folk (Joni Mitchell, Feist), English trip-hop (Martina Topley-Bird), alternative Brazilian music (Adriana Calcanhotto, Os Mutantes), the stars of hip hop and nu-soul (Erikah Badu, Common, The Roots, The Fugees…), the great voices of the Afro-American tradition (Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin) and the distant stars of World Music (Rokia Traoré, Lhasa…).
Putting all these influences together in a naive, instinctive blend, and working on her guitar-playing on a daily basis, Mélissa quickly invented a highly rhythmical personal style of accompaniment and began to write her own lyrics and compositions. The result was a resolutely contemporary songwriting style that integrated all her different identities and backgrounds; but instead of putting them on show as a militant gesture she chose a more confidential, intimate way of using them: it was an adventure where words were definitely free.
Music, however, wasn't everything. Like her brothers and sisters, Mélissa wanted to further her studies: her ambition was social work, yet she felt there was an urgent need to express herself artistically. "You can't have one without the other," she says, determinedly. "I need music to live, and I need to live to inspire my music." When she graduated from the University of Ottawa, she had a diploma in Ethics and Society.
At the same time, she was taking part in the "open mike" evenings set up at the campus pub. A young percussionist named Rob Reid spotted her and gave her the encouragement she needed to carry on. After spending the week in college, she and Rob would hit the road at weekends, playing in clubs all over Canada. When she turned 21 Mélissa brought out her own self-produced album on MySpace. At the beginning of 2007, the French label No Format! discovered her in Montreal and they signed a contract. That same year, Mélissa was sponsored by the Lagardère company in France (a "Young Talents" award), and she recorded her first genuine album with the title Camphor & Copper, a record laid on the foundations of her self-produced album two years previously.
Except for Elliott Smith's Needle in the Hay and Eartha Kitt's I Want to be Evil, two masterful reinventions that somehow fix the imaginary boundaries of her music's universe, the repertoire that makes up this album is composed of entirely original works, pieces that combine to reproduce that impressive mixture of maturity and freshness which characterizes all great songwriters. Here Mélissa suddenly liberates all the creative energy accumulated over years of apprenticeship, and it immediately establishes the right tone, with minimalist arrangements that provide a perfect setting for the energy and poetic impact of the songs' lyrics. And above all, there's Mélissa's voice: it unfolds, majestic and fragile, profound and sensual, deliciously young, swirling inside with immediate seduction as if marked by the triple-language that has marked her own life: the rhythmical fluidity of English, the nonchalant syncopation of Creole, and a French harmonic sophistication.
There's no doubt that this is the album with which a young Canadian/Haitian of 23 is going to make a resounding entry into the ranks of the most promising singer-songwriter-performers of our time.
