Geneviève Toupin - The Ocean Pictures Project (2012)

Tracklist

01. Open Something Up
02. My Name
03. Popsicle
04. Barren Season
05. Desert and Ocean
06. Storm Song
07. Leaving Me
08. Lake Winnipeg (Just Before We Saw the Ufo)
09. Boundaries and Borders
10. Clarity Prayer
11. Birds

After winning numerous prizes in Canada for her self-titled French debut album in 2009, Geneviève Toupin release her first English-language album, The Ocean Pictures Project. Geneviève Toupin’s road to the release of The Ocean Pictures Project reads like a traditional folk tale, a kind of tapestry woven together from various traditions and lands. Exposed to music at a young age by her grandmother-an artist and self-taught musician in her own right-Toupin is classically trained in piano and voice. And while there is a kind of classic quality to her music, it is far from conventional. Equally informed by the percussive powwows of her Metis roots and her time spent in Paris at 19, Toupin’s particular blend of folk music is all her own. The Ocean Pictures Project is a collection of eleven original compositions that explore themes such as love, the environment and politics, set to captivating and heartfelt folk melodies. If there is one consistent strain running through her music, and writing in general, it’s the sense of the fluidity of life, of creative and personal possibilities. That also means that Toupin is not afraid to venture into the darker, more mysterious corners of the human experience—a carry-over, perhaps, from the late-nights spent star-gazing with her father as a girl. Toupin surrounded herself with an impressive list of collaborators for the creation of The Ocean Pictures Project. The album was mixed in Los Angeles by Sheldon Gomberg, known for his work with Rickie Lee Jones, Eleni Mendell and Ben Harper. Geneviève Toupin (vocals, piano, mellotron, organ, banjo, acoustic guitar and accordion) coproduced the album with Benoit Morier (mixing, bass, guitarron, drums, lapsteel, pedal steel, banjo, organ, vibraphonette, vocals). Fellow musicians contributing to the album were: Olaf Gundel (electric guitar, vocals, lapsteel), Émilie Proulx (acoustic guitar, vocals), Yves Desrosiers (acoustic guitar, lapsteel), Mario Légaré (upright bass), Alex Cattaneo (ukulele), Simon Pelletier-Gilbert (percussion), André Papanicolaou (lapsteel, piano, organ, percussion, xylophone), Anique Granger (vocals), Mélanie and Stéphanie Boulay (vocals) Emilie Clepper and Andrea Lindsay (vocals). Mastered by Richard G. Benoit. Graphic design by Marilou Longpré. Photography by Pierre-Luc Racine.
Since the release of her first album in 2009, Toupin has been performing both near and far, with a growing audience in France and Switzerland, and all over Canada and Quebec. After participating in the webseries La tournée des cafés, recently nominated for Television program of the year at the 2012 ADISQ awards, she will release not one, but two albums in the upcoming months! The Ocean Pictures Project will indeed be followed up by a second francophone album in the spring of 2013. Until then, you can catch her onstage in the stunning Danse Lhasa Danse show or on TV as the host of La tournée des cafés en Ontario, for broadcast on TFO in 2013.

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