RSS

This past Wednesday, April 5th, Le Divan Orange hosted the launch of Femme, the fourth album by musician Brigitte Dajczer, better known as Briga. For the time of a night, the small Plateau venue was taken on a travel around the world, from the streets of Istanbul to the vast lands of Europe's Eastern countries. CJLO spoke with the artist herself on the inspiration behind Femme, cultural appropriation and its confusing concept, and more.

"Femme was born from the idea that as I was touring a lot, last year, I realized that very often, I was playing in projects with men," Briga said. "I know there's many female musicians and singers out there. We're all out there. But I asked myself the question, why is it that in the circles I choose to collaborate in, why are they all male dominated? What's going on here?"

It was after discussing with other fellow musicians—who, on the other hand, had only collaborated with women—that she decided to put forward an album that would do just that: feature women in the music industry in its songs. "While I was composing the music, I would think about that specific person I would invite to collaborate on the song," she shared. "I would write the song, talking to them about it." She also mentioned she wanted to make sure to bring out "their musicianship, their vast knowledge and talent. [...] That's why it's called Femme."

When listening to the album, it's obvious that various influences have made up its originally Balkan instrumentalization—for example, the first track "Ibrahim" features Didem Başar on the kanun (or qanun), an instrument often present in Middle-Eastern, Maghreb, and Southeastern European music, while the catchy "420 Elfassi" brings together a violin melody and hip-hop beats. With such a variety in sounds from all around the world also comes a certain fear: veering from cultural appreciation to cultural appropriation.

"I'm constantly asking myself that question, especially in the line of work that I do," Briga shared. "If you're entering more of a collaborative spirit with people, and you're open to cultural exchanges, learning, integrating yourself into communities, and there's a contextualization of what you're doing and learning from people of another culture, I find that... you're exchanging, in a more ethical way." It's not about owning a culture, she also mentioned, but about sharing experiences and knowledge. 

"I think, if I were to sum up cultural appropriation... it's like, you discovered something cool, and it's from somewhere else, so you like the 'exoticness' of it, and you're not really gonna go further than that." Especially in a 'colonialist mindset,' cultural appropriation would fall under taking something from elsewhere, without looking further into it, she said. "You're gonna say, 'I like that, that's mine,' without asking yourself, 'Where does this come from? What is this? Maybe I could ask around about it? [...] What does it mean? What does it symbolize?'"

When listening to Femme, Briga's thoughtful insight comes through, in a way. Each song shows a lot of work behind it, from the collaborators picked to each of the songs' distinct sound—and most importantly, the lyrics. It was one of the reasons why Briga wanted to put out the album so soon. "We started recording the album on February 5th, and then six weeks later, it was at the manufacturer, being printed," she explained. "That's an abnormally fast amount of time."

But why the rush? "All my writing was about current events!" she exclaimed. "It just seems that, in the past few years, there's been an acceleration of crises in the world... While I was writing the album, I didn't really realize that; I just felt this relentless sense of urgency to get stuff out. I had this urgency to speak, I had this urgency to write."

Overall, Femme manages to bring out the best of Briga's talent—at the violin, with her vocals, but also as a songwriter—as well as portray the artist's insight on all sorts of things about life. When asked about what she wants her audience to retain from the album, she gave two words.

"Beauty and the sublime," she said. "And how beauty and the sublime are born from a complicated mix of things. It's through the collision of worlds, and cultures, and music, that beautiful things happen, and beautiful things can also be terrifying."

"I want people to feel, when they listen to the album, that's it's sublime, and that something that's sublime can be as terrifying as [it can be] relaxing and gorgeous, all at the same time," she concluded with a smile.

Check out Briga's brand new album Femme on Bandcamp below!

All photos by Sarah Boumedda.

Hosted by Allison O'Reilly

Stories by Michael Foldvari, Jeremiah Ho & Patricia Petit Liang

Produced by Allison O'Reilly

Hosted by Michael Foldvari

Stories by Michael Foldvari & Patricia Petit Liang

Produced by Michael Foldvari

The 1990s and early 2000s were a heady time for us all. It was the last time where radio ruled supreme, and as such, a band was made or broken whether they could get a coveted rotation slot on stations. This also was an interesting time for bands in North America, as what became popular in Canada due to Canadian Content requirements and what the United States pushed could sometimes make for a situation where an immensely popular band in Canada was scarcely heard of in the US. Case in point: Matthew Good Band, a group of British Columbians whose albums netted them 14 Juno nominations which include two wins for "Best Group" and "Best Rock Album" for Beautiful Midnight in 2000.

If I may make an aside as to the importance of college radio for a moment, as a teen living in the US in a time where internet was slow and largely fragmented: I only heard about this band when a DJ at my local college station (WIXQ 91.7) played the last track off of the Juno winning album. I was immediately hooked. From there, as I was looking at the used section in my local music store, I saw the CD for $1.99, and being a cheap frugal person, I thought that was a pretty good (pun) deal.

Since then, the law of diminishing returns on Matthew Good has been at play, so when I heard he was going to be performing "Beautiful Midnight" for this tour, I decided to reclaim a lost time.

With that in mind I trekked to the Corona to get a good nostalgia fix.

First up, let me talk about Craig Strickland, who I only got a few songs of his set. Simply put: it was fine. Nothing too spectacular, not bad, totally acceptable. I know that's not an in-depth review of the performance, but honestly anything more is just for word count.

After that and one slightly out of place opera intro piece, the familiar cheerleader beginning of "Giant" began. From then on, the show was a trip down memory lane as Matthew Good and whatever band of musicians he has doing the rounds on this tour went through the tracks of the album, doing faithful renditions of such favorites as "Hello Time Bomb," "Load Me Up."

This show was, however, not without its faults. Between a good chunk of songs, Matthew went on long extended talk breaks which weren’t necessarily a deal breaker—I used to watch Behind the Music like any good 90s kid—but these were not long dissertations of the songs, just long musings about being a Canadiens fan or his love of bourbon. Not all were without merit though, as he did stop to honor the memory of Chuck Berry who had passed away earlier in the day.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the funniest part of the evening. Somewhere during the set, the guitarist went to grab a drill to play with (because reasons) and the tech who handed it to him gave him the drill with a big floppy dildo at the end. In true band fashion, this was chucked into the audience, which I both secretly hope and don't hope slapped someone in the face mainly for the pure ridiculous story that would provide.

The band also ended the show at 10:45 p.m. after a three-song encore. Now, I'm not a person to tell a band how to do their job, but 15 minutes is at least three songs you could have fit in to try to round out some of the other notable songs from your repertoire that could have made someone's night, and not taking advantage of that felt like a missed opportunity.

Still though, the hits outweighed the misses, and I walked away from the show surprised and pleased that I enjoyed it as thoroughly as I did. Also, it gives me great pleasure to know that someone in the city of Montreal gets to utter the phrase, "Oh yeah, I managed to get a dildo from a Matthew Good show."