Video: A dialogue with Ariane Moffatt

interview by Brandon Bastaldo | filmed by Brock Hodgkinson

Ariane Moffatt received 11 ADISQ nominations in 2003, won three Félix awards in 2012 and her debut album, Aquanaute, went platinum in Quebec. But you would never be able to tell all this from just chatting with the genre bending singer-songwriter.

Moffatt, who hails from Saint-Romuald, Quebec, is an exemplary definition of quiet success. Her warm, bubbly and incredibly soft spoken demeanour seems to precede; better yet, Moffatt gives off no hints of a sky-high amour-propre that her outstanding achievements would understandably justify.

Coming off the heels of two full European tours and having just released her fourth album MA in 2012, Moffatt is back with a brand new collection of funky remixes that shows this young musician pushing the boundaries of her own style once again. MA Remix, created in collaboration with Montreal producer/ DJ Poirier, marks Moffatt’s latest and arguably most innovative foray into multiple genres that she’s skilfully whittled into a creation all her own throughout the more than 10 years she’s been making music.

Only hours before Ariane took the stage at The Rivoli for the first performance of her Western Canadian tour, Quip had the chance to talk with this pioneer of Quebecoise jazz-folk-electronic fusion about recording in Montreal’s infamous Mile End, working with electronica heavy hitters like Bonjay and Nautiluss and what writing a completely English language album for the first time was like.