Sapo
Montréal, Quebec, Canada | SELF
Music
Press
"That was thoroughly refreshing music at Ye Olde Thursday evening with Sapo and her band...loved the metamorphosis of ordinary everyday sounds and conversations into extraordinary visual and musical art...every song was a theatrical performance complete with characters and animals in costume...the percussionist used everything from kitchen knives and magazine pages ripping to coffee cups...spectacular music well orchestrated by Sapo's gifted voice...way beyond anything you'll hear on the top 40."
- Piet Visser (Ye Olde Jar Bar Onwer)
Sapo. the last thing i do. In addition to her music for film and spoken word, the single-named Sapo claims to be available, not only for radio and theatre, but for singing telegrams as well. Given the slightly eccentric nature of her music, one fears that this offer is not entirely in jest. She doesn't need to appear on your doorstep at the bequest of a drunken frat friend to serenade you with three-months-belated happy birthday wishes, however, to show you her idiosyncratic artistic sensibilities. The last thing i do, the debut album from this Quebecois songstress, amply demonstrates both her vocal talent as well as her offbeat song-writing ability. Her careful, intricately woven arrangement feature a vast array of musicians playing both usual and unusual instruments, including Sapo herself prancing across the ivories and ebonies, Gorka Coria on musical saw and not-infrequent harmonic horn flourishes provided by McGill's own Eva Boodman. The main instrument on the album, however, is Sapo's voice. Singing alternately in English, French and German, her sultry intonations are by turn sensual and scolding, mocking and pleading. Though sometimes overly repetitive, her slightly absurd lyrics (such as "If life gives you bullets well you make bullet pie! My granny always used to say.") are usually refreshing and often darkly humorous. Though definitely not your mainstream crooner, Sapo is nonetheless an interesting departure from the everyday. - Ezra Glinter, The McGill Tribune
When Bronwen contacted her parents about an upcoming Sapo road tour from Montreal to Vancouver, the Moen’s decided to host the band in their sizable garden as they passed through the Kootenays. Sapo entertained the crowd with a mix of earthy music and theatrical interludes. The Montreal-based trio cycled through a variety of instruments, from accordion to ukelele to clarinet, underscored by extremely creative percussion using household items. At one point, percussionist Brownita Chiquita (known in the past as Bronwen Moen) uses mixing bowls, a whisk and an egg timer to keep the beat through a pie-baking story song. - Ida Koric for The Rossland News
"So ladies and gentlemen, this is the drive by version essentially of "Right place, wrong time", drive by romantic version that is. I'd totally forgotten and I feel as though because I'd forgotten it was Valentin's day, just makes it that much more authentic from the stereotypical hetero-normative male point of view. I've been trying to give you guys out there a couple definitions of particular words. Poets have such weight on the issue of love and I have here the definition of "beguile" as "Charm or enchant someone sometimes in a deceptive way." I like that kind of Disney character villain spin on it. So today in the studio we have Sapo. I'd seen her stuff at Casa del Popolo and there you have it, the very definition of "beguile". I was completely taken away and had to approach her that very night to come and play for us. So Sapo you decided to come on Friday the 14th. Very appropriate. In any case, you have two songs for us today..." - Guillaume Carlier, "Right Place, wrong time" (CJLO radio)
Discography
"The last thing I do" 2007
Photos
Bio
A picked-it-up-in-the-street kind of musician, Sapo likes to tell stories with her songs jumping from guitar to accordion to piano and then back, in French, English, Spanish and German. Studied theater and film making, traveled for 5 years in between and the musical result is a character driven bouquet of pieces delivered by a chameleon-like performer very much in the acting-singing tradition. Her first CD is available in a few stores and online. You can catch her on stage in Montreal once or twice a month playing with a cellist, a percussionist and a multi-instrumentalists (clarinet, trombone, banjo, mandolin).
influences:
Tom Waits, Jacques Brel, The Cure, Boris Vian, Stomp, Marc Favreau (el Sol), Chavela Vargas, Ken Nordine, Carlos d'Alessio, Kusturica, Plume, Iva Bittova, Oscar Brown Jr., Radio tarifa, Sesame Street, Diego Y Murfy
project description:
A little fair in a box where mundane objects are used as percussion. Stories sang in 4 languages on music for films from the 4 corners of a round world. Close your eyes and we're rolling... open them and cut to a pretty bunch of pieces animated by multicolored characters played in turns by Sapo and her musicians. Actually trying to turn the music itself into the main character, the waking dream you don't want to leave by falling asleep... or forgetting the childish way home to joy.
description of ideal concert:
Nice and intimate in a cozy warm place (with a piano preferably and 'terre-de-sienne-brûlée' brick walls if possible). The band physically close to the public so we can hand them little objects to play with us during some songs. Just overall a high level of listening in a relaxed atmosphere.
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