Ariane Moffatt

Born in 1979 in the Quebec City suburb of Saint-Romuald, Ariane Moffatt cut her musical teeth playing with veteran singer/songwriter Daniel Bélanger before becoming a Québécois icon herself. Her 2002 solo debut, Aquanaute, earned three Félix awards en route to going platinum in La Belle Province, thanks to its mesmerising melange of dream-pop melodies, folk-song earthiness and forward-thinking beat experiments. She’s since gone on to amass one of the most consistently adventurous and rewarding catalogues in Québécois indie pop, while broadening her cross-country appeal: Thanks to quirky delights like the synth-pop/cabaret jazz hybrid “Je veux tout”, 2008’s Tous les sens reached No. 2 on the Canadian Billboard charts and won the Juno Award for Francophone Album of the Year. Following that coup, Moffatt began to perform more in English: Her soundtrack to the French-Canadian medical drama Trauma saw her put an intimate frame around classics by the Pixies, R.E.M and Leonard Cohen, and 2012’s MA featured her first Anglo compositions. She’s remained an artist that can never be pigeonholed, flitting between the club-ready grooves of 2015’s 22h22 and the ethereal balladry of 2021’s Incarnat while always centring her warm, comforting voice.