Yep. It’s fresh-faced Wendy McNeill from Edmonton but be cautioned upfront: the outside isn’t always exactly in agreement and harmony with what’s percolating on the inside. «I’ve been described as an artist that makes ‹dark twisted tales› and ‹wise moving music›. I like that.» And so do we because we love folk noir and this artist’s masterfully added touch of the macabre.

More about her art a bit below, let’s get an understanding of what led up to it. As a young girl you could find her horseback riding in those vast prairies at the foot of the Canadian Rockies. And thus absorbing the entirely non-digital sounds of the birds and the bees, the whispering winds in the willows and in the top of the birch trees and the bonechilling howls of the coyote. Allright, you Zane Grey lovers but seriously, Wendy’s musical talent was first touched by the contents of the record collection in the house she grew up in and later on, leaning towards the gothic in all things that intrigued her, she also found photography. And performance art, and poetry and contemporary dance and …. waitressing.

Musically, the influences were The Velvet Underground, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure and what’s this? Blondie. She performs her own tunes melodiously with guitar and accordion

and they provide the colourfully knit flying carpet for her surreal lyrics to take off. An earlier album was titled «A Dreamer’s Guide to Hardcore Living» and in her sixth album «One Colour More», she invokes themes like the courageous search for one’s place to be, migration and immigration and lost castaways. All performed in her devilishly sweet voice, in a territory somewhere between cabaret and the graveyard.

For sure, Wendy McNeill and her One Colour More is what’s going to paint the bright spot of

«a-ha» into our dark wintry night.