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Keyboardist and sampler artist
Diane Labrosse is a core member of the Montreal avant-garde music collective Ambiances Magnétiques. In the 1980s, she took part in a string of avant-pop feminist groups. Later, she switched from keyboards to the sampler and from rock to electronica improv. Although she has released solo albums, her best-known works have been with collaborators
Ikue Mori and
Martin Tétreault. She also appears on numerous albums by other Ambiances Magnétiques artists, especially
Jean Derome,
Joane Hétu, and Michel F. Côté. She is co-founder and artistic co-director of the Montreal-based concert production company Productions SuperMémé.
Labrosse was gravitating toward L'Enfant Fort and the Pouêt Pouêt Band, collectives of left-field musicians that predate the beginnings of Ambiances Magnétiques. There she met saxophonist/singer
Hétu and drummer
Danielle P. Roger and together they formed the all-girl group
Wondeur Brass. Her quirky keyboard playing, which made use of unusual post-new wave sounds, gave the band its signature on the two LPs
Ravir (1985) and Simoneda, Reine des Esclaves (1988). The trio also performed under the name
Les Poules, recording one album in 1986 (the unit was revived as an improv project in the early 2000s) and with bassist Marie Trudeau as Justine in the early '90s,
Labrosse's closest brush with fame, at least in Eastern Europe where the group built a cult following.
In 1985, along with her colleagues, she was asked to join Ambiances Magnétiques. There she developed a special affinity for drummer Michel F. Côté both in and outside music. She contributed to his first two
Bruire albums (especially
Les Fleurs de Léo), recorded a duo CD with him (
Duo Déconstructiviste), and together they wrote the music for Robert Lepage's play La Géométrie des Miracles (Geometry of Miracles) and toured with his technological cabaret Zulu Time.
Labrosse released her first solo CD,
Face Cachée des Choses, in 1995, at the end of Justine's career and before joining
Hétu's new group Castor et Compagnie. It focused for the first time on the sampler as an instrument, a soft-noise direction she would stick to from then on. Île Bizarre (1998) with
Ikue Mori and
Martin Tétreault revealed her work to an international audience. With
Tétreault, she toured Europe and eventually released the duo CD
Parasites (2001). ~ François Couture