As we continue to wait for Montreal artist Coeur de Pirate's follow-up to her 2011 album Blonde, Béatrice Martin has been tapped by Quebec TV series Trauma to soundtrack its fifth season. Following the footsteps of other successful artists who have contributed to the show such as Ariane Moffatt and Martha Wainwright, Martin has recorded 13 covers of songs both new and old.
This isn't Martin's first foray into covers, though: her earlier rendition of R&B singer the Weeknd's "Wicked Games" became a fan favourite, showing off her ability to adapt a song of an entirely different genre into her own hauntingly beautiful realm of piano-driven performances. Trauma continues to see Martin taking songs that we'd never associate with Coeur de Pirate's Parisian-pop stylings and transforming them into stripped-down pieces that focus on the melody and Martin's uniquely sentimental voice. Trauma carries a consistency and tone that bears Martin's identifiable signature. Kate and Anna McGarrigle's 1990 reggae-influenced track "Heartbeats Accelerating" gets pared down to a simple acoustic number that proves timely and timeless, Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good" gets a similar sombre treatment to that of the Weeknd, and Martin's take on fellow Montrealer Patrick Watson's Polaris Prize-winning "The Great Escape" is now an echoing, guitar-powered opus that is arguably better than its original.
Although there is no original material present on Trauma, fans do get an authentic voice from an artist who has shown time and time again that she can dominate both French and English as well as original and adapted works.
(Dare To Care)This isn't Martin's first foray into covers, though: her earlier rendition of R&B singer the Weeknd's "Wicked Games" became a fan favourite, showing off her ability to adapt a song of an entirely different genre into her own hauntingly beautiful realm of piano-driven performances. Trauma continues to see Martin taking songs that we'd never associate with Coeur de Pirate's Parisian-pop stylings and transforming them into stripped-down pieces that focus on the melody and Martin's uniquely sentimental voice. Trauma carries a consistency and tone that bears Martin's identifiable signature. Kate and Anna McGarrigle's 1990 reggae-influenced track "Heartbeats Accelerating" gets pared down to a simple acoustic number that proves timely and timeless, Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good" gets a similar sombre treatment to that of the Weeknd, and Martin's take on fellow Montrealer Patrick Watson's Polaris Prize-winning "The Great Escape" is now an echoing, guitar-powered opus that is arguably better than its original.
Although there is no original material present on Trauma, fans do get an authentic voice from an artist who has shown time and time again that she can dominate both French and English as well as original and adapted works.
