Bernice

Led by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Robin Dann, Bernice shapes airy experimental pop that merges poise with a sense of marvel. Completed by several of Toronto’s busiest session players, the ensemble refined its distinctive mix of indie pop, jazz, and R&B through the elaborately textured 2017 EP Puff and the lean pop constructions of the 2018 album Puff: In the Air Without a Shape, which received a Polaris Prize nomination. The band’s work grew still more inventive and emotionally direct in the 2020s, as evidenced by the 2021 longlisted-for-Polaris release Eau de Bonjourno, which meditates on the interwoven fabric of existence, and by 2023’s Cruisin’, which honors relationships of every variety through buoyant, unguarded textures.

Dann, daughter of a symphony harpist and a former principal violist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, trained in voice at the University of Toronto and completed a master’s degree in music. She adopted her grandmother’s name as the project’s title once she began composing original songs. Alongside guitarist/keyboardist Thom Gill, bassist Dan Fortin, percussionist Phil Melanson, and Felicia Williams—who also perform with Bahamas, DIANA, and Owen Pallett, among others—Bernice delivered its first album, What Was That, in 2011.

Other professional obligations kept the group from recording beyond holiday singles for several years, until Bernice joined Arts & Crafts in 2016. That year the label issued the band’s debut single “St. Lucia.” Infused with R&B and dance elements and titled after Dann’s great aunt, the track was produced by Grammy winner Shawn Everett, whom the musicians encountered during an artist residency at the Banff Centre. Everett likewise helmed 2017’s Puff, an EP whose name derives from the writings of Italian author Elena Ferrante. After Puff appeared, Dann sharpened her command of Ableton to prepare demos for the next album. Tracked at Montreal’s Breakglass studio, Puff: In the Air Without a Shape adopted a more minimal approach to the group’s playful aesthetic and surfaced in May 2018; its reception included a Polaris Prize nomination.

Dann composed Bernice’s subsequent album at an artists’ center on the Toronto Islands and, for the first time, brought the remaining members into the songwriting process. Late in 2019 the ensemble recorded in Brooklyn with producer Shahzad Ismaily, foregrounding the spontaneous quality of their interplay. Released in March 2021 on Figure Eight Records, Eau de Bonjourno assembled a cohesive suite of songs that traced a broader narrative of life and relationships; like its predecessor, the album reached the Polaris Prize longlist. Bernice extended the project in March 2022 with Bonjourno My Friends, a collection of remixes featuring contributions from artists such as Yves Jarvis, Sam Gendel, and Julsie. Material generated during a 2021 writing retreat supplied the impetus for the following album. Evolving from personal letters and messages addressed to the band’s closest circle into concise, openhearted compositions, April 2023’s Cruisin’ was captured with Dann, Gill, and Melanson tracking together in the studio while producer Matthew Pencer and Fortin and Williams added parts remotely.