Marianne Dissard

A singer and songwriter fluent in two languages, Marianne Dissard cultivated a dramatic performance approach laced with whimsical French pop and a sultry, shadowy allure before unveiling her debut official solo record, L'Entredeux, via the German imprint Le Pop Musik in 2008. She kept issuing original work and maintained partnerships with earthy American indie-rock ensembles such as Calexico and Giant Sand until she shifted her base from the United States to the United Kingdom in 2013. The retrospective Cibola Gold: Best of 2008-2015 surfaced two years afterward, while Dissard brought out the memoir Not Me in 2019; the book examined episodes of trauma, eating disorders, life on the road, and rehabilitation, and she simultaneously reworked it into a theatrical production.

Marianne Dissard entered the world in Tarbes, France, and spent her childhood in rural surroundings outside Toulouse before her family relocated to Mesa, Arizona, once she turned sixteen. She later enrolled in film studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she encountered musician Howe Gelb during his brief stint as her roommate. She also immersed herself in the regional independent film community, and in 1994 she journeyed to Tucson to helm the documentary Drunken Bees, which centered on Gelb’s group Giant Sand. Tucson remained her primary residence for close to twenty years.

Once the duo Naïm Amor and Thomas Belhom supplied music for her 1995 French television documentary Low y Cool, Dissard reciprocated by penning lyrics for their early-2000s releases Amor Belhom Duo and Wavelab. During her Tucson years she further composed, tracked, and performed alongside members of Giant Sand and Calexico as well as the alternative mambo and cumbia groups Orkesta Mendoza and Xixa. Parallel to those efforts she developed her own songs, resulting in the 2005 demo collection Dedicated to Your Walls, May They Keep Blooming.

Her first full studio album, L'Entredeux, appeared on Le Pop Musik in 2008. The initial installment of her City Series, Paris One Takes, followed in 2010. A year later Le Pop Musik issued L'Abandon across Europe while her own Trop Exprès Music handled the United States release. Berlin Two Takes, the next City Series entry, emerged in 2012, and her fifth album-length project, The Cat. Not Me., arrived the subsequent year. Throughout this period she sustained film-related activity that included multimedia presentations with Arte TV and Zurich’s Rote Fabrik cultural center; her poems also found placement in outlets such as the Tucson journal Spork Magazine. After pausing live appearances to address her mental and physical well-being, she moved in 2013 from Tucson onto a sailboat moored in coastal Ramsgate, England.

Dissard resurfaced in 2014 with the EP Cologne Vier Takes, third in the City Series. The anthology Cibola Gold: Best of 2008-2015 arrived in 2016. She then devoted time away from recording to a memoir chronicling her experiences and insights gained during recovery; Not Me reached bookstores in 2019 and was adapted for the stage at the same moment. Upon returning to music she released a sequence of cover versions in 2020 that encompassed material by Steely Dan and Janis Ian.