Melanie De Biasio

Melanie De Biasio, a vocalist from Belgium, blends elements of jazz, blues, and soul in her work. She entered the world in Charleroi, Belgium, during 1978 and first trained in classical dance along with flute prior to developing a passion for vocal performance. Her formal studies took place at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven as well as the Brussels Conservatory. The year 2007 saw the arrival of her initial full-length effort, A Stomach Is Burning. Returning via the PIAS label in 2013, she issued No Deal, which climbed to the fifth position on Belgium’s Ultratop ranking and secured her the European Border Breakers Award in 2015. BBC DJ Gilles Peterson offered robust backing for the project within the U.K., inviting the vocalist to appear at his Worldwide Awards event that same year. He also assembled the companion collection No Deal Remixed, which surfaced on PIAS during February 2015 and featured contributions from Eels, Seven Davis, Jr. and Cinematic Orchestra. De Biasio continued with Blackened Cities, an expansive sonic journey released on Play It Again Sam in May 2016. This EP comprised one continuous 24-minute composition shaped by journeys through post-industrial settings including Charleroi, Manchester, and Detroit, while weaving together European jazz, noir-ish soul, avant pop, electro, trip-hop, and classical crossover. Lilies arrived in 2017 as a subsequent full-length recording captured under more isolated circumstances and with pared-down resources.