Catherine Jauniaux is a Belgian

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

singer. She has been described as a "one-woman-orchestra", a "human sampler", and "one of the best kept secrets in the world of improvised music". Her solo album, ''Fluvial'' (1983) is regarded as one of her most accomplished works. She was married to the late American

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

cellist and composer

Tom Cora Thomas Henry Corra (September 14, 1953 – April 9, 1998), better known as Tom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for his Free improvisation, improvisational performances in the field of Experimental music, experimental jazz ...

Biography

Catherine Jauniaux began her career as an actress in Belgium at the age of 15. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she sang with several experimental rock groups, including

Aksak Maboul Aksak Maboul are a Belgian avant-rock band founded in 1977 by Marc Hollander with Vincent Kenis, and now revolving around Hollander and Véronique Vincent. Aksak Maboul hasn't stopped changing shape and form throughout its existence (the onl ...

and The Work. In 1983 she teamed up with The Work's

Tim Hodgkinson Timothy George Hodgkinson (born 1 May 1949) is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry ...

(ex-

Henry Cow Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, b ...

) in London to record her first solo album, ''Fluvial''. Jauniaux and Hodgkinson wrote most of the tracks for the album, which are "imagined folk songs" that include elements of "contemporary art song, African singing, Native American legends, and alien nursery rhymes". The album centres on Jauniaux's voice with additional instrumentation by Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis (The Work),

Lindsay Cooper Lindsay Cooper (3 March 1951 – 18 September 2013) was an English bassoon and oboe player and composer. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and th ...

(ex-Henry Cow) and Georgie Born (ex-Henry Cow).

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

rated the album as "highly recommended, especially to fans of unusual female vocal art." In the early 1990s, Jauniaux moved to New York City, where she became part of the Downtown music scene, performing with a number of musicians, including

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry ...

Marc Ribot Marc Ribot (; born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer. His work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, Rock music, rock, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notab ...

Zeena Parkins Zeena Parkins (born 1956) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard har ...

Butch Morris Lawrence Douglas "Butch" Morris (February 10, 1947 – January 29, 2013) was an American cornetist, composer and conductor. He was known for pioneering his structural improvisation method, ''Conduction'', which he utilized on many recordings. ...

and

Ikue Mori (born 17 December 1953), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022. Biography Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She sa ...

. Jauniaux founded the duo Vibraslaps with Ikue Mori and later married Tom Cora. In 1995 Jauniaux and Cora moved to

Southern France Southern France, also known as the south of France or colloquially in French as , is a geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', Atlas e ...

where she continued performing with various European musicians, including

Louis Sclavis Louis Sclavis (born 2 February 1953) is a French jazz musician. He performs on clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano saxophone in a variety of contexts, including avant-garde jazz, free jazz, free improvisation and contemporary classical. Life ...

Heiner Goebbels Heiner Goebbels (born 17 August 1952) is a German composer, Conductor (music), conductor and professor at University of Giessen, Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and artistic director of the International Festival of the Arts Ruhrtriennale 201 ...

Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a ...

and

Christian Marclay Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality. Marclay's work explores connections between sound art, noise music, photography, video art, film and digital animations. A p ...

. Cora died in 1998. Jauniaux works regularly with artists in the field of dance and film, and sang in Heiner Goebbels's opera, ''Roemische Hunde'' in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

in 1991. She is inspired by traditional music, both real and imagined, and her performances mix seriousness and humour. She explores sound, emotion, melody and abstraction, and her vocal improvisations range from "traditional French

chanson A (, ; , ) is generally any Lyrics, lyric-driven French song. The term is most commonly used in English to refer either to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval music, medieval and Renaissance music or to a specific style of ...

s to breathy folk to

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

istic

glossolalia Speaking in tongues, also known as glossolalia, is an activity or practice in which people utter words or speech-like sounds, often thought by believers to be languages unknown to the speaker. One definition used by linguists is the fluid voc ...

Discography

Bands and projects

;

*'' Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine'' (1977, LP, Kamikaze Records, 1980

Crammed Discs Crammed Discs is an independent record label whose output blends world music, rock, pop, and electronica. Based in Brussels, Belgium, Crammed was founded in 1980 by Marc Hollander of Aksak Maboul and has since released around 400 albums and 300 ...

) *''

Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits ''Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits'' () is the second album by Belgian avant-rock band Aksak Maboul. It was recorded at Sunrise Studio in Kirchberg, Switzerland, in February and August 1979, and released on LP in January 1980 on founding member Ma ...

'' (1980, LP, Crammed Discs) ;Des Airs *''Lunga Notte'' (1982, LP, Crammed Discs) ; The Work *'' Slow Crimes'' (1982, LP, Woof Records, UK) *''The Worst of Everywhere'' (1983, CT, Woof Records, UK) ;The Hat Shoes *''Differently Desperate'' (1991, CD, RecRec Music) *''Home'' (2002, CD, RecRec Music) ;Vibraslaps (duo with

) *''Vibraslaps'' (1992, CD, RecRec Music) ;Andy Bole *''Ramshackle Pier'' (2004, CD, Ad Hoc Records 05) ;The Lowest Note *''WOOF 7 Inches'' (2004, CD, Ad Hoc Records 04) ;Catherine Jauniaux / eRikm *''Mal Des Ardents / Pantoneon'' (2013, CD, Mikroton Recordings)

Solo

*''Fluvial'' (1983, LP, Woof Records)

Footnotes

External links

*. *. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jauniaux, Catherine 20th-century Belgian women singers Avant-garde singers Belgian experimental musicians Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Belgian women singers English-language singers from Belgium