"Houle warbles and scats like some demented cross between Yma Sumac and Slim Gaillard, but also does the Phil Minton thing of squeezing non-musical grunts and sighs from a closed larynx."
- The Sound Projector
"Houle not only owns the many avant vocal styles on display here, she has something unique — sometimes stunningly brilliant — to bring to each of them."
- The Squid's Ear
"Intimate, eerie, electrifying, Treize is a tour de force of vocal improvisation. ...an auspicious debut recording from an attention-riveting artist."
- Exclaim!
"throwing dictionaries out of windows, the sound of a trombone digging up a grave, ripping out everybody's larynx with your bare hands...a genius example of this audacious approach to music...one of the year’s best albums."
- CokeMachineGlow
"[Louis Andriessen] was then joined on stage by Vancouver’s powerful and unmatched Viviane Houle. It turns out that she embodies a kind of Kiri Te Kanawa who has swallowed the DNA of Yma Sumac. The heights of Houle’s vocal folds are stratospheric. We get grand opera, French chanteuse, and abstruse, cryptic, and arcane contemporary classic singer capable of anything deeply vocal."
- Vancouver Observer
CD on Drip AudioIt's getting close!
My new duet improvs CD is being released on the fantastic Drip Audio label this month. Check out their website to hear some of the other artists who are on this label.
Next week I will be performing as part of Scott Thomson's "Sonorienteering". I will be one of several improvisers participating in this exciting piece. Look/listen for us in and around (streets/alleyways etc ...) the Western Front next Thursday, September 10th.
Cheers, Viviane
