MARIANNE DISSARD

French-born Tucson chanteuse Marianne Dissard recorded and toured with members of alt-Americana bands Giant Sand and Calexico before moving back to Europe in 2013 after three decades in the American West. Her critically-acclaimed desert noir chanson plays effortlessly with contradictions: ‘tender, yet abrasive; melodramatic, but vulnerable; comical and heartbreaking’. Equally so her first book, ‘Not Me’, an impish and poetic memoir and exploration of trauma and the life of a disordered touring musician, praised by some of Dissard’s favorite authors; Mitch Cullin (‘Tideland’), Chris Rush (‘The Light Years’), and Andrew Smith (‘Moondust’). Marianne is now based in Ramsgate, England where she lived for a spell onboard a wooden ketch.