Miss Ivy

The lady from the sea...
Miss Ivy Françoise Dominique Arsenault was born August 1976 in Maria in the Gaspésie region of eastern Québec, Canada. She grew up by the sea in a coastal village, Paspébiac, with her younger sister and parents. Her passion for singing and playing music was evident early in her life when she began classical piano lessons at age 5 and sang in the local church choir. Still today, her childhood memories transcend through her song writing. The ocean and the east wind evoke the words from within her soul. “(…) I just have to remember the enchanting eastern saline breeze surrounding Hopetown’s sandy beach and the words simply come easily to my mind… they sort of flow on paper and give me a new story to sing. (…) as for example, “Keepsake” on Your Evil Bride’s album or another song I wrote last year entitled “Shigawake” (…)”
In the summer of 1985, her family moved to the Montréal area where she continued to study both classical piano and musical theory, while adapting to big city life. A young Miss Ivy played piano in recitals and performed many duets accompanied with her sister on violin. In the early 1990’s, while in high school, she picked up the guitar and formed an all girls heavy-metal band called “Slightly Mad”. It was during this experience where Miss Ivy began doing lead vocals, composing the music and writing lyrics, that she realized her calling. They performed live throughout the province of Québec from 1994 to 1999.
She entered the University of Quebec in Montreal in 1999 after the band split up and completed a BA degree in literature. Her interest into Peirce’s, Bakhtine’s and Hjelmslev’s works convinced her to pursue her studies deeper to the MA degree. All the years into literature studies put her, as she says, into a “very prolific writing period”. She wrote texts of all kinds; fantastic, dark stories, poems and even critical essays. She combined these dark writings one day with her music and the result was truly unique! With her soothing low voice accompanied with minor chord
sequences, she could now create a soundtrack for her ghostlike legends and take the listener on a journey through her surreal world. Miss Ivy has created a land filled with fantastic imagery such as vanishing paths in the forest, the calming darkness of the night or the mysterious force of the ocean.
In March 2006, on a cold rainy day, Miss Ivy entered the recording studio of Daniel Mercure to record her debut album entitled “Your Evil Bride”: 11 songs, her lucky number, complete the CD just as, like she says, “as if I was writing a book: with and introduction, a development and a conclusion that leaves us with a possible sequel…”
In 2008, Miss Ivy founded her own record label, Rochefort Productions as well as her publishing company, the Bayonne Editions and released the album “Your Evil Bride” which is currently available at missivy.ca. As a confident independent music artist, she has decided to take control of her own career and make the proper creative choices that will spread her music and touch people around the world. In May 2009 Miss Ivy releases her first music video for her song entitled “Evil Bride” and launches her artist website missivy.ca. A planned tour is scheduled for the autumn of 2009 and Miss Ivy will bring the same creative dark energy with her in a unique and special live setting.
Finally, when posed the question, how come such a sweet, reserved and lovely lady could be this dark into her musical compositions, she shyly smiled and answered:
“According to my genealogy, I’m supposed to be the great, great (…) great granddaughter of Pierre-Leon Roussy, who was known as a terrible captain pirate from Basque Country in the late 1700’s…So, the dark side in me is not exactly a question of choice…I guess it’s simply already in my blood…”
And somehow, just like her, I’d say that it comes from the sea…