An indie artist I like : Marcomé

Marcomé is a Canadian artist that started her career in the "music biz" as a sound and mastering engineer. As such, she worked with some of the biggest names in the recording industry. After a while, she probably kinda felt that she could go on the other side of the recording studio and give it a shot. That's what she did!

Marcomé's music can probably be classified broadly as "new age" in the same vein as somebody like Enya. To me, it's more downtempo "melodic electronica" with some ambient, chillout, and lounge mixed in. It's everything I, Ugo Capeto, like, the bonus being that she sings heavenly well! Her voice is quite unique but you're gonna have to listen to the tracks to find out what's so special about it.

She's got two albums under her belt: "Seven Seas" released in 1995 and "River of Soul" released in ... well, later. She's also released remastered albums, revisiting earlier tunes (a form of recycling that I truly appreciate).

You can go to New Age Music World of Ambient singer Marcomé to find out more about Marcomé and to purchase her music (there are some freebies too). I've selected three videos from Marcomé's youtube channel for you to check out. Maybe, one day, she'll sing on one of my tracks (cue the dream sequence music) and do some percussion too.


French version of "Yeku" from the "Seven Seas Remastered" album.


"Memoria" from the "Seven Seas Remastered" album.


"Twitter me some Love" by Marcomé & Bruno Pelletier. Yeah, it's a song about social media websites. Pretty cool, eh?

Marcomé was kind enough to subject herself to a few questions ...

Ugo: Where/how did you learn to play keyboards, sing, and write music?

Marcomé: I spent part of my childhood with my uncles who owned a music instrument and sound shop. After working hours, I would play with the sound systems, hooking up speakers to amplifiers, recording my voice on a 2 track tape recorder while experimenting with guitar and violin. As a teenager, I bought my first 4-track recorder along with a keyboard and recorded some of the songs that would later end up on my first music CD Seven Seas.

I’m a self trained musician and a sound engineer. I had the privilege to work with renowned music artists whom inspired me to pursue my musical dream.

Ugo: What's the process you go through to write/produce a tune?

Marcomé: Never exactly the same. I can create a song out of anything. Could be a sound I hear, a tone I create with my singing or someone playing with me and we improvise. I get lots of inspiration when I travel in a plane, a car, a train or when I take a walk. It's as if I'm doing a soundtrack for the movie of my life! Creating a new song is for me like a game. I play with my portable toy which we all have and it's called imagination. With a bit of practice, anyone gets good at it no matter the style!!

When it comes to lyrics, so far I work with Ron Montanaro and Pierre Létourneau. I love to join with other specialists!

Ugo: What's your home setup? Do you record/master at home?

Marcomé: I have been using Mac all my life and used many platforms such as Performer, Logic and Protools. When the time comes to record other musicians parts, I love to work with a different studio to get my head and hands entirely focused on the creative process.

In my studio: For my voice I use an old Audio Technica AT4050 going through a modified Focusrite Voicebox. I use an RME Fireface 800 as a sound card. I have a bunch of Spectrasonics sounds and I've started to work with Melodyne which allows me to convert my singing into midi tracks. This way, I sing the bass part for example and Melodyne translates the singing into a midi track I get played from any virtual synth.

A big thanks to Marcomé and I am gonna have to check out that Melodyne thing, eheh.