Quality Americana

“No Savior” from New York songwriter Chloe Brisson has a wonderful slow build and is filled with hints of soul and disco.

No Savior

“No Savior,” the title track to her second EP, came along while Brisson was out driving her truck.

“I recorded it in my voice memos, and I just mulled over it for maybe a month,” Brisson said. “I was really just in the beginning stages of getting back into songwriting and back into music after spending most of my time and energy working in the woods.”

Brisson sat down at the piano one day and the song “just like poured out and I wrote the rest of it in an hour maybe, which to be clear never happens. One of those rare ones that just comes out now and then there it is.” 

Brisson said it’s a snapshot into her time in the arctic and the maple business. 

“It was a time in my life where I really proved to myself that I was super capable and independent and really strong and solid on my own,” Brisson said. “I feel like this is a musical reflection of that.”

New York

Brisson is based in Brooklyn, where she draws from her education in jazz and folk roots. 

“Anything you could possibly want or find is there,” Brisson said. “It’s kind of mind blowing in the most awesome way.”

Brisson was raised in New Hampshire, and was influenced by her father from an early age, an airline pilot who spent his free time at the piano.

“They’ve always been music lovers, both my folks,” Brisson said. “When I was eight or nine he was going to this jazz workshop in the summer, and I ended up going with him to hear some concerts and was completely enamored.”

Brisson remembered being influenced by Sheila Jordan at the workshop, and soon started singing with her father before entering music school.

Arctic Circle

Brisson spent time at an artist residency in the arctic circle for her musical education. 

“When I was 21, I ended up spending a month and a half on a tall ship sailing around Thalberg with twenty seven other artists of various disciplines,” Brisson said. “It was just a completely transcendent awesome experience. I had grown up around mountains and woods and snow, but nothing was really able to prepare me for what the Arctic Circle was like. It was not only just naturally mind blowing, like truly, truly mind blowing, but also just the stories of people that traveled up there, and existed and survived, and lived and died up there were really affecting.”

Traditionally the area was filled with whalers, and miners, and explorers.

“I gathered a lot of source material around stories of survival, and grit, and the nature of humanity in these really rural, stark places,” Brisson said. “Then I ended up having sort of my own mini nature and humanity in rural stark places experience when I ended up working in the woods for three years. In the cold, in the heat, the whole thing.” 

Brisson joked that it was her “sugaring sabbatical” as she needed a break from intense music training. 

“I had done undergrad, a masters, and then a post masters and kind of like over ‘academiced’  myself,” Brisson said. “To have an experience to really be physical, and be in my body and be grounded in a different way was really great.” 

Brisson said it was a major influence for her writing to have that experience outside of academia. She’s currently developing an upcoming project that pulls from these life experiences.

The Chain

“The Chain” is filled with psychedelic sounds from a nearly forgotten era. You’re transported back in time to those moments sitting next to a turntable with an album from the Doors for the first time, lost in the sounds that are blaring through the speakers. 

Brisson took influences from her jazz background to rearrange the Fleetwood Mac song.

Brisson said she lets the story of the song determine which genre it ultimately becomes. It’s heavily rooted in jazz and americana at its core. 

She’s currently performing in Brooklyn with her core group of players as they continue work on their full length album. Brisson also teaches voice and songwriting through a virtual platform.

Support the Artist

Stream and purchase No Savior on Bandcamp.

More information on Chloe Brisson can be found here.

Photo by Bailey Lecat.

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