Jagjaguwar is proud to release the long lost Julie Doiron album Broken Girl, expanded to include her first two 7″es. It was originally released in 1996 by Doiron after her band–the psychedelic folk group Eric’s Trip–had crumbled around her, under the temporary moniker “Broken Girl”. The name did nothing to hide her feelings regarding the breakup of her band and the relationships that she shared with its members; neither did the songs on the record. The twelve songs from the original album come across like an epitaph for a departed lover. Broken Girl was indeed a new beginning for Doiron, both as a solo artist as well as a record label executive. The first two Broken Girl 7″es (both included on this reissue), as well as the self-titled full-length were released on her own label Sappy Records, a label which went on to release her Juno Award-winning Julie Doiron & the Wooden Stars full-length as well as releases by Moonsocket, Orange Glass, Snailhouse, and Elevator to Hell. Broken Girl was a watershed for Doiron, showing her to be the sort of songwriter and performer that Eric’s Trip only hinted at. Achingly beautiful and showcasing her vocal style and personality as a songwriter, the reviews immediately put her in the same class as Leonard Cohen in terms of importance as a Canadian solo artist. The album was self-recorded in the same home-y manner as the classic Eric’s Trip albums which helped–along with albums by peers Sebadoh, East River Pipe and Smog–define the bedroom aesthetic of the early ’90s. While some rock scribes would call it lo-fi, the fidelity of the recordings that Doiron and her Eric’s Trip mates employed in the first half of the ’90s was clearly the most appropriate medium. The close-mic’ing of everything from the vocals to the swirling guitars and peaking drums created a sense of real intimacy (while avoiding a lot of the awkward pitfalls that so many confessional songwriters run into) and suburban claustrophobia. It is very easy to see the four-piece as a Nick Drake-like entity who had been raised on the far East Coast of Canada in Moncton, New Brunswick on the SST catalog (Eric’s Trip took their name from the Sonic Youth song from Daydream Nation) and whose nucleus was a four-fold of independently-minded co-dependents with no need for a producer or other intermediary to the recording process which might break the spell for even a moment. Initially released in a scant edition of 1,000, Broken Girl went immediately out of print and has become a highly sought-after collector’s piece. “Fellow Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen once titled an album Songs From A Room. Montreal-based Julie Doiron apparently took up residence there and removed whatever furniture was left behind.”–Rob O’Connor, Rolling Stone
