Pollyanna is a European folk-rock band, based in Paris and singing in English. Their music evokes the damp skies and grey shores of the Northern Sea, but the project, built around Isabelle Casier's songs, also has roots in the south of France. Isabelle, who was born in the French Flanders, spent her teenage years in the port town of Marseille, where she formed her first rock trio, 'John'. They opened there for bands like Sleater Kinney, TransAm, Polvo and Dominique A. Françoiz Breut, cult chanteuse in France also asked Isabelle to write a song for her, «Departures». Wood and electricity When Isabelle moved to Paris, John became Pollyanna. It's bespoke songwriting and string-heavy sound is reminiscent of Laura Veirs, The Decemberists, PJ Harvey and Anna Ternheim. Pollyanna's music is rooted in both traditional folk and indie rock, a love of both wood and electricity. Pollyanna was a duo for a long time, with David Lopez on guitars, drums and uke; however they split in 2010 and Isabelle went on solo. Since then, she's collected musical sidekicks from various cities and countries including Bordeaux; Rennes; Paris; Hannover, Germany; and Bath, UK. The band's line-up now fluctuates from between one and six musicians at any given time, though the complete crew love to come together as often as possible, either live or in the studio. Pollyanna have a lot of happy times playing sad songs! From Marseille to Memphis Pollyanna has performed some 300 shows across France, Germany (more than 60 in small and bigger venues), Benelux, England (London, Bristol at St George's Hall, Brighton at Prince Albert...) and the USA (New York at Sidewalk Café and Pete's Candy Store, Pittsburgh at Garfield Artworks, Nashville, Folk Alliance in Memphis...) and has supported an impressive handful of big names including Wilco, Bright Eyes, Julie Doiron, Nouvelle Vague, Junior Electronics (ex-Stereolab)... Pollyanna are currently working on a new album, produced by Ceddy Gonod (Coming Soon, Sons Of The Desert...), and have recently released "Spring", a six-track EP including three songs from the upcoming album. (The other three tunes are from a rough-and-ready 'kitchen session': recorded acoustic in the drummer's kitchen, featuring folk guitar and kitchenware...). "Spring" is distributed in France by Modulor and Believe Digital. It is also worldwidely available on digital platforms (Deezer, Spotify...) and online shops (Amazon/CDBaby)
