Butterfly Boucher is a force to be reckoned with, whether she is playing bass alongside David Meade in the quirky rock group Elle Macho, performing sets with Ten Out of Tenn or standing alone singing her own dreamy-strange pop.
With sharp angles on her face and closely cropped black hair, she looks tough but inviting onstage. The same words could describe her sophomore album, “Scary Fragile,” which took five years to claw its way into existence. The future of the album was perpetually uncertain in its making, so while Butterfly may joke onstage, the path she took to get there was anything but.
Born in Adelaide, Australia to parents of an artistic strain, Butterfly is the fourth of seven sisters. The family moved around the Outback every few months in nomadic fashion.
Butterfly’s father was very inclined to music, and with an upbringing so saturated in the romantic musical lifestyle, Butterfly honed her skills and learned to play keyboard, guitar and bass. The last time she played was in her older sister Rebecca’s band, The Mercy Bell, when Butterfly was just a teenager.
After being so well-received down under, The Mercy Bell came stateside, but America chewed the band up and spit it out. The album the band was in the process of making was never released.
Butterfly, however, continued recording songs of her own until she had enough for a solo album, which would eventually bait A&M Records. She made a deal with the label in 2003 and released her debut, titled “Flutterby.”
It is a pop album, but therein lie surprises: acoustic gems (“Drift On”), the dreary beauty in her slower numbers (“Don’t Point, Don’t Scare It”) and sophistic, warm vocals accentuated by her crystal-clear Australian accent.
“Flutterby” is a playful album, but with an element of mystery splashed across the cover, which features Butterfly with an intense expression, though dressed in a comical preppy outfit.
“Flutterby” was no pop trash, but that did not stop A&M from washing its hands clean of the artist.
The nightmarish power struggle for creative control between a record label and new artist is old news, but in Butterfly’s case, it made no sense. She had multiple small successes along the way as she set to work on a second album.
She sang with David Bowie on the “Shrek 2” soundtrack, joined Sarah McLachlan on tour and had several songs featured on the hit show “Grey’s Anatomy.” But A&M was doing little to stand behind “Flutterby,” and before Butterfly’s second album could be released, she was dropped.
On June 2 this year, her 30th birthday in fact, Butterfly finally released her long-awaited follow-up “Scary Fragile.” Though the title sounds appropriate, it is not meant to reflect the struggles Butterfly has had in the past few years or its effect on her.
The album does, however, show all the faces of Butterfly, from her upbeat pop sensibility to the stranger side. There is a lot more intensity in “Scary Fragile,” and an element of foreboding, like in the opening chords of “Keeper.” In “For the Love of Love,” she cries, “Why is it so hard to say,” amidst a dance beat of haunting harmonics and tribal drumming.
Butterfly dresses up the serious with the whimsical in her music, and it is the little things that make her happy–even just the encouraging comments she receives through MySpace from fans–despite the long road it took to release “Scary Fragile.” Her music invites her listeners into who Butterfly is, and yes, that is her real name.
Butterfly Boucher persevers despite trials
Australian native becomes indie pop hit in America after struggle
Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Be the first to comment on this article!