During my years bartending at Broken City, there were a few shows that really imprinted on my mind, the best ones were these unexpected surprises, usually from an artist or band I’m completely unfamiliar with. A few years ago, a young solo producer-singer Selci took the stage and I remember being really struck with her distinctive, courageous voice over playful beats in this hazy pop confection. I was instantly a fan and have followed her growth as a musical and visual creator, studio producer and live performer to which she has crafted her practice to today.

Growing up in Winnipeg, a lifelong musician, Selci began playing folk music on her acoustic guitar, doing live gigs at cafes and bars while she was still a teenager. She went on to study

classical music in university but came to the realization upon graduation that her dream was to develop her own identity as a musical artist rather than just write music. Inspired by art pop producers like Grimes, FKA Twigs and James Blake, Selci hunkered down for a few cold Winnipeg winters in her bedroom teaching herself how to produce music and perform live on a collection of hardware and software synthesizers. 

Selci’s last album A Soft Place, released last summer seemed perfectly appropriate for the current situation during the first few months of the pandemic. While the album was recorded pre-pandemic, Selci shares how she was coming out of a depression and the album was a form of escapism for her, a place of solace and hiding from the world. Recorded at the Wizard Palace Studio (Calgary) with Catfish the Wizard and learning alongside veteran producer Neighbour (Vancouver) to mix and master A Soft Place, Selci was inspired to learn more about studio production, adding to her already impressive knowledge of music theory, composition and performance.

During lockdown, Selci took advantage of this isolation time and began to craft a new album, Fallen Woman set to be released in October 2021. Using processed recorded sounds such as chopping vegetables and other domestic duties in the beats and named after the Victorian term for a ‘woman who lost her innocence, especially due to promiscuity’ Selci describes her new album as

‘a reflection of the fallout of these roles in the modern day and how relationship dynamics and power dynamics are related to some of these things falling out from those times. Because we’re still in kind of a response, a trauma response to what women’s roles were perceived as for the past century… so it’s a dialogue on that’

Photo by Michaela Neuman

Building her technical skills as a producer this last year, Selci now hopes to expand beyond her own music to encompass studio production, working with other artists especially female-identifying, queer and BIPOC folk. In the vastly male-dominated industry of recording and engineering, often brimming with male ego, Selci hopes to carve out a space for these under-represented communities.

”I want to make a situation where I could be the producer for them, that’s accessible, that’s female, that’s maybe a safer space”

It’s safe to say that Selci has blossomed into her true identity.. a producer, creator, collaborator, safe-space curator and above all an art-pop superstar that Calgary is truly lucky to call their own.